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Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5374 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 145 of 232 25 February 2014 at 4:22pm | IP Logged |
I'm not sure what constitutes a group activity, but I would like to suggest a "weekly Lang-8 submission" for March. Any question arising from corrections could be brought here so all members can benefit.
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| Cristianoo Triglot Senior Member Brazil https://projetopoligRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4114 days ago 175 posts - 289 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, FrenchB2, English Studies: Russian
| Message 146 of 232 25 February 2014 at 7:28pm | IP Logged |
@Arekkusu and @Stelle - Thank you both for those great explanations!
Really, I searched for it a lot... after a while, I got a website that explained in
details the word order for COD and COI, but didn't say anything about how should I
agree verb and COD...
Stelle, Vous avez compris ce que je voudrais dire quand j'ai parlé sur la "pratique"
façon de penser. C'est juste ça: je voudrais savoir quand je dois utiliser 'y', 'en'
etc. Je sais qu'il y a des règles, mais je ne sais pas si i y avait quelques "règles"
comment: verifier si on doit utiliser le 'y', ensuite le 'en', puis le 'OD/OI'... mais
je suis d'accord avec toi: il manque pratiquer plus
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4902 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 147 of 232 25 February 2014 at 8:59pm | IP Logged |
My phrase of the week: gros mots (swearwords). This is probably known to most of us who are advanced beginner and above, but I think it's quite interesting. I first came across it in the Petit Nicolas story "Djodjo". A boy from Scotland comes to the school for the day, and picks up every insult the boys throw at each other. Agnan gets up and tells the teacher, "Mademoiselle, ils lui apprennent des gros mots !" ("Miss, they are teaching him swearwords!")
What was amusing is the sort of things considered "gros mots". Here's a list from the story:
dingue ("crazy")
espèce de guignol ("some sort of puppet")
sale menteur ("dirty liar")
vilain cafard ("ugly cockroach")
When the teacher tells the class off, she calls them "mal élevé" ("rude", literally "badly brought up"?), which Djojo promptly repeats as well.
These words are obviously not that strong, but I'm not sure if that's because "gros mots" aren't that bad, or if it is because it is a children's book. The short story La fée du robinet by Pierre Gripari, distinguishes between "un gros mot" and "une parole méchante" ("a bad word").
In the story a good girl is cursed by a fairy so that whenever she speaks a snake comes out of her mouth. Here's an excerpt, from when her parents take her to a doctor. I find it so charming, I had to give an extended excerpt:
Quote:
Allons, ne vous désolez pas. Tout cela n'est peut-être pas si grave. Voulez-vous me suivre dans ma salle de bains?
Ils passèrent tous dans la salle de bains. Une fois là, le médecin dit à Marie:
-Penchez-vous bien sur la baignoire. Comme ceci. Et maintenant, dites un mot. N'importe lequel.
-Maman, prononça Marie.
Et en même temps une grosse couleuvre ("grass snake") glissa de sa bouche dans la baignoire.
-Très bien, dit le médecin. Et à présent, dites un gros mot, pour voir…
Marie rougit très for.
-Allons, lui dit sa mère, un petit gros mot pour le docteur!
Marie, timidement, murmura un gros mot. En même temps, un jeune serpent boa se répandait dans la baignoire.
-Qu'elle est gentille ! dit le médecin, tout ému. À présent, ma petite Marie, fais encore un petit effort et dis-moi une parole méchante.
Marie comprenait bien qu'il fallait obéir. Mais elle était si bonne qu'une parole méchante, même sans la penser, ça lui coûtait à dire. Elle se força pourtant, et prononça d'une voix sourde :
-Sale vache ("dirty cow").
Tout aussitôt deux petites vipères, roulées en boule, sautèrent de sa bouche et tombèrent avec un bruit mou sur les autres serpents.
-C'est bien ce que je pensais, dit le docteur avec satisfaction. Pour un gros mot, ils sort un gros serpent, et pour un mot méchant un serpent venimeux… |
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Of course it is hilarious that "sale vache" is une parole méchante, even worse than a gros mot.
So there you have it, my phrase of the week, plus a bit of bonus content. It would be nice if our godparents could comment on whether "gros mot" refers to truly rude words, or just to the mildly offensive words it refers to in these stories.
EDIT: Oh, I forgot to comment on "espèce de guignol", which is used a lot in Le Petit Nicolas. Guignol is the name of a puppet from the French version of Punch and Judy. He appears at the end of every French in Action lesson. "Faire le guignol" ("play the fool") seems to be the most common use, but here are a few other examples of how it can be used:
"Quelquefois je me demande si la maîtresse ne nous prend pas pour des guignols."
"Il faut dire que ce mois-ci, on a un peu fait les guignols et puis Geoffory n'aurait pas dû renverser son encrier par terre sur Joachim qui était tombé en faisant des tas de grimaces parce que Eudes lui avait donné un coup de poing sur le nez alors que c'était Rufus qui lui avait tiré les cheveux à Eudes."
"Quand maman veut montrer que je suis bien élevé, elle m'habille avec le costume bleu et la chemise blanche et j'ai l'air d'un guignol."
"Tu crois tout de même pas que je vais me faire coller parce que tu fais le guignol avec des pétards! a crié Rufus. Et ils se sont battus."
It should be said that, "ils se sont battus" ("they started hitting each other" ?) is one of the most common phrases in Le Petit Nicolas.
Edited by Jeffers on 25 February 2014 at 9:22pm
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5374 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 148 of 232 26 February 2014 at 3:23pm | IP Logged |
Jeffers wrote:
Of course it is hilarious that "sale vache" is une parole méchante, even worse than a gros mot. |
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vache, here, is the equivalent of b**ch. It's necessarily directed at someone and it's indeed pretty strong.
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| Cristianoo Triglot Senior Member Brazil https://projetopoligRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4114 days ago 175 posts - 289 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, FrenchB2, English Studies: Russian
| Message 149 of 232 26 February 2014 at 4:40pm | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
Jeffers wrote:
Of course it is hilarious that "sale vache" is une
parole méchante, even worse than a gros mot. |
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vache, here, is the equivalent of b**ch. It's necessarily directed at someone and it's
indeed pretty strong. |
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So it's like portuguese. Cow in portuguese is also b**ch
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| akkadboy Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5401 days ago 264 posts - 497 votes Speaks: French*, English, Yiddish Studies: Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Welsh
| Message 150 of 232 26 February 2014 at 5:25pm | IP Logged |
Jeffers wrote:
These words are obviously not that strong, but I'm not sure if that's because "gros mots" aren't that bad, or if it is because it is a children's book. |
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I think that the fact that they are children is an explanation but also, don't forget that these books were written in the 1960's, some swearwords may have been stronger then than they are now.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7149 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish
| Message 151 of 232 26 February 2014 at 11:16pm | IP Logged |
I stumbled оn ѕоme оnlinе rеѕоurсеs hоstеd by thе Univеrѕity оf Техаѕ in Аuѕtin inсluding "Les Conversations Mises à Jour" which you may find handy for sharpening your passive abilities in conversational French.
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| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5469 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1
| Message 152 of 232 27 February 2014 at 12:24am | IP Logged |
Thanks Chung,
I've bookmarked it for future use :)
Cheers,
PM
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