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Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4427 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin
| Message 201 of 243 12 June 2013 at 1:37am | IP Logged |
We read parts of Jérusalem by Guy Delisle in class this year and it was very interesting. Maybe i should look at some
of his other work. It's good to know that he's a well-known author!
Great list of resources, by the way.
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songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map
| Message 202 of 243 17 June 2013 at 4:35pm | IP Logged |
Emily96 wrote:
Great list of resources, by the way. |
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Thanks!
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songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map
| Message 203 of 243 17 June 2013 at 5:11pm | IP Logged |
'Fessing up, as posted on both the Team Schnitzel and Assimil Experiments threads:
I'm bowing to the inevitable (and obvious) conclusions that I won't be starting my German this year, and the
Assimil Experiment in Italian was something of a non-starter too. (Well, a multiple re-starter; but not enough
to even warrant logging - let's say I know the first few lessons pretty well, and leave it at that.)
Due to a couple of scheduling conflicts (two family celebrations which run smack in the middle of anticipated
dates for my intended Italian trip), I'll be postponing my visit to Italy in any case. But I do plan to
resume both languages in the future.
And there's Mandarin lurking in the background too, of course. - One of my Mandarin-speaking colleagues is
now planning to retire in November, so it may be wise to use her expertise and the opportunity it presents for
conversational practice while I can.
On the plus side, I've been really enjoying my journey with French. While I have a looong way still to go (I
think I'm stll hovering on the border between A2 and B1), it's enormously satisfying to be able to read things
which a year ago were too dauntingly difficult to even think of tackling.
Edited by songlines on 17 June 2013 at 5:19pm
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songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map
| Message 204 of 243 17 June 2013 at 5:47pm | IP Logged |
First French language meetup.
- Went to my first French conversation meetup a fortnight ago. - It's wasn't one of those organized by
Meetup.com, though there are a number of French groups
organized via that site. (As well as a polyglot/multilingual one:
Toronto Babel), but one by a newish group:
Diskuto. They had advertised a fee-based event at a nearby cafe, with a
quiz/speech contests with prizes, but I avoided that, as I generally loath enforced jollity in front of a group of
strangers. (You'll never see me at either Club Med or karoake events.) However, they also organized a more
informal conversation group en plein air, within the University of Toronto grounds. It fitted my schedule,
so I gave it a go, and am glad I did.
The ambience was relaxed. - Being out in the open, along a quiet path at the heart of the university, there
were no noise issues as there might be in a pub or restaurant. Also, people were free to (and did) meander
off after only a few minutes chat if they preferred. There were a handful of organizers/volunteers, and
perhaps a dozen or so passers-by stopped to speak in French during the 45 minutes or so that I was there.
I was welcomed by two people - a man and a young woman - who were originally from Senegal; but the
majority of my time was spent in conversation with the man, a translator who had worked for the UN
agencies in Geneva, and also spoke Wolof, English, and Arabic.
It was a very friendly group, and a nice, low-pressure opportunity for conversation practice. It seems to be a
regular event (I'd initially thought it was a one-off), so I'll certainly try to return if I can.
Edited by songlines on 18 June 2013 at 1:30am
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songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map
| Message 205 of 243 18 June 2013 at 2:09am | IP Logged |
Continuing from my earlier post on Paul au Parc, further upthread, in post
197...
Finished Paul au parc, which turned out to be even better than expected upon reading its first half. I
won't give away any spoilers, but a plot element lifts the story out of the realm of a light-hearted, pleasant,
amusing, semi-autobiographical memoir of a childhood in a Scout troup, and elevates it to something else
altogether: impressive, touching, and resonant.
Have moved on to three more more "Paul" books by
Michel Rabagliati.
As mentioned earlier, Rabagliati's work is proudly Quebecois, with Quebec slang and language, including
profanity derived from words used originally used in Catholicism:
Wikipedia .
From Paul a un travail d'été. Clockwise from the upper left, the host, tabernacle, calvary, and chalice.
I may need a little help deciphering this one, from Paul en appartement. (Arekkusu or Emk,
or someone else familiar with Quebec French...?):
So the two hot-dogs are steamed (rather than grilled) link
. There's a band, book, and website all called "Moutarde-chou", but in this context does it mean "all-
dressed", or with cabbage, or sauerkraut? And what is "une rondelle" - a slice/ring of what? (Canadians may
be hockey-mad, but I don't think we'd go as far as to put hockey pucks on our hot dogs! - As an aside,
Wordreference tells me the word also has a different, quite vulgar usage.)
And friends in code-switching mode (the hosts are Anglophone):
From Paul a un travail d'été.
Edited by songlines on 21 July 2013 at 2:52am
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| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5380 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 206 of 243 18 June 2013 at 2:24am | IP Logged |
songlines wrote:
So the two hot-dogs are steamed (rather than grilled) link
. There's a band, book, and website all called "Moutarde-chou", but in this context does it mean "all-
dressed", or with cabbage, or sauerkraut? And what is "une rondelle" - a slice/ring of what? (Canadians may
be hockey-mad, but I don't think we'd go as far as to put hockey pucks on their hot dogs! - As an aside,
Wordreference tells me the word also has a different, quite vulgar usage.)
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Yes, stimé means steamed. If you go to a hotdog place, you usually have to decided if you want it toasté ou
stimé.
Moutarde-chou is the content of the hotdog: some mustard and some sauerkraut (actually, I'm not too sure
what this is, probably some shaved cabbarge or something, not sauerkraut per se). Same idea for moutarde-
oignons.
Une rondelle stands for rondelles d'oignons -- onion rings. It's true it also means a hockey puck, but not in
this context, obviously ;)
Can you spot the anglophone's mistakes?
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songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map
| Message 207 of 243 18 June 2013 at 2:40am | IP Logged |
Arekkusu wrote:
Moutarde-chou is the content of the hotdog: some mustard and some sauerkraut (actually, I'm not too sure
what this is, probably some shaved cabbarge or something, not sauerkraut per se). Same idea for moutarde-
oignons.
Une rondelle stands for rondelles d'oignons -- onion rings. It's true it also means a hockey puck, but not in
this context, obviously ;)
Can you spot the anglophone's mistakes? |
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Thanks, Arekkusu! I thought they might be onion rings, but was thrown off by the earlier mention of onions.
As for the Anglophone's mistakes...
J'ai view -> j'ai vu
en dedans -> au dedans (?)
Is "j'ai dit à moi-même" a literal translation from English? what would be a better way to phrase it?
vestibioule -> le vestibule (same spelling as the English word)
belle view -> la vue
le temperature -> le temps, la metéo; or else "il fait plus froid.."
- How did I do? Which ones did I miss?
Edited by songlines on 18 June 2013 at 2:47am
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| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4427 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin
| Message 208 of 243 18 June 2013 at 2:45am | IP Logged |
Oh my gosh and we read Paul a un travail d'été too! I guess our teachers are better than we thought. We also studied
the play Zone last year and then it cropped up in the quebecois TV show i just started (30 vies). I love it when stuff
you learn in school is actually applicable to real life.
As for spotting mistakes... is it just that "le temperature" should be "la temperature"?
And that meetup you went to sure sounds like fun. I wish we had something like that where i lived.
Edit: i see i got beat to the pointing out mistakes, and he did a much more thorough job =P
Edited by Emily96 on 18 June 2013 at 2:47am
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