Brad.. can we have a new forum heading?

[Matrix]

Named... French Learning or French Class

And then Snatcher42 and RMJ and aFrenchie and others could teach us and lay down the law so to speak on french language.

Translations is good but its so vague.

[maareek]

If they're willing that'd be great but that's quite an endeavor. T_T

[Spartan500]

yeah that would be some work but if you can understand the interview translations then that should be alright when new interviews come out

[brad]

i doubt they want to teach us all French :p

i think the translation forum is good enough if you have specific questions or something in particular that you want to translate. We are lucky they take the time to help us at all .. we definitly don't want to push our luck.

[Twitch]

Wow that's an ambitious endeavor. I don't know if it's really possible to learn out of a book or from a website only, makes it really difficult not having someone helping you face to face. But there are a lot of websites that offer free French lessons, if you're bored these might keep you busy for a while.:)
http://www.bonjour.com/index.php
http://www.frenchassistant.com/default.asp
If you actually learn anything let me know...:D
EDIT:Section 8 of the first site has various love and romance sayings, not the most sophisticated, but if you ever meet Alizée you'll have something you can toss her way...:D

[NANAKI]

Well I am studing French in school so I can help a little

[aFrenchie]

Named... French Learning or French Class

And then Snatcher42 and RMJ and aFrenchie and others could teach us and lay down the law so to speak on french language.

Translations is good but its so vague.
That would be lots of work at least for me, but worse, I'm sure I have no pedagogy talent! So it would be no good for you :). I can't pretend to give real lessons!
I too think there are some good websites for that, I would add this one:
http://french.about.com

ANYWAY, if anyone of you is learning French and wants to sometimes ask any particular questions, then no problem. Brad could create something, and I'll reply each time I can. Some of you (especially garçoncanadien) already PM-ed me for help in French and I was happy to reply each time. So it could be done in the forum instead of PMs, if Brad is ok...


EDIT: no need to create a new forum for that though! French questions can be asked in the "Translation" section...

[neoteny]

Oui. j'aime cette idée. Je pense qu'il nous donnerait le bord pour apprendre la langue française. Cependant, ceci serait un grand problème avec afrenchie ou n'importe qui d'autre, parce que je ne pense pas qu'il aurait le temps pour faire quelque chose ennuyant si. Et im désolé pour faire ceci en français. Je l'ai fait pour vous ennuyer. désolé.

[zemasterzzz]

Sounds like a great plan but I think it'll be hard to learn over a forum board. I mean it was hard enough to try and learn it in school. It'd also be quite the undertaking for all our french speakers.


And I'm no expert in french, neotony, but did u use a translator? I'm pretty sure the "im" in the third last sentence, isn't a french word and the rest of the sentence is unconjugated (did I spell that right?). lol

[Twitch]

Well I have a question aFrenchie about French. It is just concerning French accents and ligatures and how important they are when typing French, I know they are used to show pronounciation but for the French is it really acceptable to type French without them? I know accents are important but are ligatures as important? I mean would you type Laetitia or Lætitia, coeur or cœur, oeil or œil. I took French since grade one but because almost all the keyboards in Canada are the standard American which don't support accents we were only required to use accents on the on e's and à's, and the obvious trémas (maïs, Noël) and cédilles were encouraged but not required, but ligatures were never mentioned.

EDIT PS: the about.com site is great it's what I've been using to brush up on my french grammar.

[NANAKI]

I just bought a dictionary from french to english and vis versa from Lake Forest College since I was visiting there today.

[aditya8617]

So is it going to be necessary to speak in French:(. I just suck at learning languages.

[garçoncanadien]

Hi Twitch,

Three of my university professors (who are natives of France) received e-mails from me with the whole shebang of ligatures and accents. However, they write respond to my e-mails without ligatures and accents. So I imagine they don't mind too much when it is in informal writing. In formal writing, they would like it better with the ligatures and accents.

just an impression

[aFrenchie]

Three of my university professors (who are natives of France) received e-mails from me with the whole shebang of ligatures and accents. However, they write respond to my e-mails without ligatures and accents. So I imagine they don't mind too much when it is in informal writing. In formal writing, they would like it better with the ligatures and accents.
Maybe they only had a "qwerty" keyboard with no accents? Because like Twitch suggests, all accents are important indeed, since they all modify the pronounciation. Any French person will always naturally type them, or their word would sound weird or just different. I mean even those who are very bad at spelling: they will even use some phonatically, where there's no need to put one :D.
On the other hand the ligatures are a different case, since even on French "azerty" keyboards, they are not present! We have to use an ALT-number combination, as some of you do for the é in Alizée on your English keyboard. Well, now most of good text editors, like Winword or OpenOffice.org, automatically insert a œ in cœur or œil if you type coeur or oeil instead...
At last, I'd say that the œ is almost the only ligature in French, since I can't remember of another word than the "Lætitia" forename that has this æ! Even on Wikipedia, they can't give another example: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86


EDIT: oddly, Wikipedia-English section (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86) says more about French than in the French section:
"In the modern French alphabet, it is used to spell Latin borrowings like et cætera, tænia, ex æquo."
Those word are only Latin words with no transformation though...

[Twitch]

Thanks guys, looks like I'll have to pay more attention to my accents, especially with words like:
ou - or
où - where
pécher - to sin
pêcher - to fish
mais - but
maïs - corn
But like garçoncanadien said they're not that fussy about it in Canada because with an American keyboard accents can be time consuming and a real chore to type. And French Canadian keyboards, QWERTY format but with all the accent functions like the French AZERTY are hard to find now, and most only come in computer beige. And I knew that æ was rare, I just like the name Lætitia (http://monsu.desiderio.free.fr/curiosites/ligat-ae.html) so stuck it in, which actually has Latin roots.

[RMJ]

The whole keyboard thing is just an excuse not to type them correctly. You can have ANY key layout on ANY keyboard. It's just setting in your operating system. In windows it's located in regional settings.

American can switch to French keyboard layout any day. If they wishes to. If they don't then they can blame only themselves.

Beside, it's enought to switch to US international key layout to be able to use most of the accents easily. And switching to Canadian layout is even better. No need to go to French layout since it would be difficult to learn (because couple normal alphabets are "mislocated").

If they keys are physically marked wrong, is pretty much irrelevant since who really looks to keyboard when typing ? No-one, with more than couple months experience of computers.

I'm normally using Finnish layout, but I sometimes need to use US layout (since it's default in many programs and operating systems). Not to mention using Mac's and Sun's keyboards.

[aFrenchie]

Well, I was wrong about the fact that ALL accents change the pronunciation. Some don't, like the ù or the à for example, and even French people will sometimes forget those and will write a "u" or a "a" instead, at least those who don't attach a great importance to orthography or are just not good at it. Also, some may use a è instead a ê or a ë because they change the pronunciation the same way. Of course no one will mix a é with a è since they're like opposites. At least for the French, since like I already said here, the é sound doesn't exist in English and English speaking people in France pronounce our é like a è. Like if Alizée was spelled Alizèe (or -zay) :p.

[aFrenchie]

The whole keyboard thing is just an excuse not to type them correctly. You can have ANY key layout on ANY keyboard. It's just setting in your operating system. In windows it's located in regional settings.
Yes, but the keyboard won't change in the process. As a French in Canada or in the US, I'm not sure I would want to use a qwerty keyboard as an azerty one! :)

[RMJ]

qwerty and azerty are physically excatly same. Only couple keys are mislocated. If you wish, you can move them yourself to right place. It's just the markings in the keyboard that differs. Electrically they works 100% equally.

"French A" letter sends excatly same signal as "American Q" letter. Operating system then decides what is shown. And that depends only on what you keyboard layout is set to be.

[aFrenchie]

qwerty and azerty are physically excatly same. Only couple keys are mislocated. If you wish, you can move them yourself to right place. It's just the markings in the keyboard that differs. Electrically they works 100% equally.

"French A" letter sends excatly same signal as "American Q" letter. Operating system then decides what is shown. And that depends only on what you keyboard layout is set to be.
I agree and I already had to use this the other way around (an azerty as a qwerty). But it's very confusing because the layout is very different, especially to retrieve the sign characters. If you don't have the real keyboard before your eyes, it's a headache to find each of them!
Here are the differences (look at all signs!):

[Twitch]

Switching the keyboard setting is a work around, but like aFrenchie said, it can be really interestng to find the right key for all the accents you don't use in English when they are not marked on the keyboard. A keyboard map is useful but only if it accurate to the program settings. But the other problem is that the standard American keyboard most widely available in North America doesn't have as many keys as the international keyboards, having larger shift keys instead. Here is a map of the French Canadian and Standard US keyboards, the letters are the same but some symbols are moved around.

[RMJ]

You learn them anyways. :) I used to use German keyboard long time with Finnish kyeboard layout. Never had problem. :)

And I need to face that everytime when I switch to US layout. The markings on my keyboard doesn't match then. I need to remember which key is which, but that again is quickly learn.

As earlier said, no-one who uses computer in daily basis watches keyboard when typing. Once you have learn the layout, it's irrelevant if the markings there are correct or not. You could throw French keyboard in front of me and I wouldn't notice a thing. I'd keep writing like I have always done, since it's physically exactly same as this Finnish one.

Of course, if you'd change my keyboard layout to French one, then I'd be in trouble for first couple weeks. It would take short while to learn where the characters are. But only short while. Like I said, I know US layout, too. I needed to learn it. I still don't remember every special character of it but I know the most common ones.

[General Patton]

You learn them anyways. :) I used to use German keyboard long time with Finnish kyeboard layout. Never had problem. :)

And I need to face that everytime when I switch to US layout. The markings on my keyboard doesn't match then. I need to remember which key is which, but that again is quickly learn.

As earlier said, no-one who uses computer in daily basis watches keyboard when typing. Once you have learn the layout, it's irrelevant if the markings there are correct or not. You could throw French keyboard in front of me and I wouldn't notice a thing. I'd keep writing like I have always done, since it's physically exactly same as this Finnish one.

Of course, if you'd change my keyboard layout to French one, then I'd be in trouble for first couple weeks. It would take short while to learn where the characters are. But only short while. Like I said, I know US layout, too. I needed to learn it. I still don't remember every special character of it but I know the most common ones.

Wow... that sounds like a pain in the as*

[DJ_Greg]

Heh, aFrenchie, RMJ, and Twitch have entire multi-page thread about keyboards.

[aFrenchie]

Heh, aFrenchie, RMJ, and Twitch have entire multi-page thread about keyboards.
You can participate if you want. Post your keyboard opinions! :D.

[DJ_Greg]

I like black ones.

[Señor Villa]

Maybe this will help

For accented characters the key below will allow anyone to quickly type the characters from using the codes below. Bad news is that you might have to memorize some of these codes. The only good reasons for this key is that you don't have to change settings on your computer, and you don't have to goto additional pages or load applets that might not work correctly. This works on all US default keyboards and is based off of the default font windows uses.

To get these characters Press and hold the "alt" key, doesn't matter which one. Then enter the 4 digit code on your keypad. Release the Alt key and your character will appear.

À = alt + 0192
Á = alt + 0193
 = alt + 0194
à = alt + 0195
Ä = alt + 0196
Å = alt + 0197
Æ = alt + 0198
Ç = alt + 0199
È = alt + 0200
É = alt + 0201
Ê = alt + 0202
Ë = alt + 0203
Ì = alt + 0204
Í = alt + 0205
Î = alt + 0206
Ï = alt + 0207
Ð = alt + 0208
Ñ = alt + 0209
Ò = alt + 0210
Ó = alt + 0211
Ô = alt + 0212
Õ = alt + 0213
Ö = alt + 0214
Ù = alt + 0217
Ú = alt + 0218
Û = alt + 0219
Ü = alt + 0220
Ý = alt + 0221
ß = alt + 0223
à = alt + 0224
á = alt + 0225
â = alt + 0226
ã = alt + 0227
ä = alt + 0228
å = alt + 0229
æ = alt + 0230
ç = alt + 0231
è = alt + 0232
é = alt + 0233
ê = alt + 0234
ë = alt + 0235
ì = alt + 0236
í = alt + 0237
î = alt + 0238
ï = alt + 0239
ñ = alt + 0241
ò = alt + 0242
ó = alt + 0243
ô = alt + 0244
õ = alt + 0245
ö = alt + 0246
ù = alt + 0249
ú = alt + 0250
û = alt + 0251
ü = alt + 0252
ý = alt + 0253

[RMJ]

Release the Alt key and your character will appear.

You don't happen to know ALT code for Alizée ? I would so like if she'd appear, too ! :D

[Señor Villa]

You don't happen to know ALT code for Alizée ? I would so like if she'd appear, too ! :D

I think it is ALT RMJ or ALT CUTE

[RMJ]

I think it is ALT RMJ or ALT CUTE

You made me actually try that...

... but it didn't work. :(

Not even Alt Reality worked. :(

[Señor Villa]

Keep trying RMJ;)

[atra201]

je suis agree.

translation:

I agree,french members pleeeeeeeeeeeez help us.

[aFrenchie]

je suis agree.

translation:

I agree,french members pleeeeeeeeeeeez help us.
Ok. So first lesson for you: "Je suis agree" means nothing (that could be called Frenglish :) )
You should say: "Je suis d'accord" (tip note: "D'accord" said alone means "Ok")

[Matrix]

Sometimes the french say d'accord and other times they simply say okay like we english do. I've heard it on the videos. You dont hear the "kay" in okay when they say it, its more like this..."oh key"

[HibyPrime]

Ok. So first lesson for you: "Je suis agree" means nothing (that could be called Frenglish :) )
You should say: "Je suis d'accord" (tip note: "D'accord" said alone means "Ok")

Don't forget to type it out phonetically, otherwise he is going to end up saying it like an idiot.

I think everyone knows how to say "Je suis" so I'll leave that out. Heres my attempt at a phonetic d'accord:
Dah-Kohr. I honestly have no clue on how to phonetically write out the roll of the R at the end, so I left it out (just pretend you are Canadian, or you learnt french in Canada).

[aFrenchie]

he is going to end up saying it like an idiot.
:D :D

Heres my attempt at a phonetic d'accord
Again, this link Brad provided is generally good at pronouncing French properly:
http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php#top

According to my tests, rather choose "Juliette..French" for better results than "Alain..French". There's also "Arnaud..CA French" (for Canadian French) but it will turn out funny for French people :). Although it seems to be accurate also (?).

I've made an MP3 out of the Juliette result with "je suis d'accord":

[Twitch]

Hey, I'm Canadian and I can pronounce French R's, although not yet perfectly in all cases but most of the time.:) And in this part of the world Franglais is also known as chiac and is spoken by people who grew up in the areas where they speak Acadien French which is so different than Quebec French, or Metropolitan French that even aFrenchie would have no clue what the hell they are talking about.
Wikipedia's site Chiac (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiac)
And examples, from wikipedia but ones I've heard.:)
Ej vas driver mon truck à soir pis ça va êt'e right la fun.
J'schwimmais dans l'ocean et j'tais right soaking-wet.
Chais pas quosse tu parles about

And a page by chiac speaker Je suis acadien (http://rejean.org/acadian.html). And typed it is easier to understand because the Acadians use obsolete pronouciations that have all been removed from the modern day French language which is why you only understand it if you grew up with it and why it can be really annoying when trying to communicate with them. Even when they aren't using chiac but Acadian French.

[aFrenchie]

Sometimes the french say d'accord and other times they simply say okay like we english do.It's sometime used indeed :).

You dont hear the "kay" in okay when they say it, its more like this..."oh key"Do you mean this?:

[Twitch]

"Arnaud..CA French" (for Canadian French) but it will turn out funny for French people :). Although it seems to be accurate also (?).
Arnaud speaks French something like I do aFrenchie, but I found Alain closer to how I'm used to hearing French. One of the many reasons why I want to go to France and clean up my accent. Especially since I've been told that people in France have difficulty understanding French Canadians although we have no trouble understanding you. Quebequers usually switch to an accent more familiar to the French when they are in France.

[aFrenchie]

And a page by chiac speaker Je suis acadien (http://rejean.org/acadian.html). And typed it is easier to understand because the Acadians use obsolete pronouciations that have all been removed from the modern day French language which is why you only understand it if you grew up with it and why it can be really annoying when trying to communicate with them. Even when they aren't using chiac but Acadian French.
HILARIOUS! :D And I imagine it would be even funnier if I could hear that with the huge accent :D

[aFrenchie]

I've been told that people in France have difficulty understanding French Canadians although we have no trouble understanding you.
I remember a French Canadians speaking on TV news and I could hardly understand a whole sentence! The news clip used subtitles so we can understand :p. On the other hand, Quebecers are very understandable and very funny for us, even charming! :)

[HibyPrime]

I remember a French Canadians speaking on TV news and I could hardly understand a whole sentence! The news clip used subtitles so we can understand :p. On the other hand, Quebecers are very understandable and very funny for us, even charming! :)

Theres a difference? I have a lot of learning to do here...

[aFrenchie]

Theres a difference? I have a lot of learning to do here...
It may depend on which regions in Canada?
I know that even some Quebecers, also depending on their regions, can be a bit more difficult to understand than all others.

[brad]

aaahhh .. i always wondered about 'd'accord' ..

alizee says it a lot, it is very clear in the fun tv interview. I always thought it sounded like "day-ka" .. I had no idea what it meant (or how it was spelled), but assumed it was the same as OK.

Is that what she is saying in this video at about 1:20 - 1:22 ... or is it something else?

http://moi-alizee.us/play/?v=4

[HibyPrime]

It may depend on which regions in Canada?
I know that even some Quebecers, also depending on their regions, can be a bit more difficult to understand than all others.

This is how much of canada speaks french:

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/8428/untitled1hv9.jpg

There are some speakers in Nova Scotia (east of Quebec), but definately not a majority.

[aFrenchie]

Is that what she is saying in this video at about 1:20 - 1:22 ... or is it something else?

http://moi-alizee.us/play/?v=4
Exactly. She says it 3 times in a row: 1:20 (indeed) then at 1:31 and 1:43

[aFrenchie]

This is how much of canada speaks french:

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/8428/untitled1hv9.jpg

There are some speakers in Nova Scotia (east of Quebec), but definately not a majority.
Are you in this blue area?

[RadioactiveMan]

Normally in Canada we refer to Quebecers as French Canadians. Perhaps aFrenchie was applying the term French Canadian to any Canadian who speaks French.

Hiby, what about in Manitoba? I'm only asking since I'm not sure, but aren't there still French-speaking Métis there?

Edit: Hiby is in Toronto which is a little south of the blue area.

[Twitch]

Theres a difference? I have a lot of learning to do here...
Heck there are differences between if you grew up in Quebec city or Montreal. And Quebequers aren't shy to let you know about. Like how Maritimers are poked fun of by Westerners, well its the same with your French accent. And that's for the Francophones, they must really love it when an Anglophone shows up and tries to speak French. Especially one who's French is their second language. But it is usually done as friendly raillery like how people in Toronto usually bug us Maritimers.:)
Le Français Québécois (http://www.republiquelibre.org/cousture/FRANC2.HTM)
Expression Québécoise (http://www.republiquelibre.org/cousture/EXPRES.HTM)
Rant section: "Québécois French is nothing else than a national French", lines like that piss me off, Quebec is a Canadian province and not its own nation. It's bad enough that the last refferendum to separate came to a 49.42% vote to separate, but its when Quebec separatists bring the Quebec flag instead of the Canadian flag to the Olympics that they really piss me off.

[brad]

Exactly. She says it 3 times in a row: 1:20 (indeed) then at 1:31 and 1:43

thanks!!!! one of the first things that really got me hooked on alizee was that fun tv interview, and i loved it when she said that ... lol

never knew for sure what it was though :)

[HibyPrime]

Are you in this blue area?

Naw, just south of it in Toronto as Radio said. link (http://www.worldwide-motorhome-hire.com/products/motorhome-rental/north-america/canada/fw/images/canada-map.jpg)

Hiby, what about in Manitoba? I'm only asking since I'm not sure, but aren't there still French-speaking Métis there?

There are French speakers all over Canada, but very few are fluent and fewer still practice french outside of courses and things of the like.

There should probably be one little blue dot in each province to account for them, but I just didn't think that deepy when I made the little pic, lol.

[rwd716]

Exactly. She says it 3 times in a row: 1:20 (indeed) then at 1:31 and 1:43

Then, at 2:11 she says O.K. Lol, I guess youFrenchies will take some getting used to. :p

BTW, why do usEnglish even say O.K.?

[HibyPrime]

Then, at 2:11 she says O.K. Lol, I guess youFrenchies will take some getting used to. :p

BTW, why do usEnglish even say O.K.?

http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutwordorigins/ok

meGoogled

[Twitch]

I would love to hear Alizée say 'Tiguidou!' I had a French girlfriend from Québec who used it all the time. I thought it was adorable.:) It's used by some speakers of Québec French to mean 'ok!' instead of 'd'accord!'

[aFrenchie]

Then, at 2:11 she says O.K. Lol, I guess youFrenchies will take some getting used to.It's not new! We (occasionally) use "ok" since decades already and it's even in French dictionaries now :). But "d'accord" remains more natural and way more used of course.

[Twitch]

Sorry to bump this back up, but for those of you with mediocre French skills who want a free online spelling and grammer checker can try this one designed by the University of Alberta to help out their students who were learning French. It's faster than using a word processor for forums and stuff. The interface can be set to English or French.
http://lepatron.ca/lepatron.gif (http://lepatron.tapor.ualberta.ca/)
It also has all you accented vowels so you just have to click on the one you want if you don't know how to type it.

[aFrenchie]

http://lepatron.ca/lepatron.gif (http://lepatron.tapor.ualberta.ca/)

I just took a look and it looks great! I'll test it more to see if it's very efficient.

[Twitch]

I like it, only thing is because they designed it to help you learn French it doesn't automatically fix your mistakes, explains what is wrong and then you have to fix them yourself. So not as efficient as having everything corrected automatically but really great in helping you learn. And they based on French not Québecois so it's more appropriate for formal writing, leaving the colourful nature of Québecois for everyday conversation.

Edit: They do welcome comments for improvements if you find anything wrong with it.

[aFrenchie]

I've made some tests and of course it can't point all grammar and conjugation errors. Too complex for a software, at least nowadays. They should have a semantic engine and that should be hard/huge to develop...