Off to France...

[Helix666]

The level of starfish*-ness on the board may go through a sharp drop, as I am going to spend a week in France with the rest of my church group.

The nice little sheet I was handed about where I am staying tells me (badly paraphrased)
"Occasionally, when it rains, the ground floor will flood. This is normal, just open the front door and let the water drain away." :neutral:
Oh, and this gem:
"Occasionally, the power goes out, and you will have to go into the garage to switch the electricity back on. This is a France thing." :eek:
When we get there, we'll all be duking it out for the beds, loser sleeps on the floor. (Probably moi.)
And very few people in the town speak English. and I can't speak French (well, I can, but soon slip into German. e.g. After 3 words or less.)

Wonderful...


I'll let you know if I survive...


* Starfish: Five appendages, no brains. :p

[slytherock]

Have fun, maybe when you'll come back I'll have someone to speak to :)

[AJ@PR]

Have fun man! :)

Helix666 going with his 'church group'.
Oh Lord... :p

:)

[XcOM]

Atleast i can speak french:

Profiter d'un agreable moment, peut-etre vous devrait avoir ecoute dans votre classe francaise.
APPRENDRE a parler la masselotte tres rapide, ils n'aiment pas des idiots.





-------------
In english

Have a good time, maybe you should have listened in your french class. LEARN to speak the lingo very fast, they don't like idiots.

Enjoy your selves. and yes, the french are really like that with the flooding and electrics, you will notice ALOT of houses in disrepair, this is becuase its sooo much cheaper over there, they don't care, they just build new ones.

[calumc]

Have fun man! :)

Helix666 going with his 'church group'.
Oh Lord... :p

:)

Thank God I'm an atheist

[slytherock]

Atleast i can speak french:
Profiter d'un agreable moment, peut-etre vous devrait avoir ecoute dans votre classe francaise.
APPRENDRE a parler la masselotte tres rapide, ils n'aiment pas des idiots.

OMG, French is my first language, and I had to read this 3 times to understand it :p

[Helix666]

Well, I'm back. And I have to say I was surprisingly apt when I said 'If I survive'.

On the first day, we pulled out (200 yards) in front of a white Fiat cinquecento. (sp.) and caused the driver to have to slow down.
He spent the next five minutes waving his arms and following us. At the roundabout, he overtook us, slammed on the brakes and got out of the car and yelled at us.

Later, we were nearly squashed off the road by a tanker truck. And I nearly drowned when I went swimming in a river (and I swallowed a fish... ugh.). And we found a scorpion in the house we were staying in.

Boy am I glad I'm back...
At least in Britain, if you're slow crossing a road, the drivers will only give you an annoyed look. In France, they give you an annoyed look and put their foot down.

I enjoyed it though.

XcOM: Je suis désolé. Je ne parle pas français. :p

[Crazy Buddhist]

I can't speak French (well, I can, but soon slip into German. e.g. After 3 words or less.)

Wonderful...

Yeah cos the French only hate one thing more than Englishmen who can't speak French .. and that is Germans :D:D:D:D:D

Bon voyage et bon chance aussi !

[Airbozo]

Yeah cos the French only hate one thing more than Englishmen who can't speak French .. and that is Germans :D:D:D:D:D

Bon voyage et bon chance aussi !

I beg to differ on this one.

The French seem to hate Americans even if they speak French...

That mostly seems to apply only in the big cities. Get to the south of France and they are very polite and "normal".

Helix; I had a similar incident in Scotland with a delivery driver, but the cop behind him was just laughing at me and waving his finger... Turned that rental car in with a few marks on the left mirror and many scratches on the left, hidden by the mud...

[slytherock]

I beg to differ on this one.

The French seem to hate Americans even if they speak French...

That mostly seems to apply only in the big cities. Get to the south of France and they are very polite and "normal".

Totally agree on that. I must add that as a north-ameican french, in Paris they like us, but they always act like they are superior... But it's a nice city :)

Bon retour!

[Crazy Buddhist]

OMG, French is my first language, and I had to read this 3 times to understand it :p

.. is that French-Canadian? .. not being funny but French is my second language ... and I got it first time ... I think you guys structure your sentances and end verbs differently to the French .. I had a bit of school French but started living there and learning it when I was 24 now I'm pretty fluent having lived there for four and a half years in total during the last 17.

It's fun arguing with French people who don't believe I'm not French. :D

[Crazy Buddhist]

The French seem to hate Americans even if they speak French...

I think the relationship between the French and the Americans is hard to understand unless you have a good understanding of both peoples. In my experience the French are very grounded in the earth and connected to the earth in a way Anglo-Saxon westerners are not. This is less true in the cities but still valid. The French are generally less "intellectual" - not less educated per se, indeed their education is generally excellent - but more balanced somehow.

The French people are resolutely jealous of guarding their cultural heritage from what they see as the increasing Americanisation of the entire world. They believe in family and community and opportunity and equality. They feel entrenched as trying to balance all those things in a world where money and force mean winner takes all. They are scared of America.

[slytherock]

.. is that French-Canadian? .. Yes
not being funny but French is my second language ... and I got it first time ... Not being funny but you might have a little syntax problem too :p
I think you guys structure your sentances and end verbs differently to the French ..
Nop. We have a different accent, add american english accent to traditional french. Maybe add too much english words in our sentences, but lot less then frenchs do. But we all write it the same.
I had a bit of school French but started living there and learning it when I was 24 now I'm pretty fluent having lived there for four and a half years in total during the last 17.

It's fun arguing with French people who don't believe I'm not French. :D
Now let see those sentences and write them the proper way:

Profiter d'un agreable moment
means Have a nice moment
If you speak to only one person you can put it in singular or in plurial. Singular is the friendly way.
Plurial is a form of respect, most of the time for older people.
In both ways, this sentence is wrong.

You should read:

1- Profite d'un agréable moment. (singular, third person)
2- Profitez d'un agéable moment. (plurial, second person)

I know it sound picky, but that's how french is made ;)

, peut-etre vous devrait avoir ecoute dans votre classe francaise.
means Maybe you should have listened in your french class.

Same rule apply here, but there's a lot more. syntax and sentence structure is totally wrong.

vous devrait
- first word is plurial, second person. Second word is singular, third person. right there we have one of the biggest mistake done by english people.
- And it's build as a question so both words should be inversse.
avoir ecoute
- First word is a transitif verb, writtin at infinitf. That way those verbs are never followed by another verb.
- Second word is wrote in present. Should be writin in past tense.
dans votre classe francaise.
- First 3 words are ok, but miss one word in between the classe and français.
- Français, in this sentence, is use as a masculin adjective, so no e at the end.

You should read:

1- peut-être aurais-tu dû écouter durant ton cours de français. (singular, third person)
2- peut-être auriez-vous dû écouter durant votre cours de français. (plurial, second person)

APPRENDRE a parler la masselotte tres rapide,
means: learn to speak masselotte really fast


APPRENDRE
- Not the good tense

a parler la
- perfect, no problem there

masselotte
- I have no f idea what it mean...
well I know what masselotte mean, but it make no sense at all in this sentence...

tres rapide
- the word rapide is an adjective, should add ...ment at end

You should read:

Apprend à parler le masselotte très rapidement.

ils n'aiment pas des idiots.

Perfect.
Means: they don't like idiots (So do I ;) )


Ok, I'm not trying to make any fun out of anyone here. Sorry XcOM, I know online translator are ****. And french is a hard language with many exeptions.
And Crazy Buddhist, french is not only my first language, I'm good at it.


Edit, wow, my longuest post ever...

[Crazy Buddhist]

Edit, wow, my longuest post ever...

Glad to have inspired that ;)

I can't write or read it properly but if you met me - after a month in France to refresh - you wouldn't know I wasn't French. In this circumstance that was clearly an advantage to comprehension as I scanned it and understood straight off - I clearly wasn't put off by all the mistakes lol.

Thanks for the grammar lesson +rep :D

Matthew

[Crazy Buddhist]

ils n'aiment pas des idiots.
Perfect. Means: they don't like idiots (So do I ;) )

Do you perhaps mean 'neither do I'?

;)

[slytherock]

Do you perhaps mean 'neither do I'?

;)

lol :D

As I wrote previously, french is a hard and picky language, full of rules and exeption, I understand that people can make mistakes.

[Crazy Buddhist]

lol.. french is a hard and picky language, full of rules and exeption, ...

english too .. but whats the point picking holes when you can be cutting them with a drill or a dremel? :D :D :D