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Gary’s 2015 TACtivation: FR, IT | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4994 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 97 of 187 06 April 2015 at 11:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm always feeling like languages are zero-sum. I've noticed a slight boost to my French in the last week, and a corresponding slight decrease in my Italian. Anyway, less than two weeks till France to let's continue the efforts with more writing. Maybe I should brush the dust off my Lang-8 account and post these, as I'm sure some corrections would be handy.
Hier, le jour de Pâques, a été la plus belle journée de l'année jusqu'à présent. Après le long hiver écossais on a enfin eu du soleil. Quelques amis à moi, italiens et espagnols, avaient prévu un grand barbecue pour la fête et ils avaient donc espéré un beau temps ; ils n'ont pas été déçus, bien au contraire ! Organiser n'importe quelle activité à l’extérieur dans ce pays-ci, c'est toujours une question de chance, alors je suis content pour eux. Tout le monde a bien mangé et a passé un bon moment. Un avant-gout des choses à venir cet été, j'espère. Yesterday, Easter day, was the nicest day of the year so far. After the long Scottish winter we finally got some sun. A few friends of mine, Italian and Spanish, had organised a big barbecue for the occasion and so they had hoped for good weather; they weren't disappointed, quite the contrary! Organising any sort of outdoor activity in this country is always a matter of chance, so I'm happy for them. Everyone ate well and had a good time. A preview of things to come this summer, I hope. Je crois que j'étais le seul écossais parmi les invités. La majorité était des italiens et des espagnols, surtout des catalans, qui sont très nombreux ici. Je me suis rendu compte que je comprends plutôt bien le catalan : deux personnes à côté de moi le parlaient et j'ai tout compris... en réalité j'ignorais que c'était le catalan jusqu'à ce qu'ils me disent "mais tu comprends le catalan ?". On dirait que mon cerveau a fait seulement le nécessaire pour comprendre ce qu'ils disaient, sans différencier la langue. Au début je croyais qu'ils parlaient espagnol, mais il y avait effectivement quelque chose qui clochait, par exemple la femme a parlé de son mari "grec" plutôt que "griego". I think I was the only Scot among the guests. The majority were Italian and Spanish, especially Catalans, who there are a lot of here. I realised that I understand Catalan fairly well: two people next to me were speaking it and I understood everything... actually I didn't realise it was Catalan until they said to me "...so you understand Catalan?". Seems that my brain just did enough to understand what they were saying, without distinguishing the language. At first I thought that they were speaking Spanish, but indeed something didn't quite sound right, for example the woman mentioned her husband who was "grec" rather than "griego" (the Spanish word for "Greek"). À propos de Grecs, il y en avait aussi. Avant, il n'y en avait pas beaucoup ici, mais récemment ils semblent être de plus en plus nombreux et j'en ai connu quelques-uns. Ce qui m'est intéressant, puisque je suis à moitié grec mais jusqu'ici j'ai connu très peu de Grecs hors de ma famille. Il y avait même une grecque qui parlait bien italien. On the subject of Greeks, there were also some of them. Before, there weren't many here, but recently there seem to be more and more of them and I've met a few. Which is interesting for me, since I'm half Greek but until now I've met very few Greeks outside of my family. There was even a Greek girl who spoke good Italian. Vu le nombre d'italiens, j'ai bien sûr eu l'occasion de mettre en pratique mon italien. Je me suis un peu lassé de toujours répondre à la même question de la part des italiens au début de la conversation ( celle qui se résume par "mais pourquoi ?!" ) et leurs commentaires sur l'inutilité de leur langue, mais c'est normal. Ils se sont amusés à deviner mon origine : ils disent que quand je parle italien, c'est évident que je ne suis ni italien ni d'une autre pays où on parle une langue romane, pourtant mon accent n'a rien d'écossais ou d'anglais. Le plus souvent, il pensent que je suis allemand, peut-être parce que les allemands ont la réputation d’être un peu plus doués pour les langues que les anglophones. Les espagnols, de leur côté, pensent souvent que je suis italien, vu mon aspect méditerranéen et ma connaissance de la langue. Cependant je suis quand même surpris ; j'aurais pensé que l'espagnol se ressemble assez à l'italien pour que ce soit évident que je ne le parle pas parfaitement. Given the number of Italians, I of course had the chance to practise my Italian. I got a bit fed up of always answering the same question from the Italians at the start of the converation (that one that can be summed up as "but why?!") and their comments on the uselessness of their language, but that's normal. They had fun guessing my origin: they say that when I speak Italian, it's obvious that I'm neither Italian nor from another Romance-language-speaking country, yet my accent's not at all Scottish or English. Most often, they think I'm German, maybe because the Germans are reputed to be a bit more talented at languages than the Anglophones. As for the Spanish, they often think I'm Italian, given my Mediterranean look and my knowledge of the language. However I'm still surprised; I would have thought that Spanish is similar enough to Italian that it would be evident that I don't speak it perfectly. Edited by garyb on 06 April 2015 at 4:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arnaud25 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 3629 days ago 129 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 98 of 187 06 April 2015 at 1:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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*deviner mon origine, l'espagnol *ressemble, *m'est intéressant (not natural), the rest is more or less ok. I won't praise your french, don't worry :)
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| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4994 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 99 of 187 07 April 2015 at 11:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks Arnaud! Good to know that it's just a few silly mistakes and nothing serious.
Music I tried to give a guitar lesson in French, which made me aware of some big music-related holes in my vocabulary. Plus it really doesn't help that the notes have different names in the Romance languages: instead of C, D, E, etc. they use Do, re, mi, etc. So I've decided to do a mini-mission to look up and list some music and guitar related vocab in French and Italian, since it's important to be able to talk about your interests and for jamming with friends who speak these languages. Actually I was supposed to do this last year, there was an Italian team challenge to look up words related to one of your interests, but I never got around to it. A few to start off with. If any are incorrect then let me know. The notes C: do D: ré/re E: mi F: fa G: sol A: la B: ti Sharp: dièse, diesis Flat: bémol, bemolle Note: la note, la nota Keys, chords, intervals Key: tonalité, tonalità Major: majeur, maggiore Minor: mineur, minore Intervals are as you'd expect, the ordinal numbers. Scale: la gamme, la scala Chord: un accord, un accordo Arpeggio: obvious loan word from Italian; in French it's arpège. To tune: accorder, accordare Tuning: French wikipedia says "l'accordage" is the act of tuning, and "l'accord" is the result (standard tuning, drop D, etc.). It seems similar in Italian: l'accordatura and l'accordo. Tablature (numeric musical notation for guitar etc.): la tablature, l'intavolatura. Time and rhythm Bar (measure): la mesure, la misura Beat: le temps, la battuta (although I've also seen "battuta" referring to a bar...) Rest: le silence, la pausa The note durations (crotchet, quaver, etc.) are where it gets really fun and confusing; I'll leave that for another time. Parts of the guitar String: la corde, la corda Fret: this one's a bit tricky in French - from what I've understood, the actual bar is "la frette" or "la barette" while the space in between them where you put your finger is "la case". In Italian it's "il tasto", like a key on a keyboard. Fretboard: la touche, la tastiera (again like a keyboard) Neck: le manche, il manico Bridge: le chevalet, il ponticello Pickup: In French, the dictionary says "le capteur" but in online discussions I often see it referred to as "le micro". Italian seems to borrow from English, "il pick-up". Amps, effects, accessories Amplifier: l'amplificateur (commonly l'ampli), l'amplificatore Cable: la câble, il cavo (I think...) Strap: dictionary says "la courroie", which I've never heard before; in Italian "la cinghia" or "il tracollo" (I've heard the latter for a camera strap). Capo: le capodastre (or just le capo), il capotasto Plectrum: le médiator, il plettro Pedal: la pédale (d'effet), il pedale Distortion: la distortion, la distorsione Overdrive: same as English Clean tone (not distorted): son clair, suono pulito (I'm not 100% sure about this, if "suono polito" refers to a clean tone or just a "clean" manner of playing). Delay: same as English Reverb: la réverbération, il riverbero Most other effects seem to be the same or similar to English. Still to do: guitar techniques (strumming, alternate picking, barre chords, etc.) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4494 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 100 of 187 07 April 2015 at 11:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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I should have known these words when I lived in Brussels... my flatmate was a music
teacher and I was just getting back into playing guitar. Tu fais quel genre de musique? Also - pedalboard? :))))) (in French) Edited by tarvos on 07 April 2015 at 11:38am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6384 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 101 of 187 07 April 2015 at 5:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
Whoa, I've never learned the notes and I thought do re mi fa sol la si were international :D (si in Russian, yes) Russian also uses the French loans for diesis and bemolle so thanks for teaching me the English equivalents, haha. But wow so in English they start from la.. I thought they go from low tone to high tone or something? Yeah I'm completely clueless, feel free to laugh :P 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| anamsc2 Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 4346 days ago 85 posts - 186 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan, German Studies: French | Message 102 of 187 08 April 2015 at 9:57am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think it's so cool how you seem to be part of the Italian community where you live! I wonder if you could give any tips for how you made that happen. I'm starting to accept that I won't be living in a Spanish-speaking country anytime soon, so I want to try to make friends with Spanish speakers where I do live.
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| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4994 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 103 of 187 08 April 2015 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
Je fais principalement du métal, et aussi un peu de post-rock et récemment je joue de plus en plus de la guitare classique. C'est une une coïncidence que tu me demandes ça : en ce moment je suis en phase d'achat de quelques équipements de musique et je consultais des critiques sur Thomann. Sur ce site-là on écrit des évaluations en plusieurs langues, dont le français, et je suis justement tombé sur le mot pédalier.
Interesting; I knew they used do re mi etc. in Romance language speaking countries but I didn't know about others. I believe that singers commonly learn it in English-speaking countries but instrumentalists don't. By convention we also start at C (do) even though A is a lower letter, which I've never really understood. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4494 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 104 of 187 09 April 2015 at 2:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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Oh, super cool ça :) J'aimerais faire du métal, mais mes compagnons dans ma dernière
groupe ne voulaient pas jouer du métal, alors au lieu des sons lourds on a fait du rock/blues (mais quand j'étais seul avec le batteur je jouais un peu plus fort que normalement). Quel genre de métal? Progressif? Black? Death? Post-rock est super joli aussi, tu connais Mogwai déjà probablement, est-ce que tu as des recommandations pour moi? :) About the scales, I think it's because the C major scale consists of ABCDEFG as notes, whereas A major doesn't; and there are many more instruments tuned to C major, especially the piano, where the white keys refer to the "whole letters" and the black ones to the semitones. So it's more logical to start at C since that is the root note of the scale. in English you start from do too, except you call it C usually. In the Netherlands we also use ABC etc, though I have seen doremi used for singing when I took music classes. Edited by tarvos on 09 April 2015 at 3:04am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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