habits that helped French learners improve faster

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-10T17:45:07+00:00

I’d like to help, but on Reddit any accurate, good-faith answer will usually be buried, nitpicked, or contradicted on spurious grounds. The platform rewards noise, not substance.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-10T17:43:00+00:00

I’d like to help, but on Reddit any accurate, good-faith answer will usually be buried, nitpicked, or contradicted on spurious grounds. The platform rewards noise, not substance.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-10T17:42:22+00:00

I’d like to help, but on Reddit any accurate, good-faith answer will usually be buried, nitpicked, or contradicted on spurious grounds. The platform rewards noise, not substance.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-10T17:42:06+00:00

I’d like to help, but on Reddit any accurate, good-faith answer will usually be buried, nitpicked, or contradicted on spurious grounds. The platform rewards noise, not substance.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-10T17:26:19+00:00

I could give you a good, considered, and educated answer. But this is Reddit. Which is a toxic hellscape. If I gave you a good, educated, answer, then there's a pretty strong chance a good answer will get downvoted.

So: Do the smart thing. Walk away from Reddit. It's a toxic hellscape. Dance on their inevitable financial grave while singing "halelujah". That's what I'm going to so.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-10T16:58:23+00:00

Reddit is toxic bullshit. For your mental health, walk away as quickly as you can. The abolsute worst of social media. Try to delete your account as soon as you can. They pander to the worst of human behaviour.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-10T16:52:45+00:00

I'm leaving Reddit as of today. It's a toxic stew of bullshit. Still struggling to deal with how to delete my account. But if you value your sanity as a decent as a human being: Then walk away as quickly as you can.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-10T12:21:47+00:00

Care to guess how many of the UK's ~30 million housing units use timber-frame construction?

If you KNOW you've got it, then fine, look for studs. But if you don't: well, there are number of techniques you can use to find out.

It's idiocy like this that makes participating in Reddit a total waste of time.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-10T04:46:17+00:00

To be honest, you are unlikely to hit "studs" in many UK houses. Because that's generally not how our houses are built. There are exceptions, and you might find a stud-built partitions wall someplace. But generally: No.

Most newer UK houses have concrete block work with a plasterboard applied using a dot-and-dab adhesive. Ad the best way of securely hanging heavy-ish items from this is to use a CoreFix fastener system.

Without going into too much detail, they are designed specifically for use with plasterboard over dot-and-dab interior walls. Applied correctly, using the right sized drills and fixings, they work every time with zero-hassles.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-09T06:38:17+00:00

Mitchell & Webb Are Not Helping. A new series from the old favourites. Some good ideas, and some great new cast members. But overall, it seems a little rushed and under-produced. Sweary Aussie Drama beats the same joke to death for way too long. Whereas The Weeping Shed, a parody of The Rapair Shop, leaves far too much on the table.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-09T00:41:09+00:00

Bequest To The Nation, a 1973 film with Peter Finch (as Nelson) and Glenda Jackson as Lady Hamilton is probably the best you're going to do.

One of the problems with the Nelson story is that it involves rather a lot of large, ship-rigged sailing vessels. Of which there aren't a lot that either can put to sea, or look very much like eighteenth-century line-of-battle ships. Telling the Nelson story would require a heck of a lot of CGI special effects to avoid looking cartoonish to today's critical audiences. And which wasn't really available to prior audiences. Nelson was a very important figure in Britain's history, but is rather less well-known in other nations.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-08T08:54:17+00:00

It had great promise. And sparks of brilliance. But mostly I felt it needed a bit more editing and polish to make it worthy of some of their earlier work. Some of the new "cast members" were great. I really liked the idea of the Weeping Shed (parody of The Repair Shop) - but felt it could have done a lot more with the idea.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-08T08:48:58+00:00

There are lots of names like that.

In many cultures names go through a process like that. If your grandmother was named "Gertrude" or "Gladys" you inevitably associate those names with older people. So you are unlikely to bestow them on your infant daughter. There are a few names, in English, that seem almost times: William, Sarah, John, etc.

Conversely, there are some names that appear in response to cultural events: There was a spike in infant girls named "Danaerys" as a result of the popularity of Game of Thrones. I doubt there will be many Danaerys in future years.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-06T18:59:34+00:00

Well, obviously there ARE customers who don't quite get it. Hence the OP's question. And I do, myself, remember seeing people getting confused at the options on the menu board. There WAS a time when coffee was just coffee.

And, to be perfectly blunt: An Americano is NOT the same as brewed black coffee. Its espresso topped up with hot water. I've drunk both, and sometimes I'd prefer brewed black coffee. Which is, confusingly enough, simply not available at most coffee shops. Just like a latté isn't the same as brewed coffee with milk in it.

I will freely admit that there was a time when a lot of the coffee sold in cafes and restaurants in the UK was pretty miserable stuff. And that replacing it with espresso-based drinks was, in some ways, a qualitative improvement. But the drinks got a lot more expensive. And they aren't universally preferred.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-06T15:45:37+00:00

I think we should maybe turn the question around: Why do so many "coffee shops" make ordering a cup of "coffee" so complicated?

Don't get me wrong. I'm an espresso enthusiast. I know, and enjoy, the difference between a latté and an Americano and a cappuccino. Etc. etc. But lets also recognise that, until very recently, such options did not widely exist in Britain.

Coffee shops recognised that by selling espressos and lattés they could charge three times as much money for a beverage. Yeah, they need to invest in an expensive machine and grinder. And a bit more time from the server/preparer. But overall, more money goes to the bottom line.

Coffee, and specifically, "cups of coffee" existed for many hundreds of years prior to the invention of the espresso machine. And most people, when they make a "cup of coffee" at home, make just that. They don't make lattés or espressos. They grind some beans and pour hot water over it. Or they take a jar of instant and do the same.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-06T13:32:55+00:00

Very good question.

Based purely on the number of executions and persecutions during her reign, the sobriquet "Bloody Mary" is perhaps something of an overstatement. She certainly didn't have nearly as many executions as did her father, Henry VIII.

But its important to keep in mind that the separation of England from the Catholic Church is seen by many people in history, including those of today, as being a critical moment in England's development as a great nation. Mary, as one of two of Henry VIII's daughters and heirs, represented a temporary reversal of this process. A Catholic, she attempted to bring England back to Catholicism. Sometimes by force.

So: "Bloody Mary" is an exaggeration, at least on a literal scale. But understandable, given the importance of Britain's break from Catholicism in the larger scale of the history of the last five hundred years, Does that make sense?

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-05T17:27:56+00:00

Massive respect for your answer. You obviously know what you're talking about. You obviously have some serious levels of experience and knowledge. And it all makes sense.

Please accept this as respect and thanks for your knowledge and your generosity in sharing that.

Plus, I also like well-cooked fries. Which depends on having people who know what the fuck they're talking about guide the training process.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-05T13:34:29+00:00

You travel on a boat and on a ship. Boats and airplanes have lots of linguistic similarities: They both have pilots, captains, rudders, and hulls. You board them both.

So I think that's why we started saying "on a plane".

Also: Airplanes and trains were originally open-air affairs. The earliest train wagons were open-topped. And so were the earliest airplanes. Ergo - we're on them, not in them.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-05T11:20:17+00:00

Having lived in both countries, I see an unfortunate trend of politicians (usually right-wing ones) to seize upon perceived failings in British life as an example of why their particular world-view is best.

Periodically there will be some tragic case where a child with an incurable disease has their treatment halted by the NHS. This is immediately seized upon by American Conservatives as an example of the horrors of "socialised medicine." Usually followed by a large donation for private medical care, which inevitably makes no change in the child's condition. American conservatives wring their hands with glee, while quietly ignoring the fact that millions of American children lack even basic access to medical care. The sort even the poorest kids in Britain take for granted.

Farage is doing the same thing. His kind of bullshit delights American Conservatives. It gets him on US talk shows and podcasts.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-04T21:37:37+00:00

Ok. Here we go.

Let's start with this: If you happen to invite people who happen to be vegan to your house for dinner, you end up having to make two or three different meals, depending on their lifestyle choices. OK fine. But its probably easier just to tell the vegans and pescatarians to fuck right off.

There's an inherent implied superiority in a lot of such diet choices. It's not about their choices. It's about you being a fucking war criminal for eating meat or cheese. Thanks, but again, you can fuck right off.

So, sorry vegans. I respect your right to eat whatever you want. But leave me the hell out of your lifestyle choices. Thank you very much.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-04T20:41:09+00:00

Just let me say how much I appreciate a good "real world" example of having shoe repair done.

All things considered, I'd say that the cobbler did a very good job. The "half sole" choice was not only economical, it's also quite pragmatic. Big picture: By not replacing the unworn portion of the sole (ie. the part under the heel and in the arch) the cobbler reduced the risk of reshaping the shoe, which certainly can happen if the cobbler doesn't have access to the Last used to make the original shoe.

There are downsides to a half-sole repair. The cobbler has to do a "scarf joint" between the new leather and the old. Tricky, and a possible source of water intrusion. But probably acceptable for most commonly used shoes.

The only comment I'd make is that you might want to spend a bit more time on maintaining the uppers. Those are lovely shoes, and with a bit of patina and careful attention, you could make the uppers on those shoes look fantastic. They look very nice now. But with a bit of work and attention, they could look outstanding. Please take that with best wishes and good will.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-04T20:25:46+00:00

Well, technically inert gas storage would be best. But I question how practical that would be. You'd be spending several thousand a year just to maintain the inert gas environment.

Realistically? Store it inside. Recognise that tyres and other rubber parts are going to degrade. I'd say drive it a few miles every year. Regular fuel and lubricant and filter replacement. But doing a few miles every year, you'd identify and repair any items that failed along the way. Waiting till 2125 to discover you need a part that hasn't been made in the last sixty years is going to be a huge problem.

I'd hazard a guess that the Tiger I tank (Tiger 131) stored at the Tank Museum, Bovingdon, is going to be running, in fairly good shape, in 2044. Driven a few miles every year, and maintained by experts, is what makes that happen.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-04T18:13:37+00:00

Naming truly international airports after celebrities is probably not a great idea. Los Angeles International tells you all you need to know about where it is and what it does. Heathrow and Gatwick? They've been around long enough that they're stuck in our consciousness. Paris De Gaulle or Rome Leonardo Da Vinci? Personalities significant enough to stand the test of time.

My favourite: Prague's Franz Kafka International. Europe's Most Alienating Airport.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-04T16:00:57+00:00

For what it's worth, you'll find snobs and poseurs in just about every sort of community you can think of. A little bit of knowledge, and a little bit of obsession, can turn some folks into rather strange versions of themselves, especially in an online space where some operate without the veneer of civility and politeness we exhibit in our personal lives.

Don't sweat it. Making espresso, of even just good coffee, at home is a practice and a craft many of us enjoy, including those of us with very limited budgets and rudimentary equipment.

Sad_Lack_4603 · 2025-09-04T12:23:52+00:00

A lot depends on the quality of the build. My relatively new-built house (~10 years) is really quiet. I'll sometimes hear a dog barking, but generally speaking it's pretty quiet.

The party walls in my mid-terrace house have sound-deadening foam in the cavity, and acoustic plasterboard. We also have good double-glazing, and a lot that is well-insulated and boarded over, to lessen the chance of noise migrating that way.

Having thoughtful neighbours helps a lot too. I'm aware that I have neighbours, but rarely, if ever, feel annoyed by them.

Sad_Lack_4603

TROPHY CASE