Comprenez-vous Francais?

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martyn94
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Comprenez-vous Francais?

Post by martyn94 »

A recent query has left me wondering about what strikes me as the "elephant in the room" in many of our threads. People ask us questions which, on the face of it, you could settle much more quickly, and have more confidence in the answers, if you did the research yourself. But only if you could do the search in French, and understand the answer.

I write from the commanding heights of "O" level French 50 years ago, plus a certain amount of practice, mostly pretty sporadic, in the intervening decades. I tend to assume that this is a baseline level of knowledge for people who have mostly committed lots of money, and a significant part of their lives, to being here. But in truth I don't have the first idea what their problem is in any particular case. Maybe they just can't research things in any language.

I try to give people links to what seems to the best source, which tends to be in French (to misquote Willie Sutton, that's where the information is round here). Whether or not it helps usually remains a mystery: we are not good at feedback.

What I'm asking, I think, is that people should indicate a preferred language, if they have one. There's no sort of shame in that, and it would make life easier for the rest of us. Or, more generally, indicate why they have not been able to find out their answer for themselves.
SteveB
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Post by SteveB »

Maybe a bit of both? A lot of people lack confidence in using the internet, and some just aren't very good at learning foreign languages. In the French class I attend there are people who have been coming for 10 years or more but whose command of ihe language remains very limited.
Phip3
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Suffering from Shock

Post by Phip3 »

My God: I've found myself agreeing with Martin : I think I need a stiff drink. My French is flaky but I can do a lot more than get by. At age 61 I started from nothing and like a most people over 50 , even if they don't realise it, have lost hearing in the higher frequencies and still have difficulty hearing French vowels : words like échafaudage and agrafe, I hear chafaudage et grafe . I once asked for les grafes ! + I can't hear the difference between the t, d and p or dessus and dessous . If you ask French/English people who speak reasonable English/French you frequently find that they started as a child or at least as teenages . The older English who took O level French tend to do better than those of us who didn't .
martyn94
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Re: Suffering from Shock

Post by martyn94 »

Phip3 wrote:My God: I've found myself agreeing with Martin
You're never too old: given time you might even spell me right.. Dessous and dessus are bonkers however good your hearing is. But I am full of admiration for people who have come here with even less French than me: I would never have dared.
Phip3
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Apologies

Post by Phip3 »

Martyn , My apologies ; attention to detail and spelling are not my strong points . I've given myself a 'must try harder' talking to.
martyn94
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Re: Apologies

Post by martyn94 »

Phip3 wrote:Martyn , My apologies ; attention to detail and spelling are not my strong points . I've given myself a 'must try harder' talking to.


No need to apologise. You ought to try spelling my surname. Most people think it's 49, or 95, or 96.
Webdoc
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Re: Apologies

Post by Webdoc »

martyn94 wrote:You ought to try spelling my surname.
H _ _ _ _ ?
martyn94
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Re: Apologies

Post by martyn94 »

Webdoc wrote:
martyn94 wrote:You ought to try spelling my surname.
H _ _ _ _ ?
You've got to decide how many blanks, and what to put in them. And then how to pronounce it. Hours of fun for the whole family.
martyn94
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Post by martyn94 »

Just out of curiosity, I tried to find myself on the interweb, knowing only my first name and the commune I live in. It took thirteen key-strokes, including a space. Name, address and phone number, on Pages Blanches. Spooky, though obvious enough once you work out how to do the search.
Last edited by martyn94 on Thu 30 Mar 2017 21:35, edited 1 time in total.
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