French Canadians I need your help!

[alva]

We nowadays get more porn then regular programs on tv then anything else

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Calc II
It must suck to be french canadian.

You are made fun of by the canadians. But even worse....

You are made fun of by the french as well!

That's not quite accurate. I make fun of Newfies. The French are cool, though I wish they'd chuck out their language.

[Timexwatch]

Originally posted by Spectator

Try Super Sex or Chez Paré......or get a girlfriend

This is a weekend out with the boys, so even I did have a woman

[Ben Kenobi]

Spiffor:

"Brune" is the French word for the adjective brunette. "

I was lazy and didn't check to see the french adjective. Brunette did not sound right behind the adjective, so I moved it forward.

The verb "savoir" sounds strange when it has a direct object. The verb "connaître" sounds better in this occurence. When there is a proposition behind, the verb "savoir" is self obvious (example : "Je sais que tu es ici" is a sentence in which the verb "connaître" would have no place)

I thought that to know someone = connaitre
To know something = savoir.

The main problem is that English only has one word for both french concepts, to know.

(example : "Richelieu connaît peut-être d'autres mots") I advise you to use "Peut être" in the middle of sentences when possible, it doesn't change the sentence's structure, AFAIK.

That sounds much better.

About the "d'autres mots".

All your nouns have genders. Genders are evil!


Merci, spiffor. Je vais plus de practice avec la langue francais, parce que je l'ai perdu.

[Willem]

Originally posted by St Leo


That's not quite accurate. I make fun of Newfies. The French are cool, though I wish they'd chuck out their language.

So what, everyone makes fun of Newfies, including Newfies.

[Spiffor]

About Connaître and Savoir, I thought about it again, and my theory doesn't hold water. While it is very strange to use Savoir when there is a direct object, its use is sometimes obvious in this very context : like "Do you know that ?" translates into "Le savez-vous ?" (where Le is the direct object).
However, in older French, Connaître and Savoir were used as you describe, AFAIK. If you read 18th century literature or theatre, the use of Savoir with direct objects will be everywhere.

Merci, spiffor. Je vais plus de practice avec la langue francais, parce que je l'ai perdu.

De Rien
Ph34r the French teacher !
(more seriously, if you guys ever encounter one, fear the French teacher )

Correction of your sentence :
"Je vais plus pratiquer la langue française, parce que je l'ai perdue"

- the verb. As you see, there is no real verb in your sentence, since "Je vais" is used like "I will" and is followed by nothing. Practice is "la pratique" as a noun, or is "pratiquer" as a verb. "pratiquer une langue" is an idiotic idiomatic way to say it.

- the adjective : you forgot to accord the adjective "française" to the feminine noun "langue", no biggie.

- "je l'ai perdue". This is probably the most dreadful grammar rule a layman has to deal with. Countless times my grammar teacher explained it. Countless times the whole class didn't understand it. It is about according the past word ("perdu") to the direct object or not.
Normally, you accord the past word to the direct object if the latter is in front of the former : in you case, the "L' " (direct object) refers to the feminine "la langue", and hence "perdue" must become feminine. Had you said "J'ai perdu la langue", "perdu" would have remained unaccorded, because "la langue" was behind.
Is is more simple for reflexive verbs : the past word is always accorded to the gender of the subject : "elle s'est perdue" vs "il s'est perdu".

Bonne chance dans la pratique du Français !

[Guest]

edit
arg i hate these double posts

[Guest]

Not bad at all Obi
Spiffor's corrections are better though of course
As he said, there are so many rules that its very hard to learn in a book, much easier by just living in a place where French is spoken.
In Quebec, ppl speak very bad French though, specially in my area, which is right across the river to Ontario.
The language used is a mix of english and french, ppl understand each other, but they cant speak good french or english, its a bit sad really.
specially when they are always fighting about language issues

[Ben Kenobi]

specially when they are always fighting about language issues..

C'est la verite.
Nous sommes un gens au Canada, mais nous n'agissons pas cette facon.

Il serait meilleur si nous pourrions apprendre à nous comprendre.

(in engish)

It's the truth. We are one people in Canada, but we do not act that way. It would be better if we could learn to understand each other.

[Spec]

Originally posted by obiwan18


C'est la verite.
Nous sommes un gens au Canada, mais nous n'agissons pas cette facon.

Il serait meilleur si nous pourrions apprendre à nous comprendre.

(in engish)

It's the truth. We are one people in Canada, but we do not act that way. It would be better if we could learn to understand each other.

Sorry, can I correct you? Thank you, I knew you'd understand.

C'est la verite.
Nous sommes un au Canada, mais nous n'agissons pas de cette facon.

Il serait mieux si nous pourrions apprendre à nous comprendre.

And about that, I totally agree!!


Spec.

[molly bloom]

French Canadian accents are the sexiest accents I've ever heard- even better than Highlands and Islands English and soft Irish brogues.

I worked not far from Quebec House in London, and a lot of our temp staff were French Canadians- they went down very well with the permanent staff.

And of course, British Columbia seemed to be full of them too...tired of snow and poutine and beignets, and eager for rain, pho and nanaimo bars.

I like Denys Arcand's films too....

[Spec]

Originally posted by molly bloom
I like Denys Arcand's films too....