richardg
Admonishtrator
You seem hard on yourself. I am spending the weekend with a girl whose English is B2 and my French might be C1 on a good day. We understand each other pretty well. And when we don't, so what.
Silliest French word I learnt so far
- Thread starter richardg
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Stunsworth
pfm Member
The gender affects a lot of other things too, prepositions, adjectives and verb participials for example. Personally I think prepositions are the work of the devil.
Stunsworth
pfm Member
I still remember the first time I ordered lamb in a French restaurant. To say I mispronounced ‘agneau’ is something of an understatement, I butchered it.
Mike Reed
pfm Member
It's in the (definite) past tense (I learnt) but 'so far' means 'up to now', which should be in the present perfect 'I have learnt'.
The past tense is a definite finished time, whether stated or not (e.g. Shakespeare wrote it (he's dead, so must be past ). The present perfect is either an action 'just' finished, but with no emphasis on when (e.g. I've finished; the 'when' is irrelevant here), or in the continuous, it's still going on. Example. I've been waiting all day (still waiting).
I didn't know that, but what's wrong with a space, esp. when an exclamation mark, e.g., can be mistaken for an 'l'. No rule that I know specifies space limitations in written or typed text.
Cheese
Bitter lover
It's wrong indeed, a Frenchman would look at you, and correct you if he's nice. But he would not make a scandal out of it, knowing that such things are really hard to master, sometimes even by themselves. I have been bilingual since age 8, have worked for three years as a prof. translator (D<>F), and I struggle sometimes using the definite or indefinite article - usually I trust my musical ear, as I couldn't technically explain why I'd write it in one way or another way.
richardg
Admonishtrator
So pleased I don't meet these French people that can't stop themselves correcting you when you make a mistake. I guess they'd soon get bored when correcting my bordelic French skills, though. I always found the French in Strasbourg a bit more polite and conservative than in some other places. That might be it. And actually many of them speak a bit more slowly and clearly here. To my ear at least. Some of them even sound like they might not be French. And it's not the supposed German accent (that I can't really detect). It's the pace of the speech, it can be really really, slow.
Cheese
Bitter lover
mandryka
pfm Member
I’ve got a grammar question. When do you use the passé simple? I know you use it in books and stuff, but sometimes I hear it spoken. I just got a message, informal, from a friend who starts to tell me
« Je fus abonné à ANDANTE le temps que ce site vécut.. . . . « (Andante is, or rather was, a record label.)
Why didn’t he write « j’abonnais , , , le temps que ce site vivait » ?
Does the passé simple just make the style more soutenu?
« Je fus abonné à ANDANTE le temps que ce site vécut.. . . . « (Andante is, or rather was, a record label.)
Why didn’t he write « j’abonnais , , , le temps que ce site vivait » ?
Does the passé simple just make the style more soutenu?
Nobody speaks the passé simple. That's why your pal has written it. Also, if you start in it you should stay there, just as you would if you used the future of conditional when the present would work.
Why on earth is he using the PS? Is he showing off? It's like using the past perfect subjunctive, we all know it exists but who can be bothered with it when a different construction will allow you to sidestep it?
Why on earth is he using the PS? Is he showing off? It's like using the past perfect subjunctive, we all know it exists but who can be bothered with it when a different construction will allow you to sidestep it?
richardg
Admonishtrator
My immediate reaction to that was bollocks. But I will defer for 24 hours and listen out more carefully.
chartz
If it’s broke fix it!
No. Just impossible. You must say je fus abonné because the verb is s’abonner or être abonné. It is a reflexive verb or it’s used with être and the adjective.
Also, abonner would be j’abonnai – no s – in the PS (you can abonner someone to something). But we would say j’ai été abonné here: I subscribed to.
And we do use the past simple. I would gladly say je fus abonné!
mandryka
pfm Member
I just don’t think that’s true, I think there are some expressions which are quite natural spoken, eg ce fut le cas. Or Il naquit en 1945.
But I await the judgement of the francophones.
mandryka
pfm Member
no, it’s passé composé, simple would be il me dit (same form as present.)
chartz
If it’s broke fix it!
No. That is what you were doing when the bomb exploded. Imparfait.
Je m’abonnai is just for the action itself.
Does that make things worse for you?
Je fus abonné expresses the fact that it lasted, but then it stopped at some point.
Stunsworth
pfm Member
No, that’s passé composé.
There’s an explanation of passé simple here...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passé_simple
As it says in the article “While literary and refined language still hangs on to the passé simple, the standard everyday spoken language has renounced passé simple for the passé composé, which means that in spoken French, there is no longer a nuance between:
Passé composé « Je suis arrivé. » ("I have arrived." I have come to town. I may have just arrived.)
and
Passé simple « J'arrivai. » ("I arrived." I came to town, but it is possible that I am not still here.)”