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Post by BobWilliston on Dec 10, 2019 23:54:55 GMT -5
One's "passive" vocabulary is always greater than their "active" vocabulary. That's why English-speaking people complain when someone understands what they've said but they can't answer in English. My opinion of what a lot of people refer to as "Parisian" French really is no more Parisian than Canadian French -- it should more properly be referred to as stilted over enunciated French. Granted, street language is always different from educated and business language, but what most people learn of Parisian French in North America will do you no more good in Paris than regular educated conversational Canadian French. That's interesting to know. My teacher always got on my case about how I pronounced things and I was at that point still very fluent in french. I just didn't say it the way she thought it should be said. The next year that wasn't an issue because I had a better pronunciation than the french teacher. It was kind of interesting to hear a french teacher teaching french with an Australian accent. I once picked up an American published book entitled Street French. I found it MOST interesting. According to the book, what they identified as slangy street French was virtually the whole course I took in college on how to speak French correctly -- like educated French speaking French people.
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Post by snow on Dec 10, 2019 23:57:54 GMT -5
That's interesting to know. My teacher always got on my case about how I pronounced things and I was at that point still very fluent in french. I just didn't say it the way she thought it should be said. The next year that wasn't an issue because I had a better pronunciation than the french teacher. It was kind of interesting to hear a french teacher teaching french with an Australian accent. I once picked up an American published book entitled Street French. I found it MOST interesting. According to the book, what they identified as slangy street French was virtually the whole course I took in college on how to speak French correctly -- like educated French speaking French people. I have no idea what the 'correct' way is. There seems to be as many accents in the French language as there is in the English Language. I have trouble understanding English sometimes....
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Post by BobWilliston on Dec 10, 2019 23:57:58 GMT -5
It loosely translates as being a wonderful experience I believe. Yes, I know what it says, I was just wondering about the position of the adjective? On second thought, I should probably have written the sentence like this. Ça serait une merveilleuse d'expérience.
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Post by BobWilliston on Dec 11, 2019 0:05:21 GMT -5
I once picked up an American published book entitled Street French. I found it MOST interesting. According to the book, what they identified as slangy street French was virtually the whole course I took in college on how to speak French correctly -- like educated French speaking French people. I have no idea what the 'correct' way is. There seems to be as many accents in the French language as there is in the English Language. I have trouble understanding English sometimes.... Oh yes, there are a good variety of accents that can be detected. The other thing, that doesn't really change much, is how French speaking people run words together and commonly drop or combine syllables in the spoken language that are in the written language. It's how French speaking people identify non-native French speakers. It works -- conquer that and no one will think you have an English accent.
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Post by slowtosee on Dec 11, 2019 0:05:50 GMT -5
I once picked up an American published book entitled Street French. I found it MOST interesting. According to the book, what they identified as slangy street French was virtually the whole course I took in college on how to speak French correctly -- like educated French speaking French people. I have no idea what the 'correct' way is. There seems to be as many accents in the French language as there is in the English Language. I have trouble understanding English sometimes.... German , likewise . At least the Germans can rest assured that God spoke German and not French . Proof is right here in my Bible - quote from genesis “ Adam, wo bist du, ?” Alvin
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Post by snow on Dec 11, 2019 14:10:53 GMT -5
I have no idea what the 'correct' way is. There seems to be as many accents in the French language as there is in the English Language. I have trouble understanding English sometimes.... Oh yes, there are a good variety of accents that can be detected. The other thing, that doesn't really change much, is how French speaking people run words together and commonly drop or combine syllables in the spoken language that are in the written language. It's how French speaking people identify non-native French speakers. It works -- conquer that and no one will think you have an English accent. That's what I did according to my grade 8 french teacher. I did run my words together and combined syllables. That's the way I learned from my friends, didn't know it was wrong.
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Post by BobWilliston on Dec 11, 2019 19:22:56 GMT -5
Oh yes, there are a good variety of accents that can be detected. The other thing, that doesn't really change much, is how French speaking people run words together and commonly drop or combine syllables in the spoken language that are in the written language. It's how French speaking people identify non-native French speakers. It works -- conquer that and no one will think you have an English accent. That's what I did according to my grade 8 french teacher. I did run my words together and combined syllables. That's the way I learned from my friends, didn't know it was wrong. When my daughter was registering for first grade high school her in Nevada, she wanted to take the Fourth year French course, seeing as how she already spoke French fluently. The counsellor refused, and told ME that They find that students from foreign countries really don't know their own languages all that well. So I suggested she let Heidi take second year French, so she consented to let Heidi take a test to see if she was ready for the class. It turned out she only got a "C" on the test. SO I asked her why she got such a poor mark on a first year French test, and she said the instructions were all in English and she didn't know what they all meant. So Heidi tried two days in the French 2 class, and she complained to me that she couldn't stand it -- the teacher couldn't even speak French. So I went back with her to the counsellor and finally the counsellor told her to go and talk to the French 4 teacher and see what she thought. it turned out that the French 4 teacher was married to a French speaking man from West Africa and spoke French all the time at home, and when Heidi spoke to her she told her to go tell the counsellor to let her into her class. And all things went well. Heidi said that she did learn some English grammar words in the French 4 class. One student I acquired one time there had come from California in November, and was finding it difficult to fit into the routine of my French 1 class. Her complaint was that, because she was in French 1 in California she couldn't understand my French because she had only learned Parisian French for those 2 months in California. Like she had any idea what Parisian French sounded like. My brag was that one of my French 4 students went on to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. Made me smile.
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Post by snow on Dec 12, 2019 14:15:09 GMT -5
That's what I did according to my grade 8 french teacher. I did run my words together and combined syllables. That's the way I learned from my friends, didn't know it was wrong. When my daughter was registering for first grade high school her in Nevada, she wanted to take the Fourth year French course, seeing as how she already spoke French fluently. The counsellor refused, and told ME that They find that students from foreign countries really don't know their own languages all that well. So I suggested she let Heidi take second year French, so she consented to let Heidi take a test to see if she was ready for the class. It turned out she only got a "C" on the test. SO I asked her why she got such a poor mark on a first year French test, and she said the instructions were all in English and she didn't know what they all meant. So Heidi tried two days in the French 2 class, and she complained to me that she couldn't stand it -- the teacher couldn't even speak French. So I went back with her to the counsellor and finally the counsellor told her to go and talk to the French 4 teacher and see what she thought. it turned out that the French 4 teacher was married to a French speaking man from West Africa and spoke French all the time at home, and when Heidi spoke to her she told her to go tell the counsellor to let her into her class. And all things went well. Heidi said that she did learn some English grammar words in the French 4 class. One student I acquired one time there had come from California in November, and was finding it difficult to fit into the routine of my French 1 class. Her complaint was that, because she was in French 1 in California she couldn't understand my French because she had only learned Parisian French for those 2 months in California. Like she had any idea what Parisian French sounded like. My brag was that one of my French 4 students went on to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. Made me smile. LOL from the 'we are the only ones that know anything Americans'! Of course we don't know how to speak our language like they do. We rarely say you'all for example. English in the southern states is not the English anyone else in the world speaks. I had learn how to understand my uncle from Texas. I love their accents though, it's just not English that anyone would speak anywhere else.
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Post by slowtosee on Dec 12, 2019 14:54:14 GMT -5
Ya, EH.
Alvin
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Post by Annan on Dec 12, 2019 15:10:11 GMT -5
I lived in a small rural community that had a public school taught by nuns and they had catechism at the end of the day. I know for sure that my going to that school being taught by nuns was a problem with the workers. But there was no other place that it was practical to send me. I lived in a Catholic majority community so it made sense that we were taught by nuns even though it was a public school. I was really glad I could get out early though. I wasn't allowed to stay for catechism. Oh Darn! My cousin went to catechism. I always felt left out as there were a lot of Catholic kids in our town. It was like they had a special club and we were excluded. Funny that.
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Post by Annan on Dec 12, 2019 15:20:02 GMT -5
English in the southern states is not the English anyone else in the world speaks. I had learn how to understand my uncle from Texas. I love their accents though, it's just not English that anyone would speak anywhere else. For sure. I hate to admit this, but when a lawyer on TV speaks with a southern drawl, I want to find his client guilty just because of his lawyer. I spent four years learning Spanish in high school. A fellow classmate went to South America for the summer as an AFS student. She said the Spanish they spoke wasn't anything like the Spanish we were taught. As a student of American Sign Language, I find signing isn't always the same, even in my state! I teach my granddaughter ASL. She is not allowed to ask for anything without signing. And, please, thank you, and you're welcome are required.
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Post by Annan on Dec 12, 2019 15:24:31 GMT -5
My sister speaks German and Spanish. She studied German in high school and college and spent a year of college in Austria. She took Spanish classes at night school. She is a guidance counselor at a school with a large percentage of Spanish speaking students. My son speaks Japanese. He was vice-president of a Japanese/American Club in college. They would have groups where Japanese and American students would help each other better their language skills. My brother-in-law (married to my German and Spanish speaking sister) speaks Japanese, but then he is Japanese. And, no, my sister does not speak Japanese. :-D
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Post by snow on Dec 12, 2019 16:14:18 GMT -5
I lived in a small rural community that had a public school taught by nuns and they had catechism at the end of the day. I know for sure that my going to that school being taught by nuns was a problem with the workers. But there was no other place that it was practical to send me. I lived in a Catholic majority community so it made sense that we were taught by nuns even though it was a public school. I was really glad I could get out early though. I wasn't allowed to stay for catechism. Oh Darn! My cousin went to catechism. I always felt left out as there were a lot of Catholic kids in our town. It was like they had a special club and we were excluded. Funny that. Well in a sense it is a club. Our catechism was after the formal school day ended so I was always glad to be able to go home and actually felt a little sorry for the Catholic kids having to stay longer. Our community was mostly Catholic too.
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Post by BobWilliston on Dec 12, 2019 19:03:29 GMT -5
When my daughter was registering for first grade high school her in Nevada, she wanted to take the Fourth year French course, seeing as how she already spoke French fluently. The counsellor refused, and told ME that They find that students from foreign countries really don't know their own languages all that well. So I suggested she let Heidi take second year French, so she consented to let Heidi take a test to see if she was ready for the class. It turned out she only got a "C" on the test. SO I asked her why she got such a poor mark on a first year French test, and she said the instructions were all in English and she didn't know what they all meant. So Heidi tried two days in the French 2 class, and she complained to me that she couldn't stand it -- the teacher couldn't even speak French. So I went back with her to the counsellor and finally the counsellor told her to go and talk to the French 4 teacher and see what she thought. it turned out that the French 4 teacher was married to a French speaking man from West Africa and spoke French all the time at home, and when Heidi spoke to her she told her to go tell the counsellor to let her into her class. And all things went well. Heidi said that she did learn some English grammar words in the French 4 class. One student I acquired one time there had come from California in November, and was finding it difficult to fit into the routine of my French 1 class. Her complaint was that, because she was in French 1 in California she couldn't understand my French because she had only learned Parisian French for those 2 months in California. Like she had any idea what Parisian French sounded like. My brag was that one of my French 4 students went on to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. Made me smile. LOL from the 'we are the only ones that know anything Americans'! Of course we don't know how to speak our language like they do. We rarely say you'all for example. English in the southern states is not the English anyone else in the world speaks. I had learn how to understand my uncle from Texas. I love their accents though, it's just not English that anyone would speak anywhere else. I know how that works. I was quite challenged the first time I went to see my wife's family in Boston -- just 400 miles from where I was born.
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Post by fixit on Dec 16, 2019 1:57:54 GMT -5
When I was small we had a older Irish sister worker who had been a Catholic, and by all reports was forced to leave Ireland to escape the revenge of her family. But you are right -- I always believed that the workers mostly avoided Catholic communities -- and minority groups as well in some places. I'm not old enough to remember the days when there were lots of conversions to the 2x2's. She would be a rarity, almost as rare as hens teeth. It is interesting to see political developments in Eire. There's been some common sense law passed about abortion and homosexuality. Meanwhile Northern Ireland remains one of the west's most immature societies, along with the USA. One of the sticking points about Brexit is the Irish border and rightly so. If Brexit goes ahead there is a good chance that Northern Ireland will become part of Eire and Scotland will leave the UK as well. Johnson may become the first Prime Minister of England and that funny place in the hills to the west. The queen will not be amused. It would be silly for Scotland to leave the UK, their biggest trading partner by far. It only makes sense for an entity that is richer to become independent (England has a significantly higher GDP per person than Scotland). Scotland's economy is about a third the size of London alone.
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