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Any correction on using , learned, basic french, knowledge, educated scholar

Hi folks,

Did I make any mistake using those words?

1. what I learned in school was only basic French
que j'ai appris dans l'école était le français seulement fondamental.


2. With such knowledge I can talk about weather and greetings without much difficulty
Avec une telle connaissance je peux parler du temps et de la salutation sans beaucoup de difficulté


3. to talk and to write french as an educated scholar i must inject further effort
pour parler et écrire le français comme un érudit instruit je dois injecter l'effort de plus


Merci beaucoup à l'avance


Salut
SL

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1. "what I learned in school was only basic French"

This one is a bit tricky. As a first step, I'd suggest to go for "I only learned basic French at school", which is grammatically easier. And this is probably what we would say naturally.

-> "Je n'ai appris que les bases du français à l'école"

("fondamental" is a bit overzealous... this adjective is often used for scientific stuff, not much for other things, except in political speech)

Now let's try "what I learned in school was only basic French"

-> "Ce que j'ai appris à l'école n'était que les bases du français"

It's correct, but... it doesn't sound very natural. We wouldn't use such a complex structure to express such a simple statement.

In spoken french, if we really wanted to use such a structure, we would split it into two simple sub-sentences:

"Ce que j'ai appris à l'école, c'est seulement les bases du français". This definitely sounds like a native speaker.



2. "With such knowledge I can talk about weather and greetings without much difficulty"

"Avec une telle connaissance" is all right, but "connaissance" as "knowledge", is usually plural. So "Avec de telles connaissances".

"sans beaucoup" is something we never say. Just use "sans".

3. "to talk and to write french as an educated scholar i must inject further effort"

Don't use Google Translation :)

"érudit" and "inject" are correct, but very uncommon. I never heard anyone say "érudit", and "injecter" is only used in finance or IT. Use easier words.

"Pour parler et écrire le français correctement, je dois faire plus d'efforts"

"effort" (singular) is for athletes.
"efforts" (plural) is more generic, although the idea is the same.

And if you ever want to say "like someone who knows his stuff", you can say "comme un pro" (short form for "comme un professionnel"). This is a very common expression and it can be used to describe any kind of skill.

"Je joue de la guitare comme un pro"
"Catherine se maquille comme une pro"
"Robert parle le français comme un pro"
etc.
Hi Frank DENIS,

Thanks for your detail advice.

RE:
"Je joue de la guitare comme un pro"
"Catherine se maquille comme une pro"
"Robert parle le français comme un pro"
etc

If I'm a female then following sentence will be;
"Je joue de la guitare comme une pro"
?

Use une instead of un ?

B.R.
SL
Hello Stephen,

For a female, you can use either "une" pro or "un" pro. Both are absolutely correct for this expression.
Hi Frank,

Your advice noted. Thanks

B.R.
SL

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