[quote author=Lumen_et_umbra link=board=6;threadid=492;start=0#4203 date=1061126708]<br />It seems that many of you speak French. So my question is: how did you arrive to the ability to speak French?

<br />[/quote]<br /><br />I'm in Canada, so French in school is mandatory up to a certain level. After that, I just kept at it because I enjoyed it. Now working for the government, we're penalized for not knowing it well enough, so I still use it, though not well enough to avoid penalization....

<br /><br />On pronounciation, that depends on how you are with languages in general, what other languages you know, and who you're learning the French from. There are many different French accents around, as goes for English, Russian, and probably any other language spoken in multiple parts of the world. I am always going to be fairly lousy as far as speaking without an accent goes, but I can distinguish between around 3 different Quebecois accents, and can tell a Parisian accent apart from those, too. I suspect that there are probably different accents depending on which part of France you're from, too. I wouldn't worry too much about pronounciation - worry about communication. After you have gained the ability to communicate, it's easier to work on pronounciation by immersion, so to speak. Individual accents change as people adapt their ways of speaking - very unconsciously, too! - to conform to the people around them.<br /><br />Kilmeny