My immersion French teacher in high school told us that she once encountered a yogurt container that had been hastily translated (Canada mandates product labels be in both official languages).
"No preservatives - aucun preservatifs"
I'm glad this pack of yogurt cups doesn't have condoms in it!
On another topic: Reflexive verbs are a bit silly if you're just getting into learning them. Basically, they're used for any action that the subject performs upon itself, whether that's washing, talking, killing, etc. Here's how they work:
There are five different reflexive pronouns for the subject matter: [I]me[/I] (myself), [I]se[/I] (him/her/itself, used for both singular and plural) [I]te[/I] (yourself, familiar form) [I]vous[/I] (yourself, formal/plural form), and [I]nous[/I] (ourselves). These are placed in front of the action verb. So, if you were trying to translate "I wash my hands" to French, you wouldn't say
[I]«Je lave mes mains»[/I]
but instead, you would say
[I]«Je [B]me lave les mains[/B]»[/I], which literally translates to [I]"I wash the hands of myself"[/I]. You also wouldn't say
[I]«Je me lave [B]mes mains[/B]»[/I], because that would instead translate to [I]"I wash my hands of myself"[/I] - conveniently, that doesn't make sense in both English and French.
The use of reflexive verbs is expanded to a wide variety of other uses, including taking a rest (e.g. [I]«Vous vous rester»[/I], you are [I]staying[/I] yourself, as the verb "rester" means "to stay"), getting married ([I]«Nous nous marrier»[/I], we are marrying ourselves), or wondering («Ils se demander», they are asking themselves). Last but not least, I find it funny that the action of a door opening or closing is also reflexive («La porte s'ouvre/se ferme», the door opens/closes itself).
Personally, I found that reflexive verbs were not that difficult. What I [I]did[/I] find difficult were things like memorizing the differences and usage of [I]de, du,[/I] and [I]des[/I], and knowing when to use [I]de[/I] instead of [I]à[/I] or [I]pour[/I]. I've only been learning for about 14 months so far, though, so I still have a lot more to learn.
Oh god just mentioning French verbs is giving me PTSD. I can picture the cover of my Bescherelle French verb conjugation dictionary perfectly. Yes, I had a specific reference book to tell me how French verbs work; and I had to memorize most of it by the time I finished Grade 12 immersion French (basically first-year or second-year uni French equivalent; I could've challenged French courses in uni if I'd needed the credits and kept up the French study).
French has three verb categories: Verbs that end in -er (and conjugate mostly according to a standard pattern), verbs that end in -ir (and conjugate mostly according to a standard pattern), and the -re (predictable pattern) verbs; well, it has four, really, because there are also all the irregular verbs (patterns for these? hahaha you're fucked). Worst part is that "to be" (être) is an irregular verb.
And then you get into conjugating the many tenses. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
[IMG]http://www.amigossoftware.com/images/fvgm1.gif[/IMG]
yeah, in case you ever want to learn french, the whip's over there
i mean, i still make mistakes every time i ever try to use bloody basic conjugations like imperfect
AND I WAS BORN THERE
[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49967867]Oh god just mentioning French verbs is giving me PTSD. I can picture the cover of my Bescherelle French verb conjugation dictionary perfectly. Yes, I had a specific reference book to tell me how French verbs work; and I had to memorize most of it by the time I finished Grade 12 immersion French (basically first-year or second-year uni French equivalent; I could've challenged French courses in uni if I'd needed the credits and kept up the French study).
French has three verb categories: Verbs that end in -er (and conjugate mostly according to a standard pattern), verbs that end in -ir (and conjugate mostly according to a standard pattern), and the -re (predictable pattern) verbs; well, it has four, really, because there are also all the irregular verbs (patterns for these? hahaha you're fucked). Worst part is that "to be" (être) is an irregular verb.
And then you get into conjugating the many tenses. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
[IMG]http://www.amigossoftware.com/images/fvgm1.gif[/IMG][/QUOTE]
Well all the composed tenses just use the participate and one of two axillary verbs using a simple tense, so you don't need to memorise the entire table. (Some learners mix up the auxiliary verbs tough, such as Italians when they use "avere", the equivalent of avoir, in Italian where French uses "etre" and vice versa).
Also you only use passe simple in writing so can get away with not learning that. Hell subjonctif imparfait is missing from that list since it's become obsolete, the same has happened with passe compose in spoken language.
Gotta say one thing, though. I've never fucked up French as badly as the time I was in uni and was hanging out with one of the ESL students from Japan (actually an older businessman, probably in his late 40s, over in Canada to learn English) and I tried to tell him about the [I]furoshiki[/I] (wrapping cloth) I'd picked up recently, but instead the only word my brain could find was [I]fundoshi[/I] (sumo loincloth).
:suicide:
He thought it was funny once he figured out what I was trying to say, at least.
[editline]19th March 2016[/editline]
[QUOTE=chumchum;49967948]Well all the composed tenses just use the participate and one of two axillary verbs using a simple tense, so you don't need to memorise the entire table. (Some learners mix up the auxiliary verbs tough, such as Italians when they use "avere", the equivalent of avoir, in Italian where French uses "etre" and vice versa).
Also you only use passe simple in writing so can get away with not learning that. Hell subjonctif imparfait is missing from that list since it's become obsolete, the same has happened with passe compose in spoken language.[/QUOTE]
While you're right, I was not given the opportunity to skip learning any of those in my French immersion high school program.
Not unless I wanted to consistently fail verb quizzes for the last two years.
French is fucking terrible.
I'm not shitting you when I say I've switched the language for my [I]thinking[/I] to English because it's so much easier to formulate in my head. I just don't think in French anymore.
I stopped taking french courses as soon as I could. I couldn't ever get used to the masculine/feminine stuff. What is the point of all that bullshit?
[QUOTE=Dirty_Ape;49968109]I stopped taking french courses as soon as I could. I couldn't ever get used to the masculine/feminine stuff. What is the point of all that bullshit?[/QUOTE]
None. It's a relic from ancient languages (namely Latin and Greek) and just exists to piss people off.
English is way better off for not having it, but the difference between "de" and "het" words in the Dutch language for instance is just as pointless.
Say what you want, but I think French is the sexiest language on the planet.
[QUOTE=Loadingue;49968117]None. It's a relic from ancient languages (namely Latin and Greek) and just exists to piss people off.
English is way better off for not having it, but the difference between "de" and "het" words in the Dutch language for instance is just as pointless.[/QUOTE]
it doesn't make any sense at all to rank languages in this way
[QUOTE=Kommodore;49968251]it doesn't make any sense at all to rank languages in this way[/QUOTE]
What do you mean exactly?
The only reason I'm glad I was brought up with French is because I don't have to do learn any of that BS again. Exceptions, fucking exceptions everywhere.
I never took French but I took enough Spanish to develop a deep hatred of all Latin based languages. I assume it's far easier if you grow up speaking the language, but fuck learning 30+ tenses.
[QUOTE=Loadingue;49968283]What do you mean exactly?[/QUOTE]
think about it this way. language is just a part of social life. there's no intrinsic value you can use to rate and compare them. that value is totally independent between any two people having a conversation in any language. a language that exists only to serve the literal-most and quickest purpose is a language isn't a language at all, it's what we call science.
saussure, father of modern linguistics, actually said a thing on this
"For instance, it is not the metal in a piece of money that fixes its value. A crown piece nominally worth five francs contains only half that sum in silver. Its value varies somewhat according to the effigy it bears. It is worth rather more or rather less on different sides of a political frontier. Considerations of the same order are even more pertinent to linguistic signals. They are constituted solely by differences which distinguish one such sound pattern from another."
[QUOTE=Kommodore;49968378]think about it this way. language is just a part of social life. there's no intrinsic value you can use to rate and compare them. that value is totally independent between any two people having a conversation in any language. a language that exists only to serve the literal-most and quickest purpose is a language isn't a language at all, it's what we call science.
saussure actually said a thing on this
"For instance, it is not the metal in a piece of money that fixes its value. A crown piece nominally worth five francs contains only half that sum in silver. Its value varies somewhat according to the effigy it bears. It is worth rather more or rather less on different sides of a political frontier. Considerations of the same order are even more pertinent to linguistic signals. They are constituted solely by differences which distinguish one such sound pattern from another."[/QUOTE]
Well, I wasn't implying that English is better than French, only that it's better [I]off[/I] without some of the tedious stuff French pulls.
i grew up speaking both and i love english's synonyms and i love the descriptive bias that gendered pronouns can give a word, there's a lot of descriptive power in the arbitrary parts of language
my favorite one is how "gangrene" spoken in french sounds extremely similar to "big penis"
Aw man this makes me want to get back into learning Korean
[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49967867]Oh god just mentioning French verbs is giving me PTSD. I can picture the cover of my Bescherelle French verb conjugation dictionary perfectly. Yes, I had a specific reference book to tell me how French verbs work; and I had to memorize most of it by the time I finished Grade 12 immersion French (basically first-year or second-year uni French equivalent; I could've challenged French courses in uni if I'd needed the credits and kept up the French study).
French has three verb categories: Verbs that end in -er (and conjugate mostly according to a standard pattern), verbs that end in -ir (and conjugate mostly according to a standard pattern), and the -re (predictable pattern) verbs; well, it has four, really, because there are also all the irregular verbs (patterns for these? hahaha you're fucked). Worst part is that "to be" (être) is an irregular verb.
And then you get into conjugating the many tenses. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
[IMG]http://www.amigossoftware.com/images/fvgm1.gif[/IMG][/QUOTE]
That is inaccurate,if we follow the traditional french grammar, verbs in french are categorized in three groups: -er, -ir in verbs like "finir" and pretty much anything else (some -ir, -re, etc.). While there is minor exception to the causes concerning what we call "radicale" and "désinence", most will follow a distinctive pattern and do not go too far off the beaten path.
While I agree conjugating in french is absolutely insane compared to english, for the exception of the verb "to be" and "to have" a lot of it is not as arbitrary as you might think and you can get away with most with a good chunk of simple patterns and rules to follow.
Except "participe passé", that shit is dumb and arbitrary as fuck.
Well, yeah, properly speaking the -er verbs are grouped with the irregular verbs. But I'm not teaching a class, I'm talking about how crazy it is.
Omelette du fromage
* au fromage
you said "omelette from cheese"
[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49967867]Oh god just mentioning French verbs is giving me PTSD. I can picture the cover of my Bescherelle French verb conjugation dictionary perfectly. Yes, I had a specific reference book to tell me how French verbs work; and I had to memorize most of it by the time I finished Grade 12 immersion French (basically first-year or second-year uni French equivalent; I could've challenged French courses in uni if I'd needed the credits and kept up the French study).
French has three verb categories: Verbs that end in -er (and conjugate mostly according to a standard pattern), verbs that end in -ir (and conjugate mostly according to a standard pattern), and the -re (predictable pattern) verbs; well, it has four, really, because there are also all the irregular verbs (patterns for these? hahaha you're fucked). Worst part is that "to be" (être) is an irregular verb.
And then you get into conjugating the many tenses. Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
[IMG]http://www.amigossoftware.com/images/fvgm1.gif[/IMG][/QUOTE]
To be fair, most of these are just not used anymore because shit's too complicated even for native speakers. Most people use three tenses max and the rest was thrown out. You only find them in literature and really formal speech nowadays.
The language is getting simpler with each generation because it got absurdly complex in previous ones and the now inevitable exposure to simpler language like English makes all this complexity all the more pointless.
ive been living in lyon for the past three months and this explains a lot, oops
could have done with seeing this before i started making an arse of myself in french
[QUOTE=Tangerine;49967810]On another topic: Reflexive verbs are a bit silly if you're just getting into learning them. Basically, they're used for any action that the subject performs upon itself, whether that's washing, talking, killing, etc. Here's how they work:
There are five different reflexive pronouns for the subject matter: [I]me[/I] (myself), [I]se[/I] (him/her/itself, used for both singular and plural) [I]te[/I] (yourself, familiar form) [I]vous[/I] (yourself, formal/plural form), and [I]nous[/I] (ourselves). These are placed in front of the action verb. So, if you were trying to translate "I wash my hands" to French, you wouldn't say
[I]«Je lave mes mains»[/I]
but instead, you would say
[I]«Je [B]me lave les mains[/B]»[/I], which literally translates to [I]"I wash the hands of myself"[/I]. You also wouldn't say
[I]«Je me lave [B]mes mains[/B]»[/I], because that would instead translate to [I]"I wash my hands of myself"[/I] - conveniently, that doesn't make sense in both English and French.
The use of reflexive verbs is expanded to a wide variety of other uses, including taking a rest (e.g. [I]«Vous vous rester»[/I], you are [I]staying[/I] yourself, as the verb "rester" means "to stay"), getting married ([I]«Nous nous marrier»[/I], we are marrying ourselves), or wondering («Ils se demander», they are asking themselves). Last but not least, I find it funny that the action of a door opening or closing is also reflexive («La porte s'ouvre/se ferme», the door opens/closes itself).
Personally, I found that reflexive verbs were not that difficult. What I [I]did[/I] find difficult were things like memorizing the differences and usage of [I]de, du,[/I] and [I]des[/I], and knowing when to use [I]de[/I] instead of [I]à[/I] or [I]pour[/I]. I've only been learning for about 14 months so far, though, so I still have a lot more to learn.[/QUOTE]
Don't forget to conjugate the verbs, because right now you left them in their infinitive form.
Vous vous rest[B]ez[/B] (can't really say that one), nous nous marri[B]ons[/B], ils se demand[B]ent[/B].
These kind of verbs are cool though, they actually make sens once you get the hang of 'em.
Je lave : I wash
Je me lave : I'm washing myself
Je le lave : I'm washing him/it
Je la lave : I'm washing her/it
[QUOTE=DONK! 2x;49968406]my favorite one is how "gangrene" spoken in french sounds extremely similar to "big penis"[/QUOTE]
Must be a Quebec thing because I don't see what you mean.
I did French for a couple of years at school and I fucking hated it. I hate the way it sounds and the way its written and I don't know why :v:
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