New Members: Introduce yourself - Page 154

fsquared · #**1531** 11-22-2007, 05:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesuisRusse

You know French!?

How long did it take you? To be able to read it?

Well, there's no reason to be mad, you should be happy for him. And, keep in mind, he has a bit of a leg up on you or me, being a native speaker of a Romance language. I'm sure if your new favorite popstar was, say, Bulgarian, you wouldn't need all that long to be able to start reading articles.

DirtyACE · #**1532** 11-22-2007, 05:28 PM

Welcome all new members! Hope you find this forum and its members as enjoyable and pleasant I have when they welcomed me. You wont regret joining as this is a one of a kind place, with people from all walks of life.

Abstract Being: your English is excellent, don't worry about it

jesuisRusse · #**1533** 11-22-2007, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fsquared

Well, there's no reason to be mad, you should be happy for him. And, keep in mind, he has a bit of a leg up on you or me, being a native speaker of a Romance language. I'm sure if your new favorite popstar was, say, Bulgarian, you wouldn't need all that long to be able to start reading articles.

I'm not mad, I put the ":-) ". But I am trying to learn French.
>>I'm sure if your new favorite popstar was, say, Bulgarian, you wouldn't need all that long to be able to start reading articles.
Haha, I know. It totally works! But most of the time I end up using translators ;-)))

Abstract Being · #**1534** 11-22-2007, 07:30 PM

I took me about two weeks. I can read: I don't have to look every word in the dictionary. I use wordreference (I can't post urls yet lol) but full vocabulary will take me long time.
Anyway, already knowing English and Spanish, most words are similar to either one or the other, that is, nouns mostly. Verbs have 3 forms like in Spanish according to their termination (-er -ir -re). Then I visited some sites, where I found out some constructions, like the negative with "pas", that are unfamiliar to me.
I cannot understand spoken French yet, but I'm a bit relaxed as I have some basis now (I'm not desperate any more).

Thanks for the welcome, I appreciate it a lot, it makes me feel comfortable

alswamprat · #**1535** 11-22-2007, 07:59 PM

As you can see I am new to the forum. This website is terrific! I followed advice I read on here about letting Amazon know I wanted the new CD and by gosh the message came today about pre-order available. So I ordered and it's coming and I'm so excited!

DirtyACE · #**1536** 11-22-2007, 08:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alswamprat

As you can see I am new to the forum. This website is terrific! I followed advice I read on here about letting Amazon know I wanted the new CD and by gosh the message came today about pre-order available. So I ordered and it's coming and I'm so excited!

Welcome to the forum alswamprat. You joined just in time for the new album. Hope you enjoy your stay

jesuisRusse · #**1537** 11-22-2007, 08:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abstract Being

I took me about two weeks. I can read: I don't have to look every word in the dictionary. I use wordreference (I can't post urls yet lol) but full vocabulary will take me long time.
Anyway, already knowing English and Spanish, most words are similar to either one or the other, that is, nouns mostly. Verbs have 3 forms like in Spanish according to their termination (-er -ir -re). Then I visited some sites, where I found out some constructions, like the negative with "pas", that are unfamiliar to me.
I cannot understand spoken French yet, but I'm a bit relaxed as I have some basis now (I'm not desperate any more).

Thanks for the welcome, I appreciate it a lot, it makes me feel comfortable

Cool! So spanish helps you. Negative with "ne" and "pas".
I don't know many words yet. I know some verbs, subjects (ofcourse), and all that... Hey, how do you understand the time, like that past tense, and others?

Abstract Being · #**1538** 11-22-2007, 09:02 PM

Yeah!
Mmmm, verbs in French can be translated to Spanish almost directly, because Spanish has the same variations: indicative, compounds, subjunctives, etc. each changing according to same pronouns (I, you, he/she, etc). So the difficulty is to remember them.

jesuisRusse · #**1539** 11-22-2007, 09:59 PM

What about tenses?
How do you understand them?

fsquared · #**1540** 11-22-2007, 10:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jesuisRusse

What about tenses?
How do you understand them?

He was in fact talking about the tenses in his response. Spanish and French have reasonably similar tense structures (unlike Russian, which has very few tenses if I recall).
I think you may have to ask more specific questions than "how do you understand tenses?" I mean, do you want to understand the difference between the passe simple and passe compose, or the concept of a subjunctive, or etc. etc.?

Maybe this will help you:

http://lingvo.asu.ru/france/france.html