I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 1085 Simplified French
Shortly after the banquet and before the ball began, Rahman and the tribal chiefs instructed their servants to carry boxes of gifts into the Crown Prince's reception room.

Joseph looked at the room full of jewels and smiled at Rahman, saying, "Thank you very much for your kindness, Count Busada."

Yes, this very afternoon, Louis XVI was so pleased by Rahman's smooth talk that, after consulting his son, he bestowed upon him a title.

Rahman deserves credit for his role in unifying Algiers and should be rewarded. This also serves as an example for other Berber nobles—as long as they serve the king diligently, they will surely reap the rewards.

Rahman bowed respectfully: "It is our greatest honor that you can accept these insignificant things, Your Highness the Crown Prince."

He paused for a moment, then continued, "Actually, I have another special gift for you."

"Oh? What is that?"

Rahman gestured to the tribal chief behind him: "You see, they had never learned French when they set off from Mitijah."

Joseph was immediately surprised. He had heard these Berber nobles speak French at the banquet earlier; although their intonation was strange and their grammar was a bit awkward, they could still speak several long paragraphs.

Keep in mind that the entire journey from Algiers to Paris takes only about half a month. These semi-literate tribal chiefs somehow managed to memorize so many sentences.

"How did you manage to do that?"

Rahman did not answer directly: "Your Highness, I believe that if the Governor's Office wants to manage Algiers efficiently and promote rapid development in various regions, it needs to teach people to speak French as soon as possible."

Joseph looked at the newly crowned Count Busada with great interest, thinking to himself, "You are truly a model of 'legal expertise'."

However, promoting French is indeed something he cares about very much. Language is a major issue in Savoy and the Rhineland, not to mention North Africa.

He knew very well that a unified language was absolutely the most important element in order to truly integrate these places into France.

Joseph immediately nodded and said, "I'd love to hear your advice."

“To be honest, French is really difficult,” Rahman said. “No offense, but French is beautiful, but it’s also very difficult to master.”

"It took me four years to finally stop making grammatical mistakes."

"Later, I taught my nephew French, and you know, that kid was really slow; he just couldn't get the articles and adjectives right."

Joseph nodded to himself. French nouns are gendered; for example, a table is male, and a door is female. This leads to a great deal of variation when different articles and adjectives correspond to nouns of different genders.

Add to that the plural form, and remembering it will definitely kill a lot of brain cells.

Rahman continued, "I had no choice but to make him ignore the gender of nouns. Uh, and also to put aside the plural form, so that he could at least speak a sentence in general."

"That way, he learns much faster."

"However, this kid learned to be lazy because of this. He ignored all tenses except for the present, compound past, and simple future, and when he encountered a sentence that he couldn't express, he would use a makeshift substitute."

"For example, he uses a compound past tense + adverb of time to express the imperfect past tense. He uses a compound past tense + adverb of time + another compound past tense to express the past tense."

"After studying for more than four months, he was able to have simple conversations. Although his grammar was completely wrong, I could roughly understand what he meant."

"Oh, right, he still hasn't mastered the subjunctive mood. So I had him use the indicative mood for everything, only using the subjunctive mood in imperative sentences."

Joseph's eyes lit up.

This is indeed a good solution. You see, French has as many as 15 tenses! Let alone mastering them, just figuring out all those grammatical rules would take several months. Rachman's model, however, only retains 5 tenses, using "combination and imitation" to make do with the rest.

This can exponentially reduce the difficulty of learning, while ensuring that more than 90% of the content can be understood.

As for the subjunctive mood, it's even more complicated. It requires conjugation based on four types of verbs: "must," "suggestion," "command," and "hope," combined with tense and personal pronouns. Oh, and there are irregular verb conjugations too.

Therefore, a single sentence can generate more than 20 variations...

Joseph remembered that later generations of French children had to wait until they entered secondary school to begin learning the subjunctive mood.

If we simplify it according to Rahman's suggestion, it would remove the biggest obstacle to learning French.

The only consequence is that the attitude is not clearly expressed. But this can be strengthened with auxiliary vocabulary.

For example, after saying a sentence, you can add "This is an order".

Rahman continued, "In addition, I also asked him to remove some articles and use 'indefinite article + uncountable noun' instead..."

Joseph immediately interrupted him: "I need you to compile what you just said into teaching materials. How long do you think it will take?"

"Oh, I can send a language expert to assist you. However, you should not listen to any of his advice."

This kind of work of "dissecting" the French language really has to be done by non-French people. If you ask French experts to simplify it, they will definitely be reluctant to make any changes.

Joseph estimated that with a little over a year of serious study using Rachman's simplified method, one could begin to have simple conversations in French. However, formal French requires at least three years to learn.

This will greatly accelerate the spread of French.

Rahman's eyes flashed with surprise, and he quickly bowed and said, "About three months, Your Highness."

“Excellent! You have done a remarkable thing for France.”

"Ah, it is my honor to serve you!"

Emman knocked on the door and entered, saying to Joseph, "Your Highness, the ball is about to begin. You need to change into your formal attire."

Upon hearing this, Rahman immediately bowed and took his leave.

Joseph changed his clothes and had just stepped out of the room when he saw Talleyrand.

The latter hurriedly stepped forward and bowed, saying, "Your Highness."

"You're back." Joseph smiled and nodded at him. "How did things go?"

“Yes, Your Highness, everything is as you predicted.” The Foreign Minister followed him toward the Hall of Mirrors. “Selim III was initially very angry and even said that he would reconsider our country’s priority purchase rights for cotton and sugar.”

"However, his attitude changed immediately after I offered to help them deal with the Mamluks."

Joseph nodded: "Very good. Has he decided on a time to take action?"

“Their Grand Vizier suggested the end of this year or the beginning of next year,” Talleyrand paused, then added, “while he also hopes to sign an agreement on this matter.”

(End of this chapter)