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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 25 of 58 15 April 2010 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
HA! No one's had a go at it yet. I'm preparing a Québec French podcast series and "m'as" is one of the things I'm covering. Edited by Arekkusu on 15 April 2010 at 4:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| LLF Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5580 days ago 66 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* | Message 26 of 58 15 April 2010 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
"But you have to remind me of it" maybe ? I have no idea what the cultural reference is. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 27 of 58 15 April 2010 at 5:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This is actually a complex item to explain because there are two or more historical references. First of all, linguistically speaking, "m'as m'en rappeller" is a slang version of the motto "je me souviens" that appears in the same place on license plates in Quebec. The "m'as" is a form of "je vas", a form of "je vais". Notice "m'en" instead of just "me". The pronoun en is referring to something specific, unlike "je me souviens". (Note in passing that in normative French, one should have said "me le rappeler"). A translation would be: "I'll remember it" or, more colloquially, "It won't be forgotten". As for historical references, there are different interpretations depending on when the slogan appeared. Charest refers to the premier or head of the provincial government in Quebec. So this anti-Charest sign would be seen after some major unpopular decision by the government. Typically this could be a special law to resolve a labour dispute with government workers or a new tax. So this form of protest could be used for many different things. One event that comes to mind was the very controversial decision by the government in 2006 to allow a referendum whereby certain municipalities could decide to undo mergers that had been forced on them by previous government. I'm not totally sure about this interpretation. Maybe other people could help Edited by s_allard on 15 April 2010 at 5:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 28 of 58 15 April 2010 at 5:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
To be more specific, "m'as" is actually a contraction of "j'm'en vas" (je m'en vais), and is the semantic equivalent of "je vais".
Actually, "je vais m'en rappeler" is standard French. The only non standard part of the phrase is "m'as". I think this anti-Charest (the premier) joke refers to his entire legacy rather than a specific event. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6470 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 29 of 58 15 April 2010 at 6:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thank you for your input, canadiens! I didn't actually mean to call it a cultural
point, it was a separate line of thought for me after I answered a post. I meant this as a language question. Though knowing who Charest is and that "je me souviens" is supposed to go on the license plate is cultural knowledge of course. I found this picture a few years back and there is no particular issue that this refers to, though it may be used for whatever issue is in people's minds at the moment. "m'as m'en rappeler" is basically an expression of bearing a grudge. And no, my French isn't good enough yet - nor is my Northern English, apparently, though Iversen takes the crown as usual. A French Canadian friend of mine explained a lot of cultural references to me. We even went over the lyrics of "Sheila, ch'us là" by Loco Locass - now that's a song drenched in references and slang (which I won't post here among the tests in order not to offend sensibilities). I was astonished to find signs of somebody being well-read in a hip-hop song with street language and not a single complete sentence... Btw, I updated the first post to include the other test questions people suggested.
Whoever was speaking their native language had that understanding ;-) And no, you can't disentangle culture and language, that kind of was my point, as it seemed like people were saying that you don't need to get into a language's culture in order to say you have native-like understanding of the language.
I think we need a new word other than "false friend", because on the surface, "der Cowboy" means the same as "the cowboy", it's just that connotations of the word differ, and that makes for misunderstandings when you use the word figuratively. Edited by Sprachprofi on 15 April 2010 at 6:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| LLF Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5580 days ago 66 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English* | Message 30 of 58 15 April 2010 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Not really. You should say rather "Whoever was speaking their native language and culture and life experience had that understanding". I may share a native language with an American, but I don't share their culture, so they can easily form sentences which I can't fully understand (quite apart from any AE/BE language differences). In fact, I think your original examples make this point well; can an Austrian or German-speaking Swiss make sense of them ? Given that they rely on knowledge of German politics, maybe not. I think you'll find it very difficult to make a good test for "native knowledge" of a language that doesn't rely on country and culture-specific references, slang, regional dialects, and so on, and that's simply because that is the true definition (IMHO) of "native language". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sprachprofi Nonaglot Senior Member Germany learnlangs.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6470 days ago 2608 posts - 4866 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Esperanto, Greek, Mandarin, Latin, Dutch, Italian Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swahili, Indonesian, Japanese, Modern Hebrew, Portuguese | Message 31 of 58 15 April 2010 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You think that Austrians or Swiss won't make the connection to "es wird zurückgeschossen"? Because that's the only cultural influence in my examples. The other two I explained by way of the original context, which was political cabaret, but they can be understood without any knowledge of politics of any kind and they can be used in contexts other than politics. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5430 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 32 of 58 15 April 2010 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Never one to shy away from a debate, I would like to say that "je vas" and "j'y vas" were common forms in 17th century and can still be heard today in "j'y vas-tu". I don't think it is absolutely certain that 'm'as" derives from "m'en vas", but I won't dispute the point. What I will dispute is the pronoun following "se rappeler". All standard grammar references point out that this verb is a direct transitive verb and requires the direct object pronoun. I quote Adolphe V. Thomas: "Il est convenu qu'on ne doit pas dire se rappeler de quelques chose, parce rappeler comme appeler, est un verbe transitif direct...De ce fait, on dira Je me le rappelle, ou bien encore Je m'en souviens (et non Je m'en rappelle)." Now in all fairness, there are situations where one can use "Je m'en rappelle" as in "Je m'en rappelle tous les noms", but it is not the case here. That said, this common mistake comes from the confusion with "se souvenir de". I'm not a purist; "je m'en rappelle" doesn't bother me, but just to let you know that it does bother some people. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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