A language learners’ forum

Le titre vous donne vachement envie de lire ce blog, n'est-ce pas?

Je me suis réveillé à trois heures ce matin à cause des maux de tête qui m'accompagnent depuis trois jours et je ne suis pas arrivé à me rendormir alors je me suis dit, "Pourquoi ne pas créer un nouveau log au lieu de rester collé au canapé et s'apitoyer?" (Bon, ce n'est pas si grave en tout cas, ce n'est qu'une petite grippe et je me guéris.)

Quelles sont mes ambitions en termes de langues pour cette année? Je compte perfectionner mes trois langues romanes et réussir à lire de vrais livres et écouter la radio en allemand. En ce qui concerne le perfectionnement j'aimerais être moins "dépendant" sur mon français quand je parle l'espagnol et surtout l'italien. Je parle un italien qui est certes "compréhensible" et même parfois assez fluide mais qui souffre beaucoup des lacunes que j'ai longtemps négligé de corriger.

Bon courage à tous pour 2017!

Interessante: http://dizionari.corriere.it/dizionario ... -dei.shtml

DÈI: PERCHÉ GLI DÈI E NON I DÈI?

Diciamo i deboli, i devoti, i deserti; ma perché allora gli dèi e non i dèi?

C’è nella nostra lingua la forma Iddio nata anticamente da il Dio, dove l’articolo s’è fuso col nome. La parola si scriveva anche con la i minuscola quando riferita alle divinità pagane: iddio con plurale iddíi e anche iddei. Di queste varie forme, solo Iddio con la maiuscola è ancora vivo nell’uso comune.

Tutto questo spiega la ragione dell’articolo gli anziché i davanti a dei: perché anticamente la parola era iddei: dunque gli iddei, come gli ideali, gli idranti, gli idiomi eccetera (vedi alla voce il oppure lo?). Ma caduto il gruppo iniziale id, l’articolo gli ha pensato bene di rimanere abusivamente al suo posto e non cederlo ad un i che sarebbe grammaticalmente più corretto. Ennesima dimostrazione che la lingua non la fanno i grammatici ma l’uso (e a volte il sopruso).

Mi piace molto questa caratterizzazione dell'articolo con una volontà propria.

Hoy fui a un grupo de conversación en italiano que, como pasa frecuentemente con este Meetup, fue un fracaso. Llegué al café indicado en el sitio web y no vi a nadie. Esperé quince minutos y llegó alguien del grupo pero él no sabía hablar casi nada de italiano y me dijo que había venido principalmente para escuchar. Estuvimos platicando media hora en inglés y le di unos consejos para aprender el italiano. (Al menos no fue una perdida de tiempo total. Me gusta dar un poco de ayuda a los principiantes.) Nos despedimos.

Después de esa decepción, fui a un restaurante y ordené algo. Cuando estaba sentado al bar esperando la comida, un tipo me abordó, me pidió permiso para tomar la silla de al lado y se lo di. Noté que él tenía un acento extranjero y que estaba hablando por su celular pero no reconocí de inmediato el idioma. Naturalmente me fijé en esta conversación indecifrable y "misteriosa" y después de que se terminó, comencé a hablar con él:

Disculpe, qué idioma estuvo hablando ustéd?
Hebreo. Pero soy arabe...es una historia muy larga.
Ah, interesante. Perdónemi la curiosidad, es que eso es mi pasatiempo, aprender idiomas.
No se preocupe. Dígame, sabe un poco? (Inglés: "do you know a bit?" Fue una pregunta un poco ambigua.)
Un poco de hebreo? No.
Quise decir, ¿qué idiomas sabe?
Ahh, francés, español, italiano, un poco de alemán.
Tu parles français?

Hablamos unos minutos en francés. Me dijo que venía de Libano y que había aprendido el hebreo con amigos israelíes en París. Le expliqué como aprendí el francés y hablé un poco de mi viaje a Quebec. La conversación fue muy agradable, aún más después de la experiencia desalentadora con el grupo de la mañana.

Pas mal!

"L’hologramme de Jean-Luc Mélenchon échappe à tout contrôle et sème la terreur dans Paris": http://www.legorafi.fr/2017/02/06/lholo ... ans-paris/

German is chugging along. After finishing Assimil "German," I got tired of courses for some weeks and reread three of my readers, but I picked up "Perfectionnement allemand" again and am now on lesson 31, or slightly less than halfway done. I am enjoying it. On the side I am watching "Easy German" on YouTube and popping on to news sites and German radio from time to time. Both the radio and newspapers are still clearly above my level but I can often get at least the gist of things without looking anything up. Nine months of study so far. I have taken some lessons here and there, maybe ten or so since I started, but I don't feel a very intense urge to activate my knowledge yet. Just going to keep climbing the comprehension ladder for now.

Man, Portuguese is tempting me something fierce. I visit a news site and I'm like, "Neat, I can already read this." I listen to the radio and think, "Wow, I can understand this, which I've spent zero hours studying, better than German, which I've studied for nine months." Haha, maybe I will finally give in and take up Portuguese as well. It's been calling to me for years now.

Pour ceux qui parlent le français:



"Aaaaaaah, elle vient la puissance du yaourt!"

Time for some (drumroll) language Meetup drama! Actually, this is something I have never had to deal with before.

I have been attending the same French Meetup group for about eight months or so. A couple months back, the organizer made the decision to start charging $1 as an attendance fee for the group. Okay, fine, $1 is not much and it's a small group, so the money collected will be roughly enough to keep the group's Meetup site online each year.

As time has gone on, I have taken on a more active role in the group, often bringing an article for us to read and discuss together, with some of the more difficult words, expressions, and grammar points glossed. I also make notes of interesting words or useful expressions that come up in our conversation and send them out to the group members later in the week. I do these things in my free time for fun because I like to help out other learners and it's good practice. But I have never considered myself a proper "teacher" or expected any kind of compensation for this.

This past Saturday, toward the end of our two-hour discussion, the organizer announced that she wants to start charging $5 or $10 per person for each group meeting. Well, she is the manager of the group, so she can ultimately do whatever she wants in terms of fees, but what really bugged me is that she explicitly tried to use the fact that I had been acting as a "teacher" or "tutor" as a justification for charging more, along the lines of "what tastyonions is doing is worth more than $1 per session!" Even beyond the fact that $5 per weekly session adds up to about $250 per year, a sum that isn't exactly pocket change for many people, I was pretty flabbergasted that my efforts, for which I never intended to demand payment, were being used as a pretext for her to make more money out of the group.

I have let her know that I will not be moderating or acting in any capacity other than "regular" participant in the future.

I had my first dream in which I was speaking German!

tastyonions wrote:This past Saturday, toward the end of our two-hour discussion, the organizer announced that she wants to start charging $5 or $10 per person for each group meeting. Well, she is the manager of the group, so she can ultimately do whatever she wants in terms of fees, but what really bugged me is that she explicitly tried to use the fact that I had been acting as a "teacher" or "tutor" as a justification for charging more, along the lines of "what tastyonions is doing is worth more than $1 per session!" Even beyond the fact that $5 per weekly session adds up to about $250 per year, a sum that isn't exactly pocket change for many people, I was pretty flabbergasted that my efforts, for which I never intended to demand payment, were being used as a pretext for her to make more money out of the group.

And you didn't ask her to give you the money ?
My work, my money, Na !