Brad.. can we have a new forum heading? - Page 2

NANAKI · #11 10-09-2006, 07:53 PM

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

aditya8617 · #12 10-09-2006, 08:06 PM

So is it going to be necessary to speak in French

. I just suck at learning languages.

garçoncanadien · #13 10-09-2006, 08:10 PM

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 · #14 10-10-2006, 08:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by garçoncanadien

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

.
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 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 · #15 10-10-2006, 12:49 PM

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 so stuck it in, which actually has Latin roots.

RMJ · #16 10-10-2006, 03:22 PM

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 · #17 10-10-2006, 03:23 PM

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)

.

aFrenchie · #18 10-10-2006, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

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 · #19 10-10-2006, 03:46 PM

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 · #20 10-10-2006, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 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.

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!):