And lo on Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:03:44 -0000, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did  
spake, saying:

> Phil Cook wrote:
>> And lo on Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:09:50 -0000, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull>  
>> did spake, saying:
>>
>>> Je me demande, cela fait un sens?
>>  "What! My mother was a saint. Get out!"
>
> o_O

GIYF - add "Futurama" to the query.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

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On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:23:34 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> To speak French, you have to actually speak in a French accent, or
> nobody knows what you're saying. Which actually makes sense, really...

Well, I've been told that the French (and in particular, Parisians) often 
will pretend they don't understand if your French is bad.  I had a 
similar experience to this in Barcelona - the difference between Spanish 
and Catalan is small enough that if you speak Spanish, they can 
understand you.

For example, in Spanish, the city "Barcelona" is pronounced "bar-se-lone-
a".  In Catalan, it's pronounced "Bar-theh-lone-a".  But if you don't 
pronounce it the second way, the locals will tend to pretend to not know 
what you're saying.  They damned well know what is meant, though.

Jim

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"Phil Cook" <phi### [at] nospamrocainfreeservecouk> wrote in message
news:op.t5utu1ywc3xi7v@news.povray.org...
> And lo on Fri, 01 Feb 2008 16:08:39 -0000, Gail Shaw sa dot com>
> <"<initialsurname"@sentech> did spake, saying:
>
 >
> > It's friday and I'm slow.
>
> Weekend yay!
>
> > Which reference did you have in mind?
>
> Zathras, Zathras, Zathras

Ah right. I almost forgot them. But then, no one ever listen to poor
Zanthras

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Invisible nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2008/02/01 05:23:
> During my stay in Switzerland, I discovered a number of things.
> 
> The region I was staying in (Nendaz) speaks French. Now, my knowledge of 
> French is minimal. I recall that what we refer to as a "gold fish", the 
> French call "le passion rougue" ("the red fish"), and that's about it.
We say "le poasson rouge"
> 
> I recall sitting down in the cafe at Siviez. Waitress wanders over and 
> mutters something in French. I look at her for a moment. "Well I hope 
> your English is way better than my French." She looks worried.
> 
> Well anyway, I eventually managed to figure out that if you mumble 
> "shokolah", they bring you a mug of hot chocolate. Which tastes ****ing 
> fantastic BTW.
> 
> Benny likes to drink some kind of coffee. I'm not sure exactly what it 
> is. The waitress comes over and he says "reversay". And she looks at him 
> like "dude, WTF?" Anyway, it turns out the correct way to pronounce this 
> word is actually a cross between saying "reversay" and trying to cough 
> up a gold watch: hhhhhhhhrrreversay. Otherwise they literally have no 
> idea what you're saying.
Kind of sound like "poured again" or "turned over". Depend on the exact context.
> 
> I still have no idea what this word actually means... Any guesses?
> 
> Also somewhat interesting: If you ask an English person how to say 
> "hello" in French, they'll tell you it's "bon-jor". Well, *I* didn't 
> hear anybody say that! What I heard was much more like "bor-shor". 
> Because, you know what? To speak French, you have to actually speak in a 
> French accent, or nobody knows what you're saying. Which actually makes 
> sense, really...
Just *what* french accent are you talking about? There are 100's of them...
I live in Montréal, Québec, end there are times I have dificulties understanding 
some other french speakers.
I can say the same about english eccents ;-)
> 
> Similarly, it's not "mer-see". It appears to involve a completely 
> different set of vowles, more closely approximating "meial-si". Danm, I 
> can't even *type* it, much less say it out loud.
"mer-see" is closer to the way we say it where I live.
> 
> For me, the most baffling thing was hearing little kids uttering 
> complex-sounding French sentences. Now, logically, this isn't 
> surprising. They're probably from France! What else would they be 
> speaking? And yet, it still amazed and astonished me every time... 
> French words seem to have such a complicated structure. And yet these 
> kids toss it around as if it's *easy*. Which, when you're a French 
> person, it probably is.
I was wondering the same when I had to learn english...
> 
> Like I said, logically there's nothing unusual here. Rationally, you 
> know that. But even so, when you see small children casually doing 
> something that you yourself find impossibly difficult... it's always 
> surprising.
> 
> (But then, come to that, there were children there who could ski better 
> than they can *walk*! Really showed me up...)
> 
> You know, it's probably a *good* thing that I don't know how to say "you 
> have a really nice arse" in French. Because that waitress would have 
> probably slapped me for it. Mind you, she says her boyfriend is always 
> teaching her new English words and phrases. (And damn, her English isn't 
> half bad...) Ho hum!
It's "Vous avez un beau derrière!" Or "Vous avez de belles fesses"
Pronounce (aproximataly):
"vou zavai un bo deriair" or "...de bell fess"
And, yes, it could result in a stiff slap in the face...

You may try to first learn Spanish or Italian, then learn French. Learning Latin 
and classical Greek can also help. Anyway, learning a new language is never a waste.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
Thomas Jefferson

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Invisible nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2008/02/01 10:09:

>> OMG, I just had a very silly idea... Google Translate. 0;-)
>>
>> (From the site that brought us "leave the impact price-increase your 
>> body"...)
> 
> Hmm. I've just spent several hours translating every naughty phrase I 
> can think of from English to French. Damn, this has got to the the 
> silliest thing I've done in a long, *long* time... ;-)
> 
> Je me demande, cela fait un sens?
> 
Absolument!
Can you post some of those?

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
   The other day I came home and a guy was jogging, naked. I asked "Why?"  He 
said "Because you came home early."
	Rodney Dangerfield

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Alain wrote:

> Just *what* french accent are you talking about? There are 100's of them...
> I live in Montréal, Québec, end there are times I have dificulties 
> understanding some other french speakers.
> I can say the same about english eccents ;-)

As Benny pointed out, there are - or were - areas of England where the 
dialect they speak is so strange as to be beyond comprehension to most 
normal people. [I'm not even going to attempt to describe his impression 
of Glasgow. But it involves saying "JIMMI!" a lot and speaking extremely 
fast...]

>> You know, it's probably a *good* thing that I don't know how to say 
>> "you have a really nice arse" in French. Because that waitress would 
>> have probably slapped me for it. Mind you, she says her boyfriend is 
>> always teaching her new English words and phrases. (And damn, her 
>> English isn't half bad...) Ho hum!

> It's "Vous avez un beau derrière!" Or "Vous avez de belles fesses"
> Pronounce (aproximataly):
> "vou zavai un bo deriair" or "...de bell fess"
> And, yes, it could result in a stiff slap in the face...

LOL! Especially when I've just watched her standing there snogging her 
bf's face off in the middle of the cafe... ;-)

FWIW, Google claims "Vous avez un joli cul." I have no idea whether that 
actually makes any sense at all though. Google translations are a 
little... variable. ;-)

[Never the less, I just wasted a whole afternoon coming up with stuff 
like "Je tiens à vous faire nu." Damn, I should grow up... :-S ]

> You may try to first learn Spanish or Italian, then learn French. 
> Learning Latin and classical Greek can also help. Anyway, learning a new 
> language is never a waste.

That's exactly the mind-set I had when I took up Haskell. Oh, wait...

[On a more serious note... I have attempted to learn Latin a few times. 
And generally failed. Oh well!]

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Gail Shaw nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2008/02/01 09:52:
> "Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
> news:47a2f325$1@news.povray.org...
> 
>> To speak French, you have to actually speak in a
>> French accent, or nobody knows what you're saying. Which actually makes
>> sense, really...
> 
> Try Thai. It's a tonal language. The same sounding word has different
> meanings if you say it with a high pitch, medium pitch, low pitch, rising or
> falling.
> 
> 
There are 4 pitches.
High pitch, medium high, medium low, low, flat, rising or falling. When you hear 
cantonese or mandarin, it all sound like random noises and buzzings. At times, 
it don't even sound like any king of language at all.
The various arabic languages are also prety strange sounding, when you don't 
speak them.

-- 
Alain
-------------------------------------------------
You know you've been raytracing too long when someone shows you a photograph of 
their new rough-slate kitchen floor and you say "nice normals".
     -- Tom Melly

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On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 20:05:01 +0000, Orchid XP v7 wrote:

> As Benny pointed out, there are - or were - areas of England where the
> dialect they speak is so strange as to be beyond comprehension to most
> normal people. [I'm not even going to attempt to describe his impression
> of Glasgow. But it involves saying "JIMMI!" a lot and speaking extremely
> fast...]

Glaswegian can be difficult to understand, yes.  I've got a friend/
coworker who lives between Glasgow and Edinburgh who speaks a dying 
dialect of Gaelic.  A real shame, because it's a beautiful language to 
listen to.

Jim

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"Orchid XP v7" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47a37b4d$1@news.povray.org...
> Alain wrote:
>
> > Just *what* french accent are you talking about? There are 100's of
them...

> > understanding some other french speakers.
> > I can say the same about english eccents ;-)
>
> As Benny pointed out, there are - or were - areas of England where the
> dialect they speak is so strange as to be beyond comprehension to most
> normal people.

I've had problems understanding the accents/dialict of central London,
Glasgow, Liverpool, Aberdene.

I have no problems with the accents in Edinburgh, Inverness, most parts of
London or the Midlands. Those Cockneys though... (Including 2 cousins and an
aunt, none of whome I can understand)

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Orchid XP v7 a écrit :
> FWIW, Google claims "Vous avez un joli cul." I have no idea whether that 
> actually makes any sense at all though. Google translations are a 
> little... variable. ;-)

It is perfectly correct, in the grammatical sense or course :-)
No, the only problem with Google's translation, in this case, is that it 
  kind of mixes two tones. "You" is translated as "vous" for people you 
respect or are unfamiliar with. "Cul" is a familiar term, so ordinarily 
you don't put both in the same sentence.

So that you can adjust the level of the sentence like so:
"Vous avez un joli derrière"
Or if you really want to be more familiar: "Tu as un beau cul".

In effect, the first sentence would justify the stiff slap in the face, 
and with the second, chances are you get a knee somewhere else as an 
added bonus :-D

-- 
Vincent

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