Week 7: Communicating across languages and cultures

Introduction

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Figure 1 Communicating across cultures

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Figure 1 Communicating across cultures

Welcome to Week 7! So far in this course you have been looking at what learning French involves, including grammar, pronunciation and language skills. In Week 6, you also got a taster of the wealth of cultural knowledge you will acquire as a learner of French. By now you have realised that there is so much more to communicating than just knowing the language.

This week, you will continue reflecting on this, focusing more specifically on the skills that learners of French develop to help them communicate across languages and cultures. You will see that knowing a bit more about the French-speaking country you are visiting, even if you are not fluent in French, can go a very long way to helping you fit in and communicate. You will find out about intercultural communication skills, and about translation skills.