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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 345 of 1317 22 December 2012 at 9:17pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Thank you, DaraghM!
This afternoon I'm puzzling through incomprehensible sentences from Le Monde. I generally choose these because (a) something about them makes no sense, and (b) I've noticed some kind of recurring pattern. Here's a particularly weird one:
My wife thought this was an especially ugly sentence, and she helped me figure out what was going on. First of all, ainsi que doesn't have its typical meaning of "as well as" here. Second, the subject le rapport and the verb écrit have been inverted. This gives us:
Digging around on WordReference, I found a slightly better example of this construction:
And here's another example from Le Monde:
Notice how the two examples from Le Monde have fairly complicated noun phrases as subjects, which is probably what's forcing an otherwise unnatural inversion. One you see the trick, it's everywhere, at least in Le Monde. So much of my intensive reading consists of little puzzles like this. If the answers are sufficiently obscure, I put them in Anki. When these cards "mature" in about 20 days, that first ugly example sentence will seem relatively natural, and I should be able to sight-read similar sentences without too much effort. Oh, yeah—there's big one change in my studies recently. Up to a month ago I was reading novels and watching Buffy. But now I'm jumping wildly around websites and TV channels, which means that everything I do is unfamiliar. So I'm struggling a bit more, but that's a good sign. Edited by emk on 22 December 2012 at 9:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4845 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 346 of 1317 23 December 2012 at 12:16am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Definitely a good sign. There's only so much Sarah Michelle Gellar one can take, my man. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 347 of 1317 23 December 2012 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I just took the time to listen to your French recording, emk, and your pronunciation is
quite good, although I am able to tell you are an anglophone learning French (it's the r and the vowels that indeed, as you say, give it away). It sounds quite good otherwise! I have uploaded something of my own to Soundcloud, but I really have no idea what my accent sounds like to other people, so I am afraid I cannot give you any hints for improvement, except to work on that "r". (I'm Dutch and I use that "r" as my standard pronunciation, so I got lucky here.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 348 of 1317 23 December 2012 at 7:06pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Ah! And you just upgraded your Swedish to Basic Fluency, yes? Gefeliciteerd! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 349 of 1317 23 December 2012 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Listening comprehension is weird. One moment, you understand everything. The next moment, it's a blur. Why does this happen?
The great thing about using movies with subs2srs is that you can isolate those hard parts and listen to them over and over. And when you do that, you'll quickly realize that some parts of the audio are just insanely difficult. Sometimes the actor mumbles, sometimes half the sounds are missing, sometimes the accent is weird, and so on. Let me give you a sample. In the following recording, I introduce a clip from Amélie and then re-read it a lot more slowly: Compréhension orale : un défi du film « Amélie »
If I try to speak spontaneously to a microphone, I feel a little awkward, even if I'm using English. So I wrote this out and read it back. And if it makes you feel any better, this clip is harder than 90% of the dialog in the first 35 minutes of Amélie. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4663 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 350 of 1317 23 December 2012 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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^ Wow, that is *hard.* After seeing the text I can get the part after "puis" reasonably well, but everything before that is just a blur. The only thing I can decipher in that first half is "est gosse." Edited by tastyonions on 23 December 2012 at 11:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 351 of 1317 23 December 2012 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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He mumbles and slurs a lot. With the text there I get all the words, though.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 352 of 1317 24 December 2012 at 1:23am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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It's *pretty much* all there, it sounds like (after multiple listens while looking at the text), except I'm still having a
hard time hearing "du jour au lendemain" as being there. I would guess that this is perhaps a fairly common expression, such that one might be able to guess from context that this is what he's saying, given enough practice? Good example. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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