Language resources

[Estro Felino]

I think it must be the same in Italian..

In Italian, if a noun ends by o, it is masculine.
If by a, it is feminine. It is very very easy

I was thinking of the word carrot (carota) which is feminine...
So...

 

[blü 2]

You know, I took four years of French and it's just been rotting in the back of my skull. I shouldn't let that go to waste. Anyone know of good free resources to practice language skills?

You could include Le Monde in your daily news reading.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

You know, that gives me a thought too. I could start seeing if I can find relevant French papers for my weekly reading. I try to add 3 papers a week to Zotero. I could start trying to add and digest at least one French one (on top of the English 3).

Some Netflix shows you can play in French, or with French subtitles...
(Probably other streaming services too)

But I'd recommend going to France. One of my happiest moments was having a Frenchmen greet me, me respond, and then him unloading a string of French (despite it being in a tourist trap). When he worked out I couldn't speak French he was effusive in his praise for me trying to pronounce French properly, and respecting the language.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Oooh...small note here. We'd been told the urban French could be prickly around language and English speakers.
No doubt like anywhere there's a mix but we saw none of it.

(Actually, only place we got that issue was Naples)

 

[ChristineM]

In Italian, if a noun ends by o, it is masculine.
If by a, it is feminine. It is very very easy

I was thinking of the word carrot (carota) which is feminine...
So...

Always an exception to any rule

 

[ChristineM]

Oooh...small note here. We'd been told the urban French could be prickly around language and English speakers.
No doubt like anywhere there's a mix but we saw none of it.

(Actually, only place we got that issue was Naples)

I've never noticed it except when market stall holders are having fun with loud Americans who won't try and complain that these french don't speak English.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Always an exception to any rule

In English it's more like 57 exceptions to every rule. I wrote a long note to one of my kids teachers on this very subject. (She'd told the class English words didn't end in I, and I'd ranted on about 'ski')

Initially, she had no understanding of my sense of humour, and thought I was seriously being the grammar police.

But a very long-time friend of mine (almost 30 years) is a senior staff member and explained my warped sense of humour.

So rather than addressing any points about my grammar, she wrote back congratulating me on the high quality of my handwriting, suggesting I should teach my husband how to write neatly, etc, etc.

I thought it was brilliant.

(And on the mark...my handwriting is kinda neat and somewhat feminine, I would say...weird as that sounds)

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I've never noticed it except when market stall holders are having fun with loud Americans who won't try and complain that these french don't speak English.

Heh...my wife didn't like me strutting around Europe in a Boston Celtics hat because she thought I'd be mistaken for an American. I grew a very Aussie moustache, but she didn't think that would help.

Regardless, vast majority of folks in Europe were great.

The police were a little...err...well-armed?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I'd like to be able to read French scientific papers and French poetry basically (pretty much because I already have a "head start" from my earlier life choices of taking the classes).

FYI - I took French all the way from grade 4 through the end of high school, and when I got to university, I discovered that none of my French courses gave me any of the technical vocabulary I'd need to discuss engineering, to say nothing of actually being an effective engineer in French.

I'm not sure what the best solution to this is. Watch French YouTube videos from people in your discipline? Read French introductory textbooks in your discipline? I'm not sure. I never really sorted that piece out for myself.

Edit: oh! One thing I did do that I think was helpful - and would be even more helpful if I actually read the thing as often as I should - I signed up for the email newsletter of a french-language NGO in my field. Maybe you can luck out and find something like that, also for free.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Right, I just want to be able to more fluently read and type it. I won't be able to speak it. Hearing it and understanding would also be good.

Do you like poetry? I'm trying to wade through a copy of Victor Hugo's "Les Contemplations".

Actually, if I'm honest, I've pretty much ground to a halt with that project lately. I have a copy of Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du Mal", with English translation on the facing pages, that makes the whole thing a lot more accessible. Gabriel Garcia Lorca's "Poema Del Cante Jondo" made me fall in love with Spanish btw.

If you know any French speakers, open up a dialogue with them, tout en Francais. Google Translate will never let you down.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

FYI - I took French all the way from grade 4 through the end of high school, and when I got to university, I discovered that none of my French courses gave me any of the technical vocabulary I'd need to discuss engineering, to say nothing of actually being an effective engineer in French.

I'm not sure what the best solution to this is. Watch French YouTube videos from people in your discipline? Read French introductory textbooks in your discipline? I'm not sure. I never really sorted that piece out for myself.

Edit: oh! One thing I did do that I think was helpful - and would be even more helpful if I actually read the thing as often as I should - I signed up for the email newsletter of a french-language NGO in my field. Maybe you can luck out and find something like that, also for free.

In my experience, sign up with a multinational that mandates English as their 'business language'.

Problem solved!!!

(Or half-avoided, anyway...ahem...)

 

[Meow Mix]

FYI - I took French all the way from grade 4 through the end of high school, and when I got to university, I discovered that none of my French courses gave me any of the technical vocabulary I'd need to discuss engineering, to say nothing of actually being an effective engineer in French.

I'm not sure what the best solution to this is. Watch French YouTube videos from people in your discipline? Read French introductory textbooks in your discipline? I'm not sure. I never really sorted that piece out for myself.

Edit: oh! One thing I did do that I think was helpful - and would be even more helpful if I actually read the thing as often as I should - I signed up for the email newsletter of a french-language NGO in my field. Maybe you can luck out and find something like that, also for free.

I bet intro texts would do it. I already skimmed a couple of papers by just using Google Scholar (.fr) and specifying French language; multiple papers had an English translation in the same document (alas, not on the same page, but still useful for technical term translations).

 

[Meow Mix]

Do you like poetry? I'm trying to wade through a copy of Victor Hugo's "Les Contemplations".

Actually, if I'm honest, I've pretty much ground to a halt with that project lately. I have a copy of Baudelaire's "Les Fleurs du Mal", with English translation on the facing pages, that makes the whole thing a lot more accessible. Gabriel Garcia Lorca's "Poema Del Cante Jondo" made me fall in love with Spanish btw.

If you know any French speakers, open up a dialogue with them, tout en Francais. Google Translate will never let you down.

I do love poetry! This is the sort of thing I'd like to be able to do ^.^

 

[exchemist]

Looks like I can just open Google Scholar in French with .fr and specify I want French language articles

Shouldn't that be chatte curieuse?

 

[exchemist]

I was told early on that most gender le/la can be sorted by thinking sex. If it can be penetrated or has an accessible inside its female, if it can penetrate its male.

Examples

Table and chair. Table is female, because the chair can penetrate the space underneath. Chaise penetrates that space.

La maison, female, you can go inside

le crayon (pencil) et la trousse (pencil case)

Who says romance languages aren't sex based?

La chaise, surely?

 

[ChristineM]

La chaise, surely?

Of course, my bad, its an exception to the rule

 

[Meow Mix]

Shouldn't that be chatte curieuse?

Whoops, right. Guess it would have been a confused cat to be "chatte curieux." It's been a long time and Romantic languages are weird for gendering everything haha.

 

[exchemist]

Whoops, right. Guess it would have been a confused cat to be "chatte curieux." It's been a long time and Romantic languages are weird for gendering everything haha.

My son, who is bilingual, tells me there is just no rule for the genders. You simply have to make a point of learning the gender for every new word you pick up, as if it's part of the spelling. I'm always getting it wrong, but he says the French know that's typical of English speakers, so they are not too shocked.

He told me, though, that knowing French helped him with the genders in Italian, to a large extent. I wonder if the same may be true of Spanish.

 

[Brickjectivity]

You know, I took four years of French and it's just been rotting in the back of my skull. I shouldn't let that go to waste. Anyone know of good free resources to practice language skills?

Play the open source game minetest, and choose a French speaking server. There will be lots of French speaking people on there. They will, in turn, invite you to Discord. Or any game, really, that has different servers. I bet minecraft does, too, and Roblox.

 

[Polymath257]

Looks like Duolingo might let me listen and type what I hear, but I don't know if it's mandatory to ever talk back to it

In Duolingo, you can almost always hit a button for 'I can't talk right now' or 'I can't listen right now'. it will then give a typed question/response.