I want to learn French.

[ravenvii]

I suggest taking a bullet train to france and jump right into it ... get the hotest or first girl you see at a coffee shop to help you. Brush your teeth and smile lots.

French mostly is a very official language - yet there is an underground of phrases that'll be VERY cool to learn.

remember - the most spoken language on earth today is NOT english but French.

Really? Thought that's Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese, whichever that is)?

 

[Spliffer971]

I heard somewhere that French was used as a diplomatic language.
Statistically it's indeed the Chinese the most spoken in the world.
But officially it's English because it's a universal language
At any rate, this is what I think.

 

[lewis82]

Wirelessly posted (iPod touch 2nd gen: Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; fr-fr) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

^^^^ I know that the United Nations uses french extensively, that's why it is a widely used diplomatic language.

Et puis, à l'écrit, il n'y a pas beaucoup de différences entre le "français Québécois formel" et le "français de France formel". C'est à l'informel que ça se corse

 

[balamw]

^^^^ I know that the United Nations uses french extensively, that's why it is a widely used diplomatic language.

The UN has six official languages. Mandarin Chinese, English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Russian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_languages_of_the_United_Nations

B

 

[Spliffer971]

C'est vrai! À l'écrit, le français canadien et le français sont semblables, ce sont les expressions, ainsi que l'accent, qui divergent.

That's right! In writing, Canadian French and French are similar, it is the expressions and the emphasis that differ.

(PS: If I reissue all my reviews is to give you the best formulation I know)

 

[Huntn]

Recently I flew with a flight attendant who was fluent in French. I asked her how did you learn French (her second language)? She told me "I took it in high school but I did not really learn it until I lived in France for a year".

 

[calderone]

Sometimes a language just isn't for you. French, for me, doesn't stick, but I have an excellent command over Japanese and Chinese.

 

[rovex]

I can speak and understand it perfectly but I find writing quite challenging. It's striking however the difference in culture and typical mentality between the UK and France even though they are soo close to each other

 

[Signal-11]

remember - the most spoken language on earth today is NOT english but French.

By what metric? That's not even remotely true for total number of speakers, total numer of native speakers, acquired language speakers or by number of countries.

 

[Spliffer971]

Here's a poetic confession of my own composition:

Mes mains convoitent tes plus intimes secrets;
Ma chair espère, chacuns de tes tendres mystères.
Comme j'aspire, caresser ton être, de mes lèvres,
Savourer, le doucereux velour de ton écorce.
Mon coeur chante cette attirance, que je ressens;
Ma raison courbe face aux lignes de ton corps.
Sur le sentier de mon amour, entends cette danse,
Qui te murmure, je t'aimerais, à outrance et bien plus encore!

What do you think about?

 

[skunk]

Pas mal du tout. Mais il y a des enfants içi...

 

[iBlue]

Tell you what expression I did learn fast in Paris: casse-toi! It's an aggressive but not entirely vulgar way of telling someone to go away/bugger off/etc. It needed to be said to plenty of persistent street merchants who wouldn't listen to my first "No, merci" (no, thanks) when trying to sell me cheap Eiffel tower trinkets.

 

[Spliffer971]

Désolé, je ne pensais pas affliger qui que ce soit.

 

[skunk]

Tell you what expression I did learn fast in Paris: casse-toi! It's an aggressive but not entirely vulgar way of telling someone to go away/bugger off/etc. It needed to be said to plenty of persistent street merchants who wouldn't listen to my first "No, merci" (no, thanks) when trying to sell me cheap Eiffel tower trinkets.

Sarkozy was recorded the other day saying "Casse-toi, pauvre con!" to one of his less-than-enthusiastic countrymen. Taken as a whole, the phrase could be a cue for a bit of a slapping. Be prepared.

 

[iBlue]

Sarkozy was recorded the other day saying "Casse-toi, pauvre con!" to one of his less-than-enthusiastic countrymen. Taken as a whole, the phrase could be a cue for a bit of a slapping. Be prepared.

Oh I was warned from my french-speaking cousin that it was an expression not to use casually and I took heed. I'm talking about guys that would literally body-block me and try to push crappy trinkets my way after I'd already politely said no. It was always said with the thought in mind I may need to duck or deliver a return slap or something.

 

[skunk]

Désolé, je ne pensais pas affliger qui que ce soit.

Heureusement, la plupart des enfants par içi ne parlent pas français.

 

[Spliffer971]

For my part, I think it's rather vulgar and aggressive but not necessarily, it is in our daily jargon and there are other ways to say maybe a little less aggressive as "barres-toi!", "dégage!" or "fous le camp!".

 

[skunk]

For my part, I think it's rather vulgar and aggressive but not necessarily, it is in our daily jargon and there are other ways to say maybe a little less aggressive as "barres-toi!"or "dégage!".

Dégage is good: the English equivalent would be "Back off", which is assertive without being aggressive.

 

[iBlue]

^ Noted.

For my part, I think it's rather vulgar and aggressive but not necessarily, it is in our daily jargon and there are other ways to say maybe a little less aggressive as "barres-toi!", "dégage!" or "fous le camp!".

I'd love to learn more French but I went with the few words and expressions I was told and could remember. Believe me, in the few situations I used casse-toi, it wasn't out of place.

This is not a totally fair representation of my experience in Paris though. Mostly I loved it and found people very polite. It really obliterated the myth of Parisians being surly and spiteful. Some of the street merchants though,

 

[Spliffer971]

Heureusement, la plupart des enfants par içi ne parlent pas français.

C'est, quelque part pour ça, que je ne l'ai pas traduite, au cas ou

 

[skunk]

Finally, this is what I think.

You are translating enfin as "finally" in the wrong context. It should be "at any rate".

 

[Spliffer971]

You are translating enfin as "finally" in the wrong context. It should be "at any rate".

Thanks, I'll remember it.

 

[iBlue]

One cute expression I learned was "le poisson rouge". It was said to me when I kept forgetting something on the way out and needed to go back to get it. The literal translation is the red fish but I believe it refers to a goldfish - notoriously forgetful and swimming in circles. It always made me smile when my cousin would say it.

She translated this for me from the catacombs and I loved it...



(someone else may translate better but roughly: "When you witness a death consider that the same death may await you."

 

[Spliffer971]

[url=http://upload.peekablue.com/files/2/travel/CatacombsDeathQuote_thumb.jpg]Image[/URL]

(someone else may translate better but roughly: "When you witness a death consider that the same death may await you."

"If you have sometimes seen a man die, always consider that the same fate waits for you."

 

[skunk]

(someone else may translate better but roughly: "When you witness a death consider that the same death may await you."

Only slightly more fully: "If you have seen a few men die, keep it in your mind that the same fate awaits you."