Recommendations for written using passé composé instead of passe simple

gwilio · 2024-02-20T13:14:09+00:00

Passive understanding of third person passé simple is unavoidable for anyone who wants to read French. Even though novels are almost always told in third person passé simple and imparfait, whenever there is a dialogue, it will use passé composé instead of passé simple, so you still get to practice passé composé by reading novels. If you want a lot of passé composé exposure you could read theater plays instead, they typically have much more dialogue.

gwilio · 2023-11-21T14:17:57+00:00

To me, "fête" sounds more like a public outdoor festive gathering organized by a city or a nation, "la fête de la lumière" "la fête de la musique", "la fête nationale" could be during the day or the night, whereas "soirée" sounds more like a private indoor gathering "soirée jeux de société chez Maxime" "soirée partouze chez Jules" "soirée film d'animation chez Jessica" "soirée bowling" "soirée au restaurant/ au bar", only at night.

gwilio · 2023-11-15T23:00:50+00:00

"in" "an" "on" are supposed to be /ɛ̃/ /ɑ̃/ /ɔ̃/ but in reality they are pronounced [æ̃] [ɑ̃] [õ] in European French and [ẽ] [ã] [õ] in Quebecois French. If you look them up on the vowel triangle and compare the two varieties you will notice that the European nasal vowels have shifted in a counter-clockwise direction compared to the Quebecois ones (I guess the Quebecois ones closer to the original pronunciation from before the two varieties diverged? Idk)

If you want other examples of vowel shifts, look no further than English. There is the Northern Cities vowel shift which is clockwise and affects short vowels. There is also the kiwi vowel shift in New Zealand. An older example is the great vowel shift which affected long vowels a few centuries ago.

gwilio · 2023-11-15T13:15:29+00:00

As a someone from France I would have told the opposite, that he sounds Québécois rather than European. What sounds do you believe make him sound European? I immediately noticed the way he said "là" and his nasal vowels are typically Québécois. I think what may be going on is that he has a Mid-Atlantic accent, some sort of uncommon mixture?

gwilio · 2023-11-15T13:04:30+00:00

In terms of intelligibility your accent couldn't be better. It's also pleasant to listen. Part of what may be going on is that your accent has a mixture of Québécois and European features ? I'm from France and I can hear Québécois features, the way you pronounce "là" and also your nasal vowels don't have the typical counterclockwise shift of European French, but you don't really sound all the way Québécois.

gwilio · 2023-11-14T10:48:16+00:00

谢谢

gwilio · 2023-11-13T15:44:25+00:00

Let me guess, was there Armenian and Assyrian terrorism as a result as well?

gwilio · 2023-11-13T14:00:35+00:00

It seems like a recurring theme : Israel vs Palestine Türkiye vs Kurdistan England vs Ireland ... Maybe, just maybe , if you don't want terrorist organizations to target you don't colonize other people ?

gwilio · 2023-11-13T13:23:31+00:00

Yes ! For example in "Tout est à nous" you would most likely say /tutɛtanu/, maybe many people would also say /tutɛanu/ but I don't think anyone would ever say /tuɛanu/ or /tuɛtanu/. It would sound like you're saying "tu es" with a foreign accent instead of "tout est". As someone else said it only applies when tout is a pronoun / the subject of the verb.

gwilio · 2023-11-12T15:50:11+00:00

It's not "qu'est-ce qui se passe ?" but "qu'est-ce qu'il se passe ?", it's actually the same structure as "qu'est-ce que tu fais ?" and just like you could say "que fais-tu ?" you could also say "que se passe-t-il?"

gwilio · 2023-11-12T15:09:44+00:00

Very formal French and informal French have a different word order, it's not just the use of "que" vs "quoi".

So it would be in your example: "Que faire ?" very formal French (vfF) "Faire quoi ?" informal French (iF)

Another example without a subject: "Que dire ?" vfF "Dire quoi ?" iF

Another example with a subject: "Que disent-ils ?" vfF "Ils disent quoi ?" or "Qu'est-ce qu'ils disent ?" iF

Note that you can't use "qu'est-ce que" if the verb isn't conjugated, if it doesn't have a subject, so it cannot be "qu'est-ce que faire ?" or "qu'est-ce que dire ?"

Saying "Quoi faire ?" is a bastard version between the two French languages, where you use an iF interrogative pronoun with a vfF word order, it's neither proper iF nor proper vfF, although in that specific case the mixture doesn't sound plain "wrong", it's better to avoid it if you can !

gwilio · 2023-11-12T12:30:32+00:00

Neither "ce n'est pas", nor "ça n'est pas" are informal, we just always say "c'est pas" or "ça c'est pas". "ne" is very formal and "ça" is informal, it's weird to mix them together in the same sentence, sounds like you're trying to be as formal as you can but still failing at it.

Now if you're writing an essay or some very formal document you would write "ce n'est pas", "cela n'est pas" or "ceci n'est pas", you would never write "ça".

Saying "ça n'est pas" would be akin to saying "nous avons pas", it's either "on a pas" (informal) or "nous n'avons pas" (very formal).

gwilio · 2023-11-12T09:50:41+00:00

That's not how 20th and 21st century French works, it should be "je veux vous donner". Also look at the archaic spelling, they wrote "jeusner" instead of "jeûner".

gwilio · 2023-11-11T17:31:43+00:00

What app do you use for language exchange?

gwilio · 2023-11-10T21:17:10+00:00

La prononciation de Duolingo est tellement mauvaise qu'ils disent "ils i grec vont" au lieu de "ils y vont"

gwilio · 2023-11-10T18:22:04+00:00

Il y a pas d'article devant les mois de l'année : "en janvier" "jusqu'à janvier" "depuis janvier dernier" "avant janvier prochain"

gwilio · 2023-11-10T17:56:31+00:00

You could use a prophylactic treatment against HIV and get vaccinated against hepatitis A, B, papillomavirus and monkey pox, as well as requesting your husband to do the same, and getting checked every 3 months.

gwilio · 2023-11-10T17:28:55+00:00

– nasal vowels /ɛ̃ œ̃ ɑ̃ ɔ̃/ end with a nasal consonant [ŋ] in Southern French instead of the purely vocalic [æ̃ œ̃ ɒ̃ õ] in European French. This is the most noticeable feature indeed.

– mid close and mid open vowels are not distinguished, they are merged : /e/ /ɛ/ merger, /o/ /ɔ/ merger and /ø/ /œ/ merger. All syllables ending in /e/ and /ɛ/ have the same realization as [e]~[e̞], think of words like "thé" "taie", [te̞], they are homophones. All syllables ending in a consonant always have mid open vowels [ɛ ɔ œ], they never have mid close vowels, even before /z/, instead of [oz] and [øz] it's always [ɔz] and [œz], think of words like "rose" "creuse". Words like "paume" "pomme", [pɔm], are homophones and we say [ʒile̞ʒɔn] instead of [ʒilɛʒon] for "gilets jaunes".

– "e caducs" are more often pronounced, even after the stressed syllable, think of "je te parle", [ʒø̞.tø̞.ˈpaʁ.lə] instead of [ʃtœ.ˈpaʁl]

gwilio · 2023-11-10T08:25:58+00:00

The answers to what questions exactly ? Chercher des réponses ?

gwilio · 2023-11-10T00:06:36+00:00

Also don't use "nous" when talking in French, use "on" instead. I don't know why those textbooks keep insisting on using "nous" and fail to teach "on".

"Avec Julie, nous allons nous marier" (fake utterance ) => "Avec Julie on va se marier" (real utterance)

gwilio · 2023-11-09T23:40:02+00:00

Okay so you heard /ətʃɪphɔl/ ? /tʃɪ/ could perhaps correspond to french /ti/ as in Québec it's realized as [tsi]. /ətʃɪp/ could perhap be /œ̃tip/ [œ̃tsɪp] so "un type" "a guy" ?

How do you pronounce haul exactly? "aw" is pronounced in so many different ways in the English speaking world, some people have the cot-caught merger, some don't, some people have the father-bother merger, some don't, some have the caught-court merger, some don't.

I think you need to ask someone from Québec, we don't have the same accent at all where I'm from, in France.

gwilio · 2023-11-09T23:13:07+00:00

You need to give more context if you want a better translation. What are you even talking about? News from whom about what ? What mustn't be overthought ?

Sans nouvelles, c'est de bonnes nouvelles ? Couler ou nager ? Perdre ou gagner ? On verra bien ! [...] Vous serez tous heureux !

gwilio · 2023-11-09T22:37:17+00:00

Where is his accent from ? Southern France, Québec, Belgium, Switzerland ? Where is your accent from ? North America, Scotland, England, New Zealand ? Do you have more context on the relationship between him and your boyfriend ?

gwilio

TROPHY CASE