French bilingual?

Hey, recently I have become bilingual/ near bilingual in French, and my parents aren't French. Is there anyone who wants to talk with me in French and is about my age (I'm 14)? My speaking skills are worse than my writing and that because I can't speak at home or to anyone in my year in French. thanks

Hi

I'm not sure that you could really describe yourself as bi-lingual. It would be well nigh impossible for someone of your age to be bi-lingual if they didn't have French speaking parents or they lived in a Francophone country. I read French at University as part of a Joint Honours BA, so I've met a few bi-lingual people.

You do sound like a keen student of French, though. Could your parents help you with something like this?

https://maryglasgowplus.com/subscribe/french

Hi

I'm not sure that you could really describe yourself as bi-lingual. It would be well nigh impossible for someone of your age to be bi-lingual if they didn't have French speaking parents or they lived in a Francophone country. I read French at University as part of a Joint Honours BA, so I've met a few bi-lingual people.

You do sound like a keen student of French, though. Could your parents help you with something like this?

https://maryglasgowplus.com/subscribe/french

The term 'bilingual' is subjective. Some people consider themselves bilingual if they know a few sentences in another language, while for others bilingual as something you can only achieve if you are native-like in both languages.

my French teacher says I'm fluent in French and I always get over 90, I got 99 as my best on an a level paper. and thanks for the link, but I my school subscribes to that already and I used to get the chez nous one but then I got a bit bored because it wasn't really challenging. I go to the bilingual club and everything and I'm going to do the bilingual IB so idk, but thanks for the info!

That's exceptional for the A Level. How do you manage the literature element? That's one of the hardest part of the A Level.

Are you hoping to pursue a career using your languages?

I was going to suggest a subscription to Le Point, but I think that you might prefer Paris Match. I had a subscription to Paris Match when I did my A Level in French.

https://abonnement.parismatch.com/

https://www.lepoint.fr/

Yes, I can see how that would happen. I think that it's a concept which looks different if you are a Languages post-graduate. One of our options is in the study of Bilingualism and it's about a very select cohort.

The term 'bilingual' is subjective. Some people consider themselves bilingual if they know a few sentences in another language, while for others bilingual as something you can only achieve if you are native-like in both languages.

I completely agree - it does depend on the standard.

I'm a native speaker of 2 languages (2 languages which I grew up with simultaneously). At school, I then studied French and Spanish and continued them and began Japanese at university. Even though I always got 100% for every single speaking and writing piece I did for A level French and Spanish, I never considered myself fluent because I knew I wasn't even close. Even after graduating with a degree in them, I'm always cautious about labelling myself as a fluent speaker or a true multilingual. I've also studied and worked in Japan for 2 years. I initially went to Japan during my third year at Edinburgh University, and I took regular Honour's level modules with Japanese students in modern Japanese literature or philosophy etc, attended all of my seminars and lecturers in Japanese, and wrote all of my essays and exams in the language as well. A few years later, I worked in Tokyo and spoke to my clients and colleagues in Japanese. Ergo, even though I dream and read novels in Japanese, have written academic papers and sat exams in Japanese, and have worked in the country, I'm still not sure that I personally consider myself to actually be fluent. I don't even know what the proper metric for being considered fluent is! Maybe my standards are too high? Or, maybe because I know how actual native speakers are like, I'm too hard on myself?

In any case, @hffhgghhghg I'm not sure if you would meet the criteria for being a bilingual speaker of French just yet. You have to remember that A level is only intermediate and not even upper-intermediate. If you choose to do a degree in a foreign language, you'd go onto studying upper-intermediate and advanced French, and then after that there's a whole new world of even more advanced language beyond advanced. That said, everyone has different standards for language fluency. Even people who've done just a GCSE or who can only produce a single sentence may call themselves fluent or bilingual. I'd just be a little cautious if I were you.

Your standards are wayyyy too high. I'd definitely consider you fluent in Japanese.

To everyone who studied french in university and a level, is it useful? I'm considering it because I know I'll enjoy it but I don't know if it is helpful at all in your career.