Le groupe français 2016 - 2023 Les Voyageurs

[Carmody]

Tom,

Thanks so much for your phenomenal patience; greatly appreciated.

I think I have it but it will take me a while to get used to:

Ca c’est un bon hôtel mais peut-être très Américain

(please note the cedilla of the Ca works fine in MS Word however when I put it in here it disappears even though I type the sequence of keys of : Alt + < . So I haven't figured that out. Am I doing something wrong?

Also congratulations to everyone on figuring the different ways to cope with keyboards for foreign languages. It isn't often talked out but does seem necessary.

[tomgosse]

Tom,

Thanks so much for your phenomenal patience; greatly appreciated.

I think I have it but it will take me a while to get used to:

Ca c’est un bon hôtel mais peut-être très Américain

(please note the cedilla of the Ca works fine in MS Word however when I put it in here it disappears even though I type the sequence of keys of : Alt + < . So I haven't figured that out. Am I doing something wrong?

Also congratulations to everyone on figuring the different ways to cope with keyboards for foreign languages. It isn't often talked out but does seem necessary.

Try the sequence: apostrophe then the letter c. See attached picture. With the alt-gr and < key combo you must hold down the alt-gr key while you type the < key. Hope this helps

ç keys.jpg

[MorkTheFiddle]

Try the sequence: apostrophe then the letter c. See attached picture. With the alt-gr and < key combo you must hold down the alt-gr key while you type the < key. Hope this helps

ç keys.jpg

Thanks for this, Tom. I will never type © instead of ç again.

[Carmody]

Ça....cést bon; c'est ça!

Ouais, ouais!

Enfin!

Ouf!

Tom you certainly do post remarkably clear instructions. You are an excellent teacher.

Now, no excuses for not writing my nightly diary of the day's events.

Merci à tous

Bien merci!

[Voxel]

You can also buy a French USB keyboard if you don't want to memorize combos.

[smallwhite]

Having learnt how to type accents, it's time to learn how to type punctuation marks the French way!
Courage !

[Voxel]

When writing numbers, either a period or a space may be used to separate every three digits (where a comma would be used in English):
1,000,000 (English) = 1.000.000 or 1 000 000

Note: When writing numerals, the period and comma are opposites in the two languages

English speakers think period and comma are reversed in French but it's wrong, we don't use period.
In French, digits are grouped into threes both sides of the comma (French decimal point) and separated by non-breaking spaces.

Example :
English: 1,000,000.200
French: 1 000 000,200

[Carmody]

Here is a two part question that everyone probably knows the answer to, so if it is too basic please feel free to ignore.

Part one:
In my French In Action workbook Part II on page 40 I find:
Si on allait diner sur un bateau-mouche?
and
Si elle avait un petit air suédois, ça ne m’éttonerait pas !

But then on page 42 I find
S’ils avaient une voiture, ils iraient en voiture.

My question has to do with the spelling of Si an S’. Which usage is appropriate and when? Yes, I have multiple grammar books and have reviewed them to no avail. Does anyone have an answer on this?

Of course it is possible that this is not an either or question and that the French are easy with the usage either way.

Part two:
So the second and more important part of the question is where does one go with a question of this sort so as not to bother people? I believe I am familiar with all the standard websites for help in French but I don’t believe they answer this particular type of question, or do they?

Thank you.

[Jim]

Hi Carmody, this link should help answer the question.

[tastyonions]

S' before a pronoun starting with "i" and si everywhere else.