The Great Canadian Practice your French Thread

[lio45]

Originally Posted by rousseau

If French people use "nous" more then Quebeckers, then I wonder if the French kids I overheard were exchange students in Quebec (maybe on a weekend trip to Toronto) who had picked up the "on" usage there?

No, it's perfectly normal in colloquial speech to use "on" as a replacement for "nous" for them as well. When I said that anyone using the technically correct, "written French" form in speech (with a neutral accent, say a Radio-Canada type of accent... otherwise any thick accent (French, English) would trump speech by far - speak "perfect written French" with a French accent, you're obviously from France, speak "perfect written French" with an English accent, you're obviously an Anglo who learned well) would probably by default be guessed a Frenchman, it's because anyone who speaks like that ("that properly", I guess we could say) will be automatically assumed to be foreign (and snobbish, and disliked).

"On y va!" and "Let's go!" are literally both things you'll hear francophones say, both here in Quebec and in Europe.

"Allons-y" sounds so formal that nobody* would say that nowadays, and if they did it might be semi-jokingly by saying "Allons-y Alonzo!"

Except maybe my 91 years old grandpa, who still kinda speaks like a Frenchman from the first half of the last century.

[GlassCity]

When I said like "let's see" I meant like how an English speaker might say it when trying to pick out the right words. "What should you wear to the interview? Let's see...definitely don't wear a hoodie" or something like that.

[lio45]

BTW, one little nugget of wisdom I recall from when I was tackling German two decades ago - the method I was using made sure to tell the reader that they should learn the articles alongside with the nouns, because there's no way to later figure out which gender things are unless you know it. It actually doesn't take much more effort to learn that a table is "der Tisch" than just learning it's a "tisch".

I think that's really critical advice to any Anglos at any stage of learning French, so I'm saying it out here - never satisfy yourself with just learning a new noun without also taking in the accompanying article at the same time. When you'll be saying things like "j'ai placé la couteau sur le table" you may think you're speaking okay French but with zero extra effort at the time of learning the words you could instead have gotten it right.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

When I said like "let's see" I meant like how an English speaker might say it when trying to pick out the right words. "What should you wear to the interview? Let's see...definitely don't wear a hoodie" or something like that.

Yeah, but that kind of hesitation which is more of a decision-making than a memory lapse would be a straight case of "voyons voir".

"voyons voir..... clairement, pas ça! bon, quoi d'autre...?"

whereas what we meant would be more like:

"Ça s'appelle comment, ce genre de vêtement, donc...? ahhh, je l'ai sur le bout de la langue... voyons... c'est quoi, donc? me semble que je suis censé le savoir!"

[GlassCity]

Seem similar to me, but perhaps that "voyons" has a greater sense of frustration.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

Seem similar to me, but perhaps that "voyons" has a greater sense of frustration.

Absolutely. That's the difference. In those examples I'd translate "voyons voir" to "let's see" and I'd translate "voyons!" to "dammit!", and I'd say the gap in meaning between the two is about equivalent to the gap in meaning between their English translations. Also, in speech the tone used for the latter would no doubt make the frustration palpable, a factor that's completely lost in writing.

[Loco101]

Merci Acajack et lio45.

Now "voyons" , "voyons voir" and "voyons donc" totally make sense to me. I have a francophone friend who used to say "voyons" all the time when she was driving and something would go wrong. She wasn't a great driver but always blamed other drivers for her mistakes and I didn't want to ask her what it meant as she was screaming at other drivers while I was laughing.

[lake of the nations]

Let's momentarily convert this into a Great Canadian Practice you English Thread. I would like to have the opinion of native speakers regarding the use of the definite article before "[insert an action here] of [insert a noun here]."

1. Construction of buildings requires large amounts of steel and concrete.
2. Construction of the buildings...
3. The construction of buildings...
4. The construction of the buildings...

There is of course a difference between "buildings" (indefinite, buildings in general) and "the buildings" (definite, specific buildings), but the article before "construction" doesn't really convey any meaningful semantic information. I for one would tend to say "the construction," especially when referring to specific buildings (an indefinite action targeting a definite thing seems a bit illogical to me), but I've often witnessed constructs equivalent to (2), especially in scientific papers.

What are your thoughts on this? Which sentences would you be more prone to use in casual, literary or scientific speech?

[MonctonRad]

Construction of buildings requires large amounts of steel and concrete.

- This works fine as a generic statement pertaining to buildings in general.

- The other three possibilities you enumerated would be more appropriate is you are referring to a specific building project.

The construction of the buildings requires large amounts of steel and concrete.

You are referring specifically to the buildings in question.

[lio45]

One of the two cases mirrors French (as you yourself pointed out : "la construction d'immeubles (en général)" vs "la construction des (susmentionnés) immeubles")

The "the" to start the sentence seems optional, I'm of the same opinion as you and will let native speakers chime in

[MonctonRad]

Actually, now that I think of it, option #3 is also a generic statement as well. What makes the difference is the the in front of buildings

[lio45]

The only real question we have here is the difference between #3-4 and their respective #1-2 cousins. Lake answered his own question regarding the other case (generic vs specific).

[mousquet]

Quite sure it takes a little (say minimal) experience in speaking or writing English to make a difference between these statements for a French-speaker, because the use of articles, whether definite or indefinite is pretty systematic and compulsory in legal French, while English brings about some subtlety here.

As far as I go, I would use #1 in any generic case.
#2 in a casual conversation, when construction is carried out on particular, known (definite) buildings.
I think #4 is exactly the same as #2, but maybe more suitable to a written formal document. Although that's only some vague feeling of mine.

#3 seems odd to me. I wouldn't ever use it.

[mintzilla]

Can someone suggest a novel that would be easy to read for a beginner-intermediate French learner. I feel my reading comprehension has really improved by leaps and bounds (spoken is still shit though)

(Novel for men please, no sexy vampires.)

[mousquet]

Funny, I just met a case where I found #3 sort of relevant.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...&postcount=437

But it's plural and more or less definite (towers in Paris).

Originally Posted by mintzilla

Can someone suggest a novel that would be easy to read for a beginner-intermediate French learner.

You should pick anything taught in 6th grade in French schools.
Avoid "le Lion" by Joseph Kessel, though. It's too slow, hellish.

Let me remember... Oh, here's a fine creepy French novel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Is_My_Trade

You will be both fascinated and terrified. It describes the process to turn a normally balanced human being into a Nazi psychopath, or a stupid robot just obeying any order.
Brilliant novel, historically accurate (the author is basically a historian), not too hard to read.
The guy just changed the name, but if I recall correctly, this is close to a biography of Rudolf Höss, an SS senior official.
The message is simple. Anyone brainwashed may become completely insane as an efficient savage, as proven by the 1930's German nationalist regime.

When you master the language, you read romantic novels by Victor Hugo. These are so powerful that they will turn you into a faithful Christian.

[Dengler Avenue]

2 questions about tenses:
Is passé simple still used nowadays?
How do you use conditionnel?

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

2 questions about tenses:
Is passé simple still used nowadays?
How do you use conditionnel?

Passé simple = passé défini?

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

Passé simple = passé défini?

Oui.
I took French in university for a year and only knew so much. Plus the chapter about food bored the jazz out of me.

[The Macallan]

In 2015-16, Mme Macallan and I passed eight happy months living in a village in France, about 30 km west northwest of Montpellier in Languedoc. Our French may have been inadequate, and it certainly was, but it was significantly better than the English of most of the villagers. If we wanted to communicate, it was in our poor French.

One of our neighbors had some knowledge of Canada owing to the fact that his late father, though native French himself, had worked in the office of Radio Canada in Paris after WW II. Nevertheless, when he met us he assumed we were American. “Pas de tout,” I replied, “Nous ne sommes pas Américains. Sommes Canadiens mais Canadiens anglais, comme vous pouvez entendre.”

He replied, in French, “Yes, I can hear that ..”. And then he paused. It was obvious he was going to complete the sentence with something like, “because your accent is so appalling.” But on second thought, he obviously came to the conclusion that to say such a thing would not be polite. With an audible grinding of linguistic gears, he finished the sentence with, “because you don’t say ’Tabernac’ all the time!”

A smooth save. At first, most people seemed to suppose we were from the US. One day we stepped out our backdoor where two mesdames of a certain age were working. One said to the other something like, “Voici les idiots Américains!” I took off my hat and very politely spoke the obvious rejoinder, “Non, Madame. Nous sommes les idiots Canadiens.” She laughed in a surpringly unembarrassed fashion. Afterwards she was one of the most friendly people in the village.

I could go on but that’s certainly enough to try your patience.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

2 questions about tenses:
1. Is passé simple still used nowadays?
2. How do you use conditionnel?

1. It is rather something literary these days, far more than anything colloquial.
In oral (or even written) French, passé composé is the common thing.
However, the current minister of education is the most strict technocrat I've ever seen in my lifetime, and people actually seem to have respect for him, cause he seems both so strict and self-confident.
Just look at him.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Michel_Blanquer

That dude could kill to have children speak the finest possible French, so I wouldn't give up on seemingly outdated passé simple.
Who knows? It may come back in fashion sometime.

2. Just like in English. It may only be slightly more complicated than a single would + infinitive verb.
You have to learn about the proper terminations, but those aren't unusual in the colloquial language.
Which means they are both easy enough and very useful.

I'll admit the French are pretty obnoxious to foreigners. They blame on them for being unable to speak French, but statistics show that only English-speakers are poorer than us at learning foreign languages.
In such a pitiful situation, I respectfully shut my mouth and speak English to international visitors who don't know about our language over here.
This is just common sense.