BonneVivante Pro Member Canada Joined 4856 days ago 33 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map
| Message 153 of 232 03 March 2014 at 2:32am | IP Logged |
I have been lax about updating my log but am still plugging along with about 30-45 minutes of French per day. I wish I had time for more, but I was recently promoted at work. It's good news, but I've been busy during the adjustment period as I'm sure you can all imagine.
Songlines, I like the idea of the song challenge for March. I also like the idea of Lang-8 submissions...so perhaps whichever one we don't do for March, we could pick up later on.
I really appreciated the discussions on the order of direct and indirect pronouns, although I confess I am not at the level of worrying about such nuances of correctness quite yet; mostly I am content to be understood and to comprehend the meaning of what is being said. The discussion on swear words was amusing to me as well.
My contribution to the discussion is this 2-minute clip from the hilarious French-Canadian movie "Bon Cop Bad Cop" (which features two bilingual cops, an anglophone from Ontario and a Francophone from Québec, who are forced to work together on a case) where the French cop is explaining French Canadian swearing (most of which involves religious iconography, so it seems) to the English guy. I recommend the movie, by the way. It's really silly and funny, and gives interesting insight into Canadian language politics with a light hearted touch. It's partially in English, and partially in French, and the subtitles for English and/or French can be turned on or off depending on your needs.
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Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 154 of 232 03 March 2014 at 2:23pm | IP Logged |
I am definitely in for a song challenge for March.
For April, I have another proposal. In A
learning based challenge?, DaraghM proposed the idea of a challenge based on learning something concrete, like 200 words,
100 kanji, 150 sentences, 20 conjugations, etc. DaraghM won't have time to run the challenge, so I offered to administer it, and
he said he was fine with that. I have made some proposals (post 11) for how it could run. In a nutshell, it would be a one month
challenge, with no winners. People would register on a thread and set their own challenge. At the end of the month they state
what they achieved. It should be simplicity itself. For those of us doing the Super Challenge, this would be a month to "skill
up" in preparation for reading and watching.
I would love any comments from Deuxième members, and I think it would make a good team challenge. Even if the wider community
doesn't want to do it, I'd like to do something like this before the SC begins. Please have a look and leave your comments on
that thread. Thanks!
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kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish
| Message 155 of 232 04 March 2014 at 3:01am | IP Logged |
Bonjour mes comarades!
I haven't been doing any actual studying, but am still reading each day, and watching
movies here and there. I'm currently working my way through Le chagrin et la
pitié (The Sorrow and the Pity; Marcel Ophüls, 1969), a four-hour documentary on
the Nazi occupation of France, and the story of those who collaborated and those who
resisted.
It's one of the most mind-blowing documentaries I've ever seen - I'm somewhat amazed
that I had never even heard of it until Mubi put it on their site. There are so many
little stories in here that it's hard to take it all in: the society women who planted
roses along the Maginot line to make it pretty for the soldiers, the German officers
who thought that the Resistance didn't "fight fair," the French aristocrat who joined
the Germans to fight in Russia, the English drag queen who became a secret agent to
prove that gays could be just as brave as others, the teachers in denial who didn't
realize how many of their students had joined the Resistance, the two farm boys who
taught themselves how to be rebels ... I usually make it about twenty minutes before I
have to hit pause and ponder what I just saw.
I like the idea of both the song-challenge and the learning-based challenges. And I
fully support the idea of a challenge with no winners!
Edited by kanewai on 04 March 2014 at 3:15am
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 156 of 232 04 March 2014 at 4:18am | IP Logged |
Je dois dire que l'étranger est le meilleur roman que j'ai lu cette semaine en français. Je pense que tout l'équipe "deuxième" devrait le lire.
I have to say that The Stranger is the best novel I've read this week in French. I think all of Team Deuxième should read it and listen to it.
Edited by luke on 04 March 2014 at 4:20am
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songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5207 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map
| Message 157 of 232 04 March 2014 at 4:23am | IP Logged |
Thanks for the responses. So it looks like we have a Song challenge for March:
Post a French song (or more than one). Choose one/ all of the options: translate it, learn the lyrics (or only
one verse if you're a beginner), write something about it on this thread.
(We had a lot of fun with this last year on Team Pax, see posts
posts 108-124 )
Jeffers, I also really like your idea for April.
Edited by songlines on 04 March 2014 at 4:25am
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 158 of 232 07 March 2014 at 5:09am | IP Logged |
Pour ceux qui aiment bien Le Petit Prince, il ya une conférence intitulée, 5 choses que vous ne saviez pas sur Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
For those who love "Le Petit Prince", there is a Ted Talk called, "5 Things You did not Know about Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.
Edited by luke on 07 March 2014 at 5:11am
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rlnv Senior Member United States Joined 3949 days ago 126 posts - 233 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 159 of 232 09 March 2014 at 5:40am | IP Logged |
Thank you songlines for pointing out the thread from last year. I'll work on and post my song for March later on after I select one that is close to a level where I can translate most if it myself.
Question for the team. I have come across the verb "se coucher". It appears that some places reference the verb as just "coucher", while others like Assimil and my verb book reference it as se coucher. Can someone help me understand what the distinction is between the two? Are they both considered proper? This is the first one like this that I have come across in my studies.
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Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5379 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian
| Message 160 of 232 09 March 2014 at 7:07pm | IP Logged |
rlnv wrote:
Question for the team. I have come across the verb "se coucher". It appears that some places
reference the verb as just "coucher", while others like Assimil and my verb book reference it as se coucher. Can
someone help me understand what the distinction is between the two? Are they both considered proper? This is the
first one like this that I have come across in my studies. |
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Typically, dictionaries include pronominal verbs (se coucher) under their non pronominal equivalents (coucher).
There is no reason coucher should be dealt with differently, but from a beginner's perspective, coucher is not a very
common verb, so resources intended for beginners may entirely omit it. Coucher generally means to lay something
down or, as in the famous song line, to sleep (with someone). I don't suppose Assimil teaches that verb, hence its
separate appearance.
Edited by Arekkusu on 09 March 2014 at 8:27pm
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