A language learners’ forum

Mani wrote:

Ketutar wrote:I bet you are all so fed up with me

Nope.
I actually enjoy reading about how enthusiastically you embrace the task of learning languages, especially French.

Oh, thank you!

Mani wrote:

Ketutar wrote: Yesterday I learned the difference of un an and une année. You know "soiree"? The fancy word for supper or "evening party"? Or matinée - the fancy word for morning movie time? That is when you take a period of time and make an event of it. -ée. So un an is a year, period of time, and une année is the year as an event.

The above part of your log caught my eye because I remember that I had difficulties with this difference, too and I think it's not quite as you've understood it ... an/jour/matin/soir are the words for the (for a lack of a better word) "time unit" they represent while année/journée/matinée/soirée describe the duration or lenght of this "time unit".

So you'd say:

Il a 3 ans.
L'année dernière, je suis allée en Belgique 3 fois.
Hier soir j'ai vu ma copine. On a joué aux cartes toute la soirée.

I'm not very good at explaining but I hope you can see what I mean.

Thank you, I think I understand what you mean.
But - maybe I don't. I suppose it stays to be seen if I have understood it if I use the words correctly... at the moment I get it mostly right, so I have understood SOMETHING
Maybe it is a thing that must be learned by practice and examples, and cannot be explained well.

This is sort of my January, I got inspired to get back on languages during my vacation in Finland [I found an old "book of all knowledge", (written back at 60s when people still were into things like that... now they know one cannot really know everything ) and there were some language lessons in that book. Latin, Greek, French, German and Spanish. Perhaps also Italian and Swedish. Not sure.] and I'm full of enthusiasm and I'm glad it shows.
I hope I cam help some others to ignite the flame again and get enthusiastic about learning French, if they have got bored with it by now. After all, it's almost August, so the year is almost over.
But on the other hand, the Celts and the Hebrews divided the year into two, so this IS sort of the second January

* I like watching Extr@, but I start to imitate the accent of the "American who cannot speak French very well"... which means that I can't watch that now. Which is a pity because I really like it

* I have been trying to get Gaston Leroux's Le Mystère de la chambre jaune on ReadLang, but... it seems I can't find it in a version that is acceptable without any work!
If there's not something that takes away all 's, there's something that changes all és, ès and ês into es. *sigh* And we all know that it doesn't take long before the beginner French learner learns that "ou" and "où" are two very different words.
The only version i have found that doesn't do this is the Wikisource, and that is in chapters... so I need to copy each chapter and paste them on my Notepad to get a whole .txt document that I can cut and paste to ReadLang...
I'm sure there's an easier way to do that but I haven't found it out yet.

* DuoLingo... it's great that it is real people who have been working on it, but as I have been trying to write Finnish course to teach my husband some Finnish, for some reason the mere idea of trying to teach a language makes the language wooden and not very real... I mean, most people do NOT speak like the people speak in language courses. So, some of the translations are a bit... odd. Like why can't I translate aimer to love? Why can't "she" love chocolate, why is "she" forced to just like it? I love pasta. I love it. I don't adore it, I love it.
Or the things people point out all the time. Half of it is in English, and it can't recognize obvious typos.
But, I suppose I learn something.

* my 5000 words in 100 words a day installments -challenge is suddenly getting harder I learned my 4th 100 words yesterday, and I am having difficulties with some verbs that don't make any sense to me,

empêcher to prevent
appartenir to belong
atteindre to reach
ajouter to add
éviter to avoid
réussir to succeed

and then the unfortunate thing with Memrise...
which "each" is chaque and which is chacun?
which "people" is un peuple and which is des gens?
which "next" is ensuite and which is prochain?
And I get the é and è mixed up all the time...

Now I realized that empêcher is impeach, so I think I'll remember that.
but "appartenir" reminds me of an apartment, and THAT comes from separation, so it's a bit confusing... There's appertain, though...
Atteindre is another "Latin" verb. Teindre means to dye, and attendre means to wait, so no help there either
Reússir is even worse.
Do you happen to have any mnemonics for these words?

deleted

For "chaque" and "chacun(e)" this page is pretty good: http://www.francaisfacile.com/exercices ... -64415.php

Basically "chaque" always comes before a noun and means "each," while "chacun(e)" is often easy to think of as "each one" (chacun des élèves = each one (every one) of the students).

"Un peuple" is a group of people with some common characteristic or heritage, often national or cultural (le peuple chinois, un peuple guerrier). "Les gens" is what you use for "people" (plural) in general.

"Ensuite" is an adverb used for narratives or giving instructions (vous allez ensuite attendre deux minutes). "Prochain(e)" is an adjective that describes chronological order (la semaine prochaine, notre prochain rendez-vous).

Btw, empêcher means to prevent or stop something, *not* impeach (which would be accuser or inculper).

Atteindre is cognate with English "attain" (to reach or achieve).

Appartenir looks like "a part" in English. If something belongs (appartient) to someone, then it's "a part" of them or of their possessions. Maybe that helps.

Some of the Duolingo sentences really are strange! I particularly like the ones with animals drinking beer or milk.

Ketutar wrote:and then the unfortunate thing with Memrise...
which "each" is chaque and which is chacun?
which "people" is un peuple and which is des gens?
which "next" is ensuite and which is prochain?
And I get the é and è mixed up all the time...

Argh, this is making me crazy with my Italian Memrise course. Sometimes "really" is proprio, sometimes it's davvero, sometimes it's veramente - but they're not accepted interchangeably, so I only have a 33.33% of being right each time. So frustrating! I feel your pain.

tastyonions wrote:For "chaque" and "chacun(e)" this page is pretty good: http://www.francaisfacile.com/exercices ... -64415.php

Basically "chaque" always comes before a noun and means "each," while "chacun(e)" is often easy to think of as "each one" (chacun des élèves = each one (every one) of the students).

"Un peuple" is a group of people with some common characteristic or heritage, often national or cultural (le peuple chinois, un peuple guerrier). "Les gens" is what you use for "people" (plural) in general.

"Ensuite" is an adverb used for narratives or giving instructions (vous allez ensuite attendre deux minutes). "Prochain(e)" is an adjective that describes chronological order (la semaine prochaine, notre prochain rendez-vous).

Btw, empêcher means to prevent or stop something, *not* impeach (which would be accuser or inculper).

Atteindre is cognate with English "attain" (to reach or achieve).

Appartenir looks like "a part" in English. If something belongs (appartient) to someone, then it's "a part" of them or of their possessions. Maybe that helps.

Yes, it helps
I asked my hubby, and he said about the same as you did about the verbs. "not impeach, that's something different, impede. Atteindre - try attain. And Appartenir... it looks a bit like "a partner"..."

And thank you for the other words, though that was more about my frustration at Memrise flashcards, the same thing Stelle was talking about. They just don't give enough information so that I could choose the "right answer", the very word they are asking for... now, the 5000 words is a very well made Memrise deck, but, alas, it lacks too... in those aforementioned words.
But I'll look for the "adverb" "adjective" with "next". It should be there. (And I didn't know that, so thank you for the clarification )

It helps to get that information about those words, so your kindness was not in vain - that information is just not there when one has a deck of flashcards, so I understand why some people hate flashcards and word lists. On the other hand, I'm not just memorizing words, I'm watching movies and reading books, too, and I recognize those words there

And it feels so good!

I've given up on several Memrise decks for that reason. If they can't be bothered to give me some kind of hint to help me differentiate between synonyms, I can't be bothered to go through their deck.

You can just disable those synonyms, then there is no ambiguity. Better to drop one or two cards than the entire deck! In any case, I don't really like how the reviews work with Memrise. I prefer Leitner box systems. Sadly my favourite flashcard app isn't compatible with my current computer anymore.

Ketutar wrote:Atteindre ...
Do you happen to have any mnemonics for these words?

You can learn verbs by drilling conjugations with them. "Atteindre" has a slightly tricky conjugation so you might be drilling it in the future anyway. Open a "501 Verbs" in front of you and drill away.

Or you can skip SRSing textbook-level stuff altogether, and read several textbooks several times, as a sort of varied yet not really varied repetition.

Ketutar wrote: so I understand why some people hate flashcards and word lists

You can (copy people's decks to) make your own decks and mark synonyms any way you like.

blaurebell wrote:I prefer Leitner box systems.

I didn't know about Leitner box system... Now I know.
It's basically what I have been doing with my paper flashcards all the time!

I didn't know you can copy someone's course at Memrise, unless it's word by word... which is almost as bothersome as writing one's own course. Which is why I am grateful for someone to have done the work already. Besides, she's Hungarian, so I hope there's some sort of support from the same language family (to my Finnish).

I have also noticed that my prepositions, articles and word order are suffering from me learning more languages... downsides of Finnish being so flexible Or maybe it's the downside of learning a language through another language.

Today I'm giving some extra attention to "conjonctions, prépostions, adverbes ou locutions". Maybe I'll try Leitner box system with them!