Le groupe français 2016 - 2023 Les Voyageurs

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Carmody
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby Carmody » Thu Dec 09, 2021 2:45 am

Le Baron
Everyone has trouble learning languages;even when it's one of the official languages of the country in which you live !

I find that brilliant, and have never heard it said before.
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Le Baron
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby Le Baron » Fri Dec 10, 2021 10:38 pm

I think back to the poor Francophones in my Dutch classes in Belgium. It's a cruel twist of fate that German/Dutch shares countries with French and that they aren't really bedfellows. The French seem to really dislike learning Germanic languages. :lol:
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DaveAgain
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby DaveAgain » Sat Dec 11, 2021 5:55 am

Le Baron wrote:I think back to the poor Francophones in my Dutch classes in Belgium. It's a cruel twist of fate that German/Dutch shares countries with French and that they aren't really bedfellows. The French seem to really dislike learning Germanic languages. :lol:
I remember Henriette Walter's Honni soit qui mal y pense high-lighting the similarities of historial linguistic influences shared by English and French, an originally Celtic population being conquered first by Romans and then by Germanic tribes. English then having the additional influence of the Norman-French conquest.

She could probably have added Dutch as a third parallel :-)
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Le Baron
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby Le Baron » Sat Dec 11, 2021 2:29 pm

DaveAgain wrote:I remember Henriette Walter's Honni soit qui mal y pense high-lighting the similarities of historial linguistic influences shared by English and French, an originally Celtic population being conquered first by Romans and then by Germanic tribes. English then having the additional influence of the Norman-French conquest.

She could probably have added Dutch as a third parallel :-)

It's funny what the language relationships provide when learning. I compare my own learning of Dutch to a friend here who was born here in the Netherlands, but initially grew up in France (one parent from either country). At 10 years old he was brought back and plonked into an ordinary Dutch school. So being essentially Francophone he was always at a disadvantage.

When they got to learning English the beginning stages were just more Germanic misery, but then they passed into more advanced vocabulary and he had lots of cognates to draw from and rocketed ahead in the class. Hare and the tortoise.

I notice that a lot of the Easy Reader books I acquired for Spanish demonstrate a similar thing. The vocabulary help is geared towards Dutch people learning Spanish and chooses to explain many words an English or French student could recognise or guess. There is a gulf between the two and as you say English has quite a beneficial mixture of the two.
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DaveAgain
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby DaveAgain » Wed Dec 22, 2021 9:32 am

Another new-to-me French expression: portrait chinois
Façon de se présenter par comparaison avec différents éléments.

Le portrait chinois est un jeu d'écriture ou de discussion. Il permet de mieux comprendre la personnalité des joueurs mais aussi de connaître leurs goûts et passions. Comment faire un portait chinois?
Le principe du jeu est simple. Un début de phrase qui commence toujours par « Si j'étais... » est énoncé et est suivi d'un objet, d'un sentiment, d'un élément... Le joueur devra ensuite continué la phrase avec une réponse qui lui semble juste et qui lui correspond. Par exemple, si la phrase est « Si j'étais un animal je serais... » le joueur peut répondre un ours, un lion, un chat... Pour intensifier le jeu, chaque joueur devra donner une justification à sa réponse.
Le jeu du portrait chinois peut être jouer entre amis, en famille ou en couple.

https://www.question-conversation.fr/po ... xemple.php

One of the definitions Larousse give for portrait is:
6. Jeu de société, dans lequel un des joueurs doit deviner, d'après les réponses par « oui » et par « non » qu'on fait à ses questions, le nom de quelqu'un ou de quelque chose.

So perhaps the expression is a variation of the game from 'portrait' > 'portrait chinois'?

---------
(I encountered it in the title of a YouTube video 'portrait chinois fashion')
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DaveAgain
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby DaveAgain » Fri Dec 24, 2021 8:59 am

Santa's sack is a 'hotte':
La hotte du Père Noël sera-t-elle vide ?

https://revoir.tv5monde.com/toutes-les- ... -elle-vide

The origin is apparantly a Swiss-German word:
Étymologie

Du mot dialectal originaire de Suisse hutte (« hotte »), de l'allemand dialectal Hotze (« corbeille »).

https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/hotte

EDIT
Les oringines du père Noël.
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Le Baron
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby Le Baron » Fri Dec 24, 2021 4:47 pm

DaveAgain wrote:Another new-to-me French expression: portrait chinois
One of the definitions Larousse give for portrait is:
6. Jeu de société, dans lequel un des joueurs doit deviner, d'après les réponses par « oui » et par « non » qu'on fait à ses questions, le nom de quelqu'un ou de quelque chose.

So perhaps the expression is a variation of the game from 'portrait' > 'portrait chinois'?

Well as you'll know 'portrait' also means to describe in words. That idea of 'painting a portrait' of something or someone as a description also exists in English. Add-in the concept of 'Chinese whispers' and the name of that game makes more sense. Though the use of 'Chinese' in this sense for both games is something I can't fathom.

With 'portrait' there's also another common compound you may know: portrait-robot = composite sketch; now more usually called photo-robot = photo-fit.
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SCMT
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby SCMT » Mon Jan 03, 2022 8:33 pm

After 3 years learning to be a mediocre Spanish speaker, I've set my sights on becoming a mediocre French speaker as well, so I'd like to join the group.

I'm a false beginner, having studied French through high school and the equivalent of 2 years at university level.

This thread has already been a resource; thanks for all of the help.
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DaveAgain
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby DaveAgain » Fri Jan 14, 2022 6:40 am

Reinke's posted a link to a new vocabulary size test that you might like to try.

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 30#p201891

"test de la taille du vocabulaire" (TTV)
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DaveAgain
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Re: Le groupe français 2016 - 2019 Les Voyageurs

Postby DaveAgain » Sat Jan 29, 2022 4:28 am

I'm a little confused by what purpose 'vous' fills in the following sentence:
A ces mots, plein d'un juste courroux,
Il vous prend sa cognée, il vous tranche la bête;
Il fait trois serpents de deux coups,
Un tronçon, la queue et la tête.

Quote from Le villageois et le serpent.

Do you know what 'vous' is doing here?
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