The Great Canadian Practice your French Thread

[wacko]

Ce sujet revient encore? Alors, c'est le temps de pratiquer...

Mon français oral est très mauvais, mais je suis sourd, alors pour moi c'est déjà suffisamment difficle de me faire comprendre en anglais, pour ne rien dire de français! Mais quand j'étais en Italie, j'ai fait assez bien, les Italiens semblaient comprendre la plupart de mes paroles (en italien).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by wacko

Ce sujet revient encore? Alors, c'est le temps de pratiquer...

Mon français oral est très mauvais, mais je suis sourd, alors pour moi c'est déjà suffisamment difficle de me faire comprendre en anglais, pour ne rien dire de français! Mais quand j'étais en Italie, j'ai fait assez bien, les Italiens semblaient comprendre la plupart de mes paroles (en italien).

Votre français écrit est excellent. Bravo!

[Beedok]

J'ai besoin a utlisé cette 'thread' plus.

[MexiQuebecois]

Originally Posted by PrairieGirl

You must be hanging around with the wrong crowd there! My German friend learned profanity and slang first when he moved to Montreal. Now he is living down in Celaya, Mexico and I'm sure he's mastered their equivalent . His ear is quick to pick up that kind of stuff (his conversational French took a lot longer ).

Maybe I didn't express myself properly. Of course I "know" all those things, but if your German friend can express himself using puns, profanity and local phrases in Mexican Spanish without sounding like a complete foreigner or like he's trying too hard then he's got an amazing talent.

There's a difference between a random newcomer learning "Yo man, what's up" and sounding cute, to someone who can seamlessly integrate everything a language involves without anyone raising an eyebrow because it sounds odd.

My French is fluent to the point where I can have an educated debate about the most popular political issue at the moment, but I'm still getting to the point where I can naturally use some random and retarded phrase like "Ostie man, si ma prof me fait couler le cours, moi je vais badtripper en tabarnak" Though I gotta say hanging out with teenagers has done a lot (for the worse most likely) for my French skills.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by MexiQuebecois

"Ostie man, si ma prof me fait couler le cours, moi je vais badtripper en tabarnak"

Wow. How long have you been in Quebec again? Impressive

Also congratulations on getting that phrase flawlessly written -- I wouldn't be surprised to see from actual teens something more like "ostie man, si ma prof me fais coulé le cour, moi je vait badtripé en tabarnak"

[MexiQuebecois]

Originally Posted by lio45

Wow. How long have you been in Quebec again? Impressive

Also congratulations on getting that phrase flawlessly written -- I wouldn't be surprised to see from actual teens something more like "ostie man, si ma prof me fais coulé le cour, moi je vait badtripé en tabarnak"

LOL something like this? (One of my classmates)




Yeah I've noticed that the more languages I learn, the better I become in languages I already speak.

[rousseau]

A question about this sentence:

C'est toujours la même chose.

Is this "always" the same thing, or "still" the same thing? How do you differentiate between "always" and "still" in French?

[GreaterMontréal]

always the same thing...

still is ''encore''

c'est encore la même chose.

ex: 5 ans plus tard, c'est encore la même chose. but we often say ... c'est encore la même affaire. pronounced c't'encore la même affaire.

ex: Avec elle, c'est toujours la même chose..... c'toujours la même affaire.

[rousseau]

Thanks for that clarification, I was mixed up there. It's "encore" that can mean "still" and "again."

So how would you say: "It's the same thing again." "C'est la même affaire de nouveau"?

[GreaterMontréal]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Thanks for that clarification, I was mixed up there. It's "encore" that can mean "still" and "again."
So how would you say: "It's the same thing again." "C'est la même affaire de nouveau"?

same thing again is not really used in french.

en québécois, on dirait : c't'encore la même esti d'affaire. lol

we could say... c'est toujours la même chose, encore.
but here in Quebec we don't really talk like that. we put ''encore'', before , and not after.

I even hear sometimes: ...c'est encore toujours la même chose.


sorry for all the edit... we need to keep things simple here.lol

[lio45]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Thanks for that clarification, I was mixed up there. It's "encore" that can mean "still" and "again."

So how would you say: "It's the same thing again." "C'est la même affaire de nouveau"?

"It's the same thing again" = "C'est encore la même chose"

"always" would translate literally as "toujours", or "tout le temps" ("all the time"). But "toujours" can also be used as "still", as you pointed out. Context generally makes it clear. "Still" is literally translated as "encore". ("Encore une fois" = "Yet another time" or "Yet again")


FYI, "C'est la même affaire de nouveau" would get you understood in Quebec without problems, but it's not really clean French. "C'est encore la même affaire..." is better. (And even then, "la même affaire" used that way is something you should try to avoid, even though it might be OK in spoken Quebec French.)

[lio45]

Originally Posted by rousseau

A question about this sentence:

C'est toujours la même chose.

Is this "always" the same thing, or "still" the same thing? How do you differentiate between "always" and "still" in French?

Expanding a bit on that question... (which is a good question...)


Let's say you're stopped at a traffic light, you're driving, and can't see the light, so you're asking the passenger (who for some reason can see it much better than you) whether it's still red or has become green... "toujours rouge" would be your answer in correct French ("encore rouge" works just as well, too). Which is technically the same thing you'd say to mean that this particular traffic light is just always red... but in the context, it's obvious that isn't not.

Another example,

"Il n'est toujours pas arrivé"
(equivalent to "Il n'est pas encore arrivé")
means "he's still not here yet".


So, your "C'est toujours la même chose" can actually mean both, depending on the context.

"C'est toujours la même chose avec lui!" ("It's always the same thing with him!" and likely commenting on a negative trait, said that way)

"C'est toujours pareil!" can mean that it's again the same thing that popped up, yet another time.

So yes, can be both always and still.

[rousseau]

Thanks for the extensive explanation, lio45. Further to your examples, how would you translate these exchanges?

A: Is the light still red?
B: It's always red! (i.e. every time we come to this intersection the light is red)

A: Are you still here?
B: I'm always here! (i.e. I'm here all the time)

[Aylmer]

I would use 'toujours' in both cases, but I would just shift the emphasis onto 'toujours':

C'est toujours rouge!
Je suis toujours ici!

If you mean 'still' as opposed to 'always', the intonation is much flatter.

[Ramako]

Sorry for bumping this (literally) year-old thread, but I wanted to share something that readers of this thread might find useful: https://www.duolingo.com/

It's essentially a gamification of language learning and it's quite addictive. It's supposedly more effective than Rosetta Stone and it's free, as the website's source of income is using members to crowd source document translation services. I've been using it for the past few weeks and I'm steadily re-learning a decade's worth of grade-school French that I had forgotten years ago. Enjoy!

[FrAnKs]

Thats awesome ! I did it for English.

No sorries for bumping it, I think it's useful for everyone.

[le calmar]

I might give it another shot at Spanish. I've been trying to learn it for years but never really progressed. My level is pretty low, but learning a language is time consuming and I don't have the time right now so I will check out your method. I spent over two years trying to learn Japanese and can barely read hiragana and katakana, let alone or understanding what I am reading. I might actually give up on Japanese and concentrate on Spanish.

[rousseau]

This is a useful thread. I have a sudden question. Hope no one minds me bumping this thread for a bit.

How do you spell out French words that have accents over vowels? In English we obviously don't have this issue, so for "ready" you simply say "R, E, A, D, Y." But what about a word like "prêt," in French? What do you say for that "E" with the circumflex? And what about words like "là" and "l'été"?

Speaking of which, in English the answer to the question "what season comes between spring and fall" is "summer," but in French you'd say "l'été" with the definitive article, right? So what if someone asks, in French, how you spell "summer"? Do you include the definitive article?

[FrAnKs]

This thread is alive !!!

[Beedok]

Vous juste dissez l'accent non?