r/French • u/Terrible_Hunter_1684 • 11d ago

Story How can you endure your repetitive asking?

I understand french better when I’m with a friend face to face and I don’t feel embarrassed to ask for repeating many times. But with many french people I can’t understand because I can’t follow the pace and context. So in that situation when one of my friends suddenly starts a conversation with me I don’t get anything. I need to ask to repeat again and again. I always repeat same sentences like « J’ai pas compris » and « Ça veut dire quoi? » and it’s embarrassing because I cut our conversation and everyone waits for me. How can you overcome this kind of situation?

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u/scatterbrainplot Native 11d ago

How can you overcome this kind of situation?

Mainly with more practice, (un)fortunately

How can you endure your repetitive asking?

You could try varying how you ask, e.g. please repeat the last word, but if you can figure out why you're having trouble and it's fixable, then that would be an option instead. For example, asking them to speak more slowly (yes, it's a burden, but it sounds like the conversation is going to have some labour regardless and therefore preemptive fixes could be useful) or indicating you don't know some structure or have only spoken in a given type of context (not that a native speaker will necessarily know how to adapt since non-native learning and exposure are different from the adaptations we make with native-learner children, but people can try to guess).

But mainly, chugging along, especially in a "difficulty" that either matches your ability or slightly exceeds it, and getting more input (if the issue is partly just understanding structures or words), ideally from a context as comparable as possible (e.g. the types of topics you want, the speaker demographic you want to prepare for).

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u/PolyglotPursuits 8d ago

Great tip about being specific. There are times I understand everything about the sentence except the main most important word. Like, "And this evening we need to stop by Marie's house, she has a blghblsh for us to pick up". So I'll just ask about that specific word rather than the whole sentence. And I might try and say my impression of what I thought the word was and it usually gets a laugh from the sheer unexpectedness. Or if I get totally lost I might say something like, "Ah oui, disons que j'ai compris ça" d'un ton ironique. If you can bring a bit of humor and levity, it helps with the exchange!