Bit harsh surely?! ;-)

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 25 Dec 2005, 22:19

I can understand them being annoying, but...

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 25 Dec 2005, 23:02

I know it is a joke, but just for your own information:

"Die" is the German word for the feminine "the".

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 26 Dec 2005, 10:53

I know my "Der, Die, Das"

(Studied German at school).

A similar joke was said in the Simpsons when Sideshow Bob had a tattoo saying "Die Bart Die."

He of course claimed it was German for "The Bart, the"

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 26 Dec 2005, 11:11

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 27 Dec 2005, 05:32

All that feminine or masculine bollocks did my head in during French class. Why? I ask you why?

Stick to English I say

p.s - Paris' sister's looking hot there me thinks.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 27 Dec 2005, 08:08

All that feminine or masculine bollocks did my head in during French class. Why? I ask you why ?

Don't worry. We don't like it over here either.

Why do they make things so complicated ?

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 27 Dec 2005, 15:30

Aren't you used to it? Or do you make mistakes?

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 27 Dec 2005, 17:01

I'd say about 20% of the french population makes mistakes on a regular basis.
Learned people like me

tend not to.

Still, some words are more difficult than others.

"Une icône" (feminine) = An icon (as in "a star", "a legend").
"Un icône" (masculine) = An icon (as "the icon on your desktop").

Come to think of it, I don't even know if "afternoon" is feminine or masculine.
"Une après-midi" or "Un après-midi" ?
Where's my french dictionary...

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 27 Dec 2005, 17:20

Don't you write it like "l'apres-midi"? So its feminine... I think.

Can't do the accents.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 27 Dec 2005, 20:03

Yes.
But if you want to say:
"I spent a whole afternoon..."
You gotta use Un/Une.

BTW: I just checked and it's masculine.

P.S: I replied to your post at about 6:30, the board told me the post had gone through, and yet it didn't appear. Weird.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 28 Dec 2005, 02:02

Grim how would you cope in France speaking French? You seem to be really good (from an ignorant man's point of view).

I hear from lots of people the French are hard on non-French speakers only letting them speak in French, true?

Tom2681 wrote:I'd say about 20% of the french population makes mistakes on a regular basis.

Is that people being lazy or they don't know?

I ask as most English speakers (i.e - British, Irish, American etc . . .) speak and write English incorrectly not because they don't know the right way of doing it (far from it) but because they're being lazy. You can often tell when someone speaking English it isn't their first language as it's spoken to well.

It's the SMS generation; which incidentally it really PISSES ME OFF when people don't use punctuation.

Not including full stops, commas or semi-colons. I often have to read an SMS message from certain people 2-3 times to get what they're saying (and often get it wrong) because the sentences just flow into each other

. Why should I?

I should reply and ask them to send properly constructed sentences.

Sure languages change and evolve but a basic grasp of the language you're using is still compulsory. I realise I'm rare in using properly constructed sentences in sms messages but for it to make no sense is plain laziness.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 28 Dec 2005, 08:10

Brad wrote:I hear from lots of people the French are hard on non-French speakers only letting them speak in French, true ?

Only because most of us don't speak a word of english.

"Speek in french, damn you ! It's ze only language we understand".

Brad wrote:-about 20% of the french population makes mistakes on a regular basis.
-Is that people being lazy or they don't know ?

It's people not paying any attention in class and being stupid.

I believe I mastered all the basics of the french language when I was 12.
Nowadays, 12-year-old french kids barely know how to read. How can we expect them to know about the accents (à,é,è,ê,ë,ù,ç), the masculine, the feminine and all that stuff ?

Brad wrote:It's the SMS generation

I h8 dat ! Dat sux !
SMS dont m8ke no sense !

SMS is a huge problem especially in France. Most kids are losing their ability to spell properly because of this.

I must admit I like my native tongue. Sure it's complicated and there are lots of things in this language I'd love to get rid of, but french is more precise than english. It contains enough nuances to allow you to say exactly what's on your mind. And it makes me sad when I see people (kids, students, grown-ups, even teachers) butchering it without them even realizing it.

----

The things I'd love to get rid of:

The different spellings for verbs:
I laugh -> Je ris
You laugh -> Tu ris
He/She/It laughs -> Il/Elle/Il rit
We laugh -> Nous rions
You(plural) laugh -> Vous riez
They laugh -> Ils rient

All the accents:
Christmas -> Noël.
Gossip -> Commérage.
Castle -> Château.
Preview -> Aperçu.
Here -> Là.
Where -> Où.
Mother -> Mère.

Masculine/Feminine:
A car -> Une voiture.
A truck -> Un camion.

But still, when you're done learning all that crap, you can start buying french DVDs and read the subtitles without your head exploding.

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 28 Dec 2005, 10:07

Thanks Brad, I think I'm OK with French as I did GCSE French (as most do) then did A Level French at College from 2000-2002 (got a C in AS Level French and a D overall for A Level, which sounds poo, but it was really hard!

)

S'eclater de rire means "To burst out laughing"
Un truc is like us saying "a thingy" or "wotsit" I think

Le pinard = "plonk" (crap, cheap wine)

In the French version of Pokémon, the character Brock, who has rock Pokémon is called Pierre, which means rock. (Pierre is the French version of Peter).

I agree BTW about Txt spk, it REALLY annoys me

Especially on some forums, it pisses me off as a reader :x :shock: I can understand its use on mobile phones and agree all language has to change (I bloody hate the snooty attitude to some American words in British speech) but keep txt out of our writing please!

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 28 Dec 2005, 21:06

The thing is when the amended/merged sentence no longer makes any sense (often to the writer if he/she were to read it back) then it's gone to far.

Tom2681 wrote:Nowadays, 12-year-old french kids barely know how to read. How can we expect them to know about the accents (à,é,è,ê,ë,ù,ç), the masculine, the feminine and all that stuff ?

Phew it's not just Britain.

Tom2681 wrote:but french is more precise than english. It contains enough nuances to allow you to say exactly what's on your mind.

Are you sure? The English language is considerably bigger than most people ever realise. I'm not perfect but I often say words and my colleagues/mates don't have a clue what I've just said.

The thing is most people don't like words and hence they just stick to the basic way of speaking.

Sure a lot of it is stolen from French but tuff they're our words now too

. Why do you think we have two words for PIG (Pork, Pig), Cow (Cow, Beef) etc . . . Pig being the original English word spoken by the servants and Pork by the rich French who actually eat it.

grim_tales wrote:got a C in AS Level French and a D overall for A Level, which sounds poo, but it was really hard!

Not poo at all, anything is better than nothing.

tom2681 · Post by **tom2681** » 28 Dec 2005, 21:17

I often say words and my colleagues/mates don't have a clue what I've just said.

I know how you feel. Happens to me all the time.

Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to 4-year old kids.

Bah, most of my friends think that New-York is the capital of the USA, and that Sydney is the capital of Australia. It's difficult for me to drag myself down to their level, you see.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 28 Dec 2005, 23:28

Sydney should be the capital but that's another discussion.

BiscLimpkit · Post by **BiscLimpkit** » 28 Dec 2005, 23:56

So, the Hiltons...

Slags or totally porkable? Mixture of both?

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 29 Dec 2005, 00:16

Good question I was just thinking where are the rest of the GQ pics?

As for the Hiltons they're somewhere in between. Neither of them are really all that attractive and Paris' especially really gets on my nerves.

They're both spoilt and have no idea what work is.

Markgway · Post by **Markgway** » 29 Dec 2005, 01:00

BiscLimpkit wrote:So, the Hiltons...

Slags or totally porkable? Mixture of both?

Probably slags... but I'd fuck 'em anyways.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 29 Dec 2005, 01:12

bradavon wrote: It's the SMS generation; which incidentally it really PISSES ME OFF when people don't use punctuation.

Not including full stops, commas or semi-colons. I often have to read an SMS message from certain people 2-3 times to get what they're saying (and often get it wrong) because the sentences just flow into each other . Why should I?

I should reply and ask them to send properly constructed sentences.

I think you'll find that it's to save time, as typing messages on a mobile phone is quite awkward, and also to fit as much on one text message as possible to save credit. I usually use proper English in text messages, though, as I'm dedicated to maintaining high quality of language. My friends get annoyed because I'm constantly correcting their spelling and grammatical errors on MSN, haha.

brooce-leroy · Post by **brooce-leroy** » 29 Dec 2005, 01:32

I hate text speak as well. I know it saves time, but it also looks so lazy and illiterate!

Id luv 2 c a pic of Lucy P, and all that crap.

gasteropod · Post by **gasteropod** » 29 Dec 2005, 01:56

It's more worrying when you see shops, banks and shopping centres making spelling mistakes. I have seen 'everytime', ''til', 'thankyou' and words missing apostrophes and the like on said places.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 29 Dec 2005, 11:19

Me too it's shocking.

I hate when people replace 4 for for

gasteropod wrote:I think you'll find that it's to save time, as typing messages on a mobile phone is quite awkward

That's not the point though. Why should I have to read a message 3-4 times because my mates are to impatient to type a message properly?

But yeah I often run out of space, 160 characters is utter bollocks!

gasteropod wrote: I usually use proper English in text messages, though, as I'm dedicated to maintaining high quality of language. My friends get annoyed because I'm constantly correcting their spelling and grammatical errors on MSN, haha.

I used to do that but there's always the time you make a mistake and then the wrath is very much unleashed.

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 29 Dec 2005, 12:17

I don't mind it on phones Brad, its when it spills into everyday speech or writing (or on forums) that it pisses me off and it really bothers me as a reader. On the ITV X Factor boards, they speak in nothing but text (seemingly)

Forums like this one, Import Forums etc and Digital Spy Forums are a lot better.

bradavon · Post by **bradavon** » 29 Dec 2005, 13:47

I'd guess the X-Factor forum is full of young teenagers.