Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby DaveAgain » Sat May 06, 2023 8:34 am

CaroleR wrote: I think I'm going to focus on gardening for a while and try to stop feeling guilty for slacking off on language learning. The weather has been gorgeous and gardening (mostly weeding tbh) has been taking up a lot of my time anyway. I'm working on a master plan for the garden with the intent of becoming more self-sufficient food-wise and I think I'll focus on that for a while. That, plus I'm "building an ark," for wildlife, which I hope will be part of a pollinator corridor that connects to my neighbour's garden. Maybe I should learn the French words for all of that.
I came across a French birdsong YouTube channel the other day, perhaps that could be a start :-)
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby CaroleR » Sat May 06, 2023 3:16 pm

DaveAgain wrote:I came across a French birdsong YouTube channel the other day, perhaps that could be a start :-)
Sheesh, I'm trying to learn French, not Bird! :lol: Seriously though, thanks! That's a very cool channel. I listened to a few of the videos and the narrator's voice is very soothing. I love that he mimics the birds. It's a fun way to learn some bird-specific vocabularly. It would be great if the birdsongs are similar to what we have here. Aside from our local barred owls, with their very distinctive calls, I'm always wondering who's singing what.
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby CaroleR » Sat May 20, 2023 4:30 am

5-18 May, 23
Oops, skipped a week. In spite of that, very little language learning went on. Mostly I just read the news and my book. I did watch a few very short videos, but no TV.

News stories of the week(s)
L’affichage unilingue anglophone d’un festival fait réagir à Trois-Rivières – "Poutine fest, this weekend" – « Il faudrait qu'il soit ecrit "cette fin de semaine" et, en dessous, "this weekend" en plus petit. "Ce weekend" serait accepté. » In the comments someone wrote, « À boycotter. » – this story couldn't be more Quebec. :lol: Incidentally, "boycotter" has been in the French lexicon since 1880, long enough for it to not be critiqué. So, I guess it's not considered an anglicism anymore, although "boycott" is. I wonder what the cutoff point is. And to clarify, "poutine" is the fries + cheese curds + gravy dish, aka le repas national du Québec, in case anyone was wondering. It is pronounced "poo ten" not "poo teen" and is not to be confused with "putin," évidement. A former co-worker told me he once ordered putin in a restaurant when he visited Quebec. :lol:
Les sous-titreurs, une courroie de transmission pour les sourds et les malentendants – « … mais aussi les gens qui apprennent le français. » Comme moi.
Spoiler, complosphère et David Goudreault font leur apparition dans Le Petit Robert. Outre "spoiler," les autres anglicismes sont "crush" et "ghoster." "Spoiler" est critiqué au Québec. Usito n'inclut pas les autres, mais ils seraient également critiqués. Side note: I really want to get Le Petit Robert but I'd need to take out a bank loan. Holy smokes, is it ever pricey!
Le pissenlit, un trésor méprisé qui pousse chaque printemps :|
– all stories via Radio-Canada

Textbooks
Par ici: méthode de français – Échelle québécoise 7-8 (B2)
**Automne**
Épisode 2 cont'd – actually, no continuation occurred. I was about to resume where I'd left off last time, but a minor crisis put a kibosh on that. Plus, I don't want to do the rest of the essay questions on the saffron article, so I'll probably skip them.
Complete French Grammar – more pronouns: lequel, auquel, duquel.

Youtube videos
Studio les trois becs : Apprendre les chants d'oiseaux (Ce sont tous les oiseaux européens, je crois.)
– 1 : La Mésange Charbonnière
"Au Québec, le mot mésange sert généralement à désigner la mésange à tête noire" (via Usito) – black-capped chickadees. J'adore ces petits oiseaux.
– 2 : La Mésange bleue
– 3 : La Chouette Hulotte
(Thanks again to DaveAgain for the reference.)

Book
Un homme meilleur by Louise Penny – nearly finished, but I still haven't figured out which homme is meilleur.

All in all, it was an unproductive couple of weeks for mon français, but I'm whittling down my spring chores. This is my half-hearted attempt to look on the bright side. :) Bon, c'est tout pour l'instant. À la prochaine.
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby Le Baron » Sat May 20, 2023 4:26 pm

CaroleR wrote:Side note: I really want to get Le Petit Robert but I'd need to take out a bank loan. Holy smokes, is it ever pricey!

Do you mean the paper version? Or electronic (or both)?

Here's my copy, the last one I got in 2002, so 22 years old and I have no plan to 'update' it. Placed on top of the Oxford concise dictionary it doesn't look very 'petite' at all!

Image
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby CaroleR » Sat May 20, 2023 8:11 pm

Le Baron wrote:
CaroleR wrote:Side note: I really want to get Le Petit Robert but I'd need to take out a bank loan. Holy smokes, is it ever pricey!

Do you mean the paper version? Or electronic (or both)?

Here's my copy, the last one I got in 2002, so 22 years old and I have no plan to 'update' it. Placed on top of the Oxford concise dictionary it doesn't look very 'petite' at all!

Image

Yes, it's that one, although it has a different look now. I used to have that Oxford dictionary so your photo gives me an idea of how "unpetit" the Robert is. The prices on Amazon for the 2023 edition includes both a paper version and a "bimedia" one. For some reason the dual version is slightly cheaper. The latest versions include French-Canadian words and they add new ones periodically so the digital version would be handy. The price is about $90 Canadian for the 2023 version, roughly 60 euros. But the 2024 paper + digital version will be more than $200! It's been a long time since I bought a dictionary so maybe that's a normal price these days. Mind you, it's just been published and is being shipped from France. Think I'll pass on that one. I doubt it's necessary anyway. Usito will have all the words I would need to know. You don't need to update your dictionary with everything online now. Still, I do like a good paper dictionary. Wonder what I did with that Oxford …

This is neither here nor there, but the library where I used to work had the standard Oxford. It came with a magnifying glass and was kept on a sturdy stand, under the librarian's watchful eye.

Ok, enough faffing about, I'll just finish my tisane de racine de pissenlit torréfiée and go back up on the roof. Reluctantly, tbh.
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby Le Baron » Sat May 20, 2023 8:47 pm

I also have a Larousse de Poche from 2014, which is still just under 2 inches thick, but small by comparison to the Petit Robert. It's ideal for quick reference and who needs more than 62,000 definitions?!

For years I had (still have) the 1954 version of that book - 'trente deux mille mots!'. From the days when they used to dye the edges of pages red (or yellow or sometimes green). A family member gave it to me and it was my normal French dictionary. I still use it now and again to find words that drop out of usage. It also needs a magnifying glass. :lol:
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby DaveAgain » Sat May 20, 2023 8:53 pm

CaroleR wrote:Yes, it's that one, although it has a different look now. I used to have that Oxford dictionary so your photo gives me an idea of how "unpetit" the Robert is. The prices on Amazon for the 2023 edition includes both a paper version and a "bimedia" one. For some reason the dual version is slightly cheaper. The latest versions include French-Canadian words and they add new ones periodically so the digital version would be handy. The price is about $90 Canadian for the 2023 version, roughly 60 euros. But the 2024 paper + digital version will be more than $200! It's been a long time since I bought a dictionary so maybe that's a normal price these days. Mind you, it's just been published and is being shipped from France. Think I'll pass on that one. I doubt it's necessary anyway. Usito will have all the words I would need to know. You don't need to update your dictionary with everything online now. Still, I do like a good paper dictionary. Wonder what I did with that Oxford …
I almost bought a copy of le Robert illustré a little while back, old editions of that are pretty cheap. The dictionary I have is le Robert Micro.
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby CaroleR » Sat May 20, 2023 11:56 pm

Le Baron wrote:I also have a Larousse de Poche from 2014, which is still just under 2 inches thick, but small by comparison to the Petit Robert. It's ideal for quick reference and who needs more than 62,000 definitions?!
You never know when you'll need that ONE definition that you can't find anywhere else. I wonder why they call the Larousse "de Poche" if it's nearly 2 inches thick. Who has pockets that big? :lol: Which reminds me, years ago I had a Larousse French/English dictionary that was much thinner than 2 inches. It would be interesting to know which words they thought were dispensable.

For years I had (still have) the 1954 version of that book - 'trente deux mille mots!'. From the days when they used to dye the edges of pages red (or yellow or sometimes green). A family member gave it to me and it was my normal French dictionary. I still use it now and again to find words that drop out of usage. It also needs a magnifying glass. :lol:
Oooh, lucky you to have such a treasure. You can send it to me if you ever want to get rid of it. I already have a magnifying glass. :D So, I had to go look up why they used to dye the edges of books. Apparently, it was either for decorative reasons or, "If you use cheap semi-bleached paper, and don't dye the edges, the book looks a kind of horrible vomit-brown." I think our family bible had gold-edged pages but I may be misremembering. It wasn't a book I ever really looked at.
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby CaroleR » Sun May 21, 2023 12:20 am

DaveAgain wrote:I almost bought a copy of le Robert illustré a little while back, old editions of that are pretty cheap. The dictionary I have is le Robert Micro.
I was looking at the Robert illustré but I tend to get lost in dictionaries as it is. You know how it goes, you look up one word and then another catches your eye and before you know it, you've missed lunch. With illustrations, I'd probably get lost for days. :lol: I've also looked at the Micro but I'm not sure if they're adding the québécois words to it as they are with the Petit. Sheesh, who knew it would be so hard to decide on a dictionary? I feel a case of paralysis by analysis coming on.
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Re: Le français québécois: Lâche pas la patate!

Postby CaroleR » Sat Jun 03, 2023 1:55 am

19 May-1 June, 23
Figured if I wrote enough it would look as though I'd accomplished something. There may be a bit of filler here. :D

News stories of interest
Plus d'immigrants pour éviter une «louisianisation» ici? Legault vante désormais l'apport des immigrants à l'épanouissement de la langue française.
On est huit millions, faut se parquer. Le Québec compte entre 15 et 30 millions de places de stationnement : Le Québec, ce n'est ni un pays ni l'hiver* : le Québec, c'est un grand stationnement. North Americans have a crazy love affair with cars. I am not among them.
*Refers to the lyrics in Gilles Vigneault's song, Mon pays, "Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver."
Both stories from Le Devoir
Un rare procès en français s'ouvre lundi en C-B. Yannick Bandaogo est accusé d'avoir tué une personne et blessé six autres lors d'une attaque à l'arme blanche. Radio Canada

Textbooks
Par ici: méthode de français – Échelle québécoise 7-8 (B2)
**Automne**
Épisode 2 cont'd – did a couple of exercises and transcribed some audio. Trying to get back into working on this course.
Complete French Grammar – ce qui, ce que, ce dont, ce … quoi. This was a giant failure, but I'm not going to spend any more time on it. I'd have to go back and review which prepositions go with which verbs and I'm not keen on doing that right now. Maybe it will become more clear as I progress.
+ le conditionnel présent
+ adverbs

TV
Les Saveurs de l'exil – 22 min – cinq immigrants récemment arrivé au Canada participent à une expérience culinaire. Les jeunes immigrants sont du Congo, Mali, Maroc, Haïti et Yémen.
– s1ep1 Mettre la table – this episode takes place in Ottawa. I wondered why the street signs were in English first, not to mention "le saumon de New Brunswick." On parle le franglais icitte.

Youtube video
Ma prof de français – Ne dis pas DÉPÊCHE-TOI – il y a « plusieurs autres façons d'inviter quelqu'un à faire vite en français québécois! » The only one I knew was "Awèye!," as in, "awèye les gars," which is frequently heard at hockey games.

Book
No French book at the moment. I'm reading a gardening book by Huw Richards, a Welsh gardener. He has tons of really good videos on Youtube. But I fear I'll never tame my little weed patch. Plus, we had some 30C days and my cool weather crops have all bolted. And, we're having a major infestation of tent caterpillars. Ugh! If it's not one thing it's another.

Didn't accomplish much language-wise, but at least I did something. Happy trails, tout le monde.
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