tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4657 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian
| Message 65 of 80 14 December 2012 at 10:36pm | IP Logged |
Spotted recently: terrible English pun pick-up line:
"Vous aimez les pommes?"
"Oui."
"Donc, appelle-moi."
lol!
By the way, how would one say that something was "terrible," in the sense of "cringe-inducing" (like a bad joke or embarrassing situation), in French?
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emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5524 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map
| Message 66 of 80 14 December 2012 at 11:07pm | IP Logged |
Great progress! When you look back at lesson 1, I bet it's really easy. :-)
EDIT:
tastyonions wrote:
By the way, how would one say that something was "terrible," in the sense of "cringe-inducing" (like a bad joke or embarrassing situation), in French? |
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In general, I've had great luck answering this kind of question with Linguee:
bad joke
bad pun
embarassing situation
Linguee works great in the formal register. If you want to learn colloquial vocabulary for embarrassing situations, may I recommend reading the excellent viedemerde.fr on a regular basis?
Edited by emk on 14 December 2012 at 11:35pm
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tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4657 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian
| Message 67 of 80 14 December 2012 at 11:31pm | IP Logged |
emk wrote:
Great progress! When you look back at lesson 1, I bet it's really easy. :-) |
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Thanks! And yeah, the lessons from a while back seem quite easy now. I review old lessons very regularly, so each day I am reminded of the progress I've made.
Your log has been very inspiring, by the way. Gives me something to aim for. :-)
Edited by tastyonions on 14 December 2012 at 11:33pm
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tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4657 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian
| Message 68 of 80 14 December 2012 at 11:38pm | IP Logged |
emk wrote:
Linguee works great in the formal register. If you want to learn colloquial vocabulary for embarrassing situations, may I recommend reading the excellent viedemerde.fr on a regular basis? |
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Thanks for the recommendations.
I had seen you mention that site before. I think it kind of fits in with my recent urge to seek out more "low-brow" stuff like the "Bref" videos, so I will try reading it.
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emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5524 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map
| Message 69 of 80 15 December 2012 at 12:13am | IP Logged |
tastyonions wrote:
I had seen you mention that site before. I think it kind of fits in with my recent urge to seek out more "low-brow" stuff like the "Bref" videos, so I will try reading it. |
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Yeah, I realized a while back that I knew formal vocabulary, and casual vocabulary for kids, but very little casual vocabulary for people over the age of 5 or so. :-) I tried looking for casual vocabulary on forums, but, well, some of the French people who post to forums spell so badly it makes my head hurt.
VDM is great because somebody fixes the spelling, and because the posts are all about two sentences long, and because each one tells an embarassing story that's hard to forget. There's all kinds of odd vocabulary (like "tondeuese à gazon") and details about how French speed traps work. I probably have 150 Anki cards with stories from VDM, with unfamiliar vocabulary in bold face.
Another useful site that sctroyenne recommended is Topito, which can be crazy hard at times, but which will have a couple of really good posts per week.
And thank you for recommending Bref! I always love hearing about really funny stuff in French, because it makes it so much easier to study on days when I don't feel motivated. :-)
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tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4657 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian
| Message 70 of 80 15 December 2012 at 12:29am | IP Logged |
Heh, the mention of bad French spelling on the net reminds me of this video (about 2:30): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViFuFJf5jSc
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tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4657 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian
| Message 71 of 80 15 December 2012 at 2:12pm | IP Logged |
Lesson 67 today. At first this one seemed pretty tough, but after only a couple of listens it became clear; I think it may actually be easier than the last few lessons were. There were just a few new expressions:
à moitié
temps de chien
alors que
sans + infinitif
I immediately guessed "temps de chien" by analogy to the English "dog days" (not really the same meaning, but related). Wonder if they have the same origin.
For my review this time, I listened to the old lessons in reverse order (more recent ones first), which gives a great effect: as I listen the comprehension gets easier and easier until it's basically effortless for the earliest ones. I think I'll start doing it this way regularly.
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tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4657 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian
| Message 72 of 80 15 December 2012 at 8:10pm | IP Logged |
Vocab discovered today on YouTube:
même pas peur (I'm not scared)
avouer (to confess)
péché (sin)
boulet (cannonball / idiot)
bombe (très belle femme)
bourré / saoul (ivre)
maillot de bain (swimsuit)
tableau de chasse (hunting trophies / kill record)
défi (challenge)
être au courant (to know / be up to date)
blaireau (Individu grossier et antipathique ; imbécile, idiot)
incruster (to gatecrash)
The "-aou-" words can still trip me up on pronunciation. "Sous" and "saoul" sounding exactly the same is not at all intuitive! :-P
Also, ever since I learned the idiom "ça vous dit / ça te dit" from Assimil, I've been noticed it popping up everywhere.
Edited by tastyonions on 15 December 2012 at 8:10pm
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