Kimchizzle's Spanish, French, Dutch and other adventures

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sctroyenne
Orange Belt
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Joined: Tue Jul 21, 2015 4:06 am
Location: Montreal, QC (moved from the SF Bay Area living my dream!)
Languages: French (C2), Irish (beg-intermediate), Spanish (intermediate but mostly passive)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=767
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Re: Kimchizzle's Spanish, French, Dutch and other adventures

Postby sctroyenne » Wed Sep 23, 2015 3:48 pm

Arnaud wrote:
kimchizzle wrote:Je n'ai pas eu beaucoup de temps. [...]
J'aurais souhaité avoir plus de temps pour améliorer mon français...

The imparfait/passé composé mistakes are very frequent. Also very frequent is the impossibility to say "je souhaite que je": simply use an infinitive when you have twice the same pronoun: Il souhaite faire/ Il souhaite que je fasse, but no "Il souhaite qu'il fasse" (the mistake is logic, of course, people learn that after "souhaiter", you need the subjonctive, so they try to put subjonctive everywhere, but it doesn't work when you have twice the same pronoun twice). (the word order is more natural-sounding this way in English)

When you know russian and a romance language, learning Latin is an intellectual pleasure, you're in known land for the grammar and the cognates.


Over the course of my formal French education I've heard many "rules" about when to use subjunctive (my first high school teacher said "after que" which is awful to use as a rule since there would be way too many exceptions to be useful). Another one I heard was when you introduce a new subject in the sentence which helps understand the above - if you keep the same subject keep it simple, use the infinitive : Je veux partir /Je veux que tu partes. Elle porte des lunettes noires afin que personne ne la reconnaisse. / Elle porte des lunettes noires pour ne pas se faire reconnaître. As a "rule" it's not bad. Though in style guides I read the second sentence of the second example would be preferable since the other one would be clunkier.
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kimchizzle
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Languages: English (N), French
Studying Spanish, Dutch, Russian
On the radar, Estonian, Ukrainian, Cantonese, Korean, Swedish
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Re: Kimchizzle's Spanish, French, Dutch and other adventures

Postby kimchizzle » Fri Sep 25, 2015 2:44 am

The subjunctive is quite tricky indeed. I need to remember to simply avoid it by using the infinitive as much as possible. It seems to make more natural sounding French sentences anyways. Many times I use the subjunctive just to see if I remember how to use it correctly and end up creating correct yet clunky sentences or incorrect and clunky sentences. :lol: When studying in France we learned the subjunctive rules by categories.
For example.
Feelings: Je suis heureux que...je suis triste que...j'ai peur que...etc.

Possibility: Il est possible que...ce n'est pas probable que...je ne pense pas que...je ne crois que...je ne suis pas sûr que...etc.

Set expressions and conjunctions: Il faut que...il est important que...afin que...bien que...à moins que...etc.

Certain verbs: j'aime que...j'adore que...je souhaite que...etc

I'm sure in France the categories were better and more specific, I'm just trying to think from memory and I've forgotten many specifics already. But I do believe that learning the subjunctive in this type of way is very effective. It was the first method that really helped get the subjunctive internalized for me.

Most of my subjunctive mistakes are probably forgetting what verbs always take subjunctive, like I forgot souhaiter took the subjunctive in another post until Arnaud corrected me. One thing that messed me up a few times recently is that je ne sais pas si...takes indicative. I've put it in subjunctive a few times because in my mind it expresses a possibility which usually takes subjunctive.
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Spanish Duolingo: 42 / 100 Dutch Duolingo: 4 / 100
Feel free to help correct any of my languages, except my native tongue. :shock:

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tomgosse
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Re: Kimchizzle's Russian, French and Spanish journal

Postby tomgosse » Wed Oct 21, 2015 2:20 pm

kimchizzle wrote:
French, my first true love, the one I'll always want to be with and grow old together. We've split apart a few times on and off, but we always reconcile, and our love never dies.. I often feel bad I don't give her the attention she deserves.

I came across this post of yours from last August. I can't think of a better way of describing my relation to French. :D
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