oh isnt french the greatest language ever

I'm French! and also a moderator so you'd better like French.

 

i DID try...

 

Its alright, but messes up my Spanish

 

lol I don't blame you. I know French grammar and spelling are awful.. I myself, French, have trouble with it!!

 

talking is easier than writing ....je suis tres enchante avec penny ...elle sest tres belle tres charmont tres gentile .

 

I like French, I wish I knew more of it. I started off in french immersion back in kindergarten, but switched to a different program in grade 5. I don't think I can learn the way they teach people who have never learned french before, all the grammatical rules and you switch this when this happens and that when that happens and it's just lame. Most of it's intuitive so when they try and teach the rules I'm always confused by the exceptions (many in french, not as bad as english but still..) I should just go to france and pick it up by listening, I think.

 

my french teacher never bothered with grammar. well, not much any way. she was french and decided the best way to go about it was conversational with hints along the way. i took it for 6 years in high school and college (with wome early childhood experience, but that was creole). i only ever used it ONCE. lol. i know half of europe knows two languages, but you can typically get along extremely well in teh usa with only english.

 

i've always been in love with language. i pick it up very well, and french is my favorite. im using all my electives next year to do french 1,2, and 3. protege moi.

 

RE: I find French one of the most annoying languages, together with German, Dutch and Chinese.

Which one? Mandarin, Sichuanese, Taiwanese, Cantonese....?

As for French, that was rammed down my throat by force. I've resented it ever since.

I was joking with a Russian coworker saying French was the only language I know which has an actual word meaning "he who surrenders" - capitulard.

He said yes, Russian does. So without a word I went to the board and wrote down, in Cyrillic - K A P EE T OO L YA R?

To which he says "wow, good guess!" and writes K A P EE T OO L YA T.

(Dunno if Cyrillic works here)

I pointed out the derivation, and that a lot of Russian comes from French, words like G A R D E R O B, (wardrobe, "garde-robe" in French) L EE M O N A D (soda, from "lemonade" etc

 

Actually, Mandarin is the worst and I do not count Taiwanese nor Tibetan as Chinese.
Cantonese sounds a bit less annoying and Sichuanese is not a language.

 

Sichuanese is sure as hell a dialect of Chinese. I knew a girl who spoke it fluently, being from Sichuan and all.

 

The fact that people from the Sichuan province and even some of the surrounding ones speak the Sichuanese dialect does not mean it is a language.
It is, as you said, a dialect.

 

Mancunian English is a dialect of English, but I guarantee you won't follow a word of it if I speak it to you.

 

I usually do not even understand the normal English if British people speak to me, so I believe you on that one.
Still, it does not make it a language, it is a dialect.

 

It is still technically a variant of Chinese - my point was simply which one do you hate or do you hate them all. Some can be quite beautiful when spoken, others guttural. People make out like China is all composed of Han people, which it really isn't.

 

No, only about 95% is Han, which is still more than a billion Han's.
But ofcourse you also have the Hui, Manchu, Miao, Dai, Tibetan, Uygur and Mongolians amongst others.

 

Tru nuff

 

the weight of the staircase.....


coolest idea ever......