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I Learned French in 12 Months

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Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#81

Post by rq1 »

user5994461 wrote: post #31
raphaelj wrote: post #9

As a French native speaker, I'm a little bit surprised by the corrected text OP posted in her/his article ( http://www.runwes.com/images/learningfrench/image1.png ). Most of the corrections she/he received are not justified at all. Like using the work "crédits" is totally fine in this context. I can't get why they corrected some connectors like "à" or "pour", as the usage of these in the text seem at least as correct…

Poor corrections indeed. Using "dans" is less correct than the original "a". It's like saying to register "inside" a gym in English. Not the greatest choice of word unless you're really trying to point out the location. In fact, the only correct correction among all that red is to replace "gym" by "salle de sport". Not to be confused with "gymnasium", it's similar but not the same thing. The 4th line is misusing the…

No they’re equally correct. https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/fr-sinscrire-dans-à....

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#82

Post by clemParis »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #69
raphaelj wrote: post #9

As a French native speaker, I'm a little bit surprised by the corrected text OP posted in her/his article ( http://www.runwes.com/images/learningfrench/image1.png ). Most of the corrections she/he received are not justified at all. Like using the work "crédits" is totally fine in this context. I can't get why they corrected some connectors like "à" or "pour", as the usage of these in the text seem at least as correct…

I'm also a native speaker (France's French if that makes a difference). "Crédits" was replaced by "bons", which means vouchers. In the context that would indeed be the likely correct option (and I never heard "crédits" used that way...) It's grammatically incorrect to write "s'inscrire à une salle de sport" and should indeed be "dans une salle de sport" and so it was warranted to correct that. The other corrections a…

Interesting points! Thanks. I didn't know "inscrire" is a transitive verb, so indeed "s'inscrire à" is grammatically incorrect. As often with french it raises the question of "does this rule make sense regarding usage". A quick google search for "s'inscrire à une salle de sport" shows a lot of results, even from people specializing in sport. And many native speakers were fooled by this rule.

As for the "crédit", the dictionnary definition seem to state it is correct (even though "bon" would be a bit better). https://larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais/cr%c3%a9dit/20314... Crédit: Autorisation de dépenses accordée par les autorités qui établissent, votent ou règlent les budgets ; somme ainsi allouée : La bibliothèque dispose d'un crédit de dix mille euros.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#83

Post by torben-friis »

raphaelj wrote: post #9

As a French native speaker, I'm a little bit surprised by the corrected text OP posted in her/his article ( http://www.runwes.com/images/learningfrench/image1.png ). Most of the corrections she/he received are not justified at all. Like using the work "crédits" is totally fine in this context. I can't get why they corrected some connectors like "à" or "pour", as the usage of these in the text seem at least as correct…

For a while, I used to hang out in a subreddit for people who are learning Spanish to give advice (I'm a Spaniard).

You wouldn't believe the amount of times I was "corrected" with suggestions that were clearly, blatantly wrong if I didn't outright say that I was a native speaker.

I think it was mainly Americans from Spanish speaking immigrant families who were overconfident on their skills, but it was funny nonetheless.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#84

Post by mythrwy »

ngngngng wrote: post #63
mythrwy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally suspect it's an attempt to "sell" the religion. Someone can google Ballard and find out all about Joseph Smith! But the quote is sort of bland and not that insightful anyway.

> I personally suspect it's an attempt to "sell" the religion You can think whatever you want. It's a quote that I enjoy that came to mind while reading the parent comment. I was going to leave the name out because inevitably anything Mormon on the internet gets bombarded with comments like yours, although yours is fairly benign compared to most. I decided it was odd to quote someone and leave out the citation.

Proselytizing is annoying. If this wasn't that then apologies.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#85

Post by simlevesque »

jodrellblank wrote: post #61
bdg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a typical side-effect of writing anything online. I've had this experience with nearly everything I've ever posted (also: a lot of great comments too). Whenever you want to share knowledge about X: out of the woodwork crawl out the little pests who have nothing to do except hold you to the highest level of scrutiny they can imagine, and they'll word it like they want to crucify you for the slightest infraction.…

out of the woodwork crawl out the little pests who have nothing to do except hold you to the highest level of scrutiny they can imagine You say, with derision and personal insults to those people who dared not meet your standards for perfect corrections and perfect judgement of feedback desirability.

When you quote something you are supposed to start with "> ". Took me a long time to understand it was a quote.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#86

Post by Hamuko »

jason0597 wrote: post #66

> Started consistently covering 50 new words a day on Anki That's a lot! I could never do that... I'm learning Japanese, and I could never imagine myself doing more than 10 words a day.

I'm doing Japanese vocab on Anki and I have it set to the default 20 words per day. I'd say it's still pretty doable, although I do have relearn every day.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#87

Post by rq1 »

raphaelj wrote: post #9

As a French native speaker, I'm a little bit surprised by the corrected text OP posted in her/his article ( http://www.runwes.com/images/learningfrench/image1.png ). Most of the corrections she/he received are not justified at all. Like using the work "crédits" is totally fine in this context. I can't get why they corrected some connectors like "à" or "pour", as the usage of these in the text seem at least as correct…

I hope you’re kidding. The initial text isn’t good, the corrections are maybe not perfect and some are more a matter of taste but definitely better than the original wordings. “y dédier du temps” is closer to the original formulation and equally good for instance.

I noticed that most of native speakers of any language are not that good actually in their mother tongue.

For someone who’s learning the best disservice is to not point their mistakes out.

And sorry it’s not being pedantic to ask people to be precise enough to not spend my time guessing what they maybe were thinking.

It’s already hard enough when well written.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#88

Post by mytailorisrich »

clemParis wrote: post #82
mytailorisrich wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also a native speaker (France's French if that makes a difference). "Crédits" was replaced by "bons", which means vouchers. In the context that would indeed be the likely correct option (and I never heard "crédits" used that way...) It's grammatically incorrect to write "s'inscrire à une salle de sport" and should indeed be "dans une salle de sport" and so it was warranted to correct that. The other corrections a…

Interesting points! Thanks. I didn't know "inscrire" is a transitive verb, so indeed "s'inscrire à" is grammatically incorrect. As often with french it raises the question of "does this rule make sense regarding usage". A quick google search for "s'inscrire à une salle de sport" shows a lot of results, even from people specializing in sport. And many native speakers were fooled by this rule. As for the "crédit", the…

Both "s'inscrire à" and "s'inscrire dans" exist. The trick is to pick the right form. Both may be correct in some cases, but not in others.

Sometimes the meaning changes as well. For example "s'inscrire à l'école" and "s'inscrire dans une école". The latter means "to register with a school" but the former is more "to register to start school" in the sense that it is 'school' in general.

As for "crédits", indeed the meaning is basically the same as in English and the original sentence is correct in the language. But it's not something anyone would say. The terms used would most likely be either "bon" (voucher) or "forfait" (inclusive special rate), or perhaps "chèque" (cheque) instead of "bon" if it was given by your employer as a benefit.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#89

Post by scottlocklin »

andrewzah wrote: post #53
scottlocklin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being a New York Times Columnist The article (not the NYT one, which is just typical whiney urban cat lady trash) has a lot of the components of a marketing submarine. Particularly obviously as .... well, who is this person? I do think apps are pretty helpful in stuffing vocab in the brain. Mixed bag though. Duolingo is shit for me; they don't have continental Portuguese (Memrise does). The rest of it rings true as…

That NYT article is an example of someone basically failing at learning a language, to put it quite bluntly. Learning a language as an adult entails hard work for years and years. Living in France will not teach you French, besides "survival French" and probably "minimal conversational French". Even having a French partner won't help at all, unless you both commit to speaking French (and then your partner is put into…

Funny, one my best friends lives in Korea and is terrible at it. I don't think he ever put any effort into it though. I thought about joining him and put a little effort into learning with a Korean friend: the alphabet made a lot of sense anyway!

I have a low opinion of NYT columnists. As you say, you really have to work at it. Reading the peregrinations of someone who admitted they didn't actually work at it, larded with excuses from psychologists (who are measuring people who also didn't work at it) isn't real edifying or useful; we already know how people manage not to do it. Enough people succeed in learning new languages as adults, I'd rather hear from them.

Re: I Learned French in 12 Months

#90

Post by throwaway41968 »

swimfar wrote: post #38
bdg wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a typical side-effect of writing anything online. I've had this experience with nearly everything I've ever posted (also: a lot of great comments too). Whenever you want to share knowledge about X: out of the woodwork crawl out the little pests who have nothing to do except hold you to the highest level of scrutiny they can imagine, and they'll word it like they want to crucify you for the slightest infraction.…

I don't usually point out mistakes in non-native speakers' writing because I know most people will perceive it the way that you do. However, I always wish that people would correct me when I make a mistake in a foreign language. So part of me always wants to point things out to help people like me.

Like most complex interactions in life, it really comes down to just feeling when the time's more appropriate. Sometimes people explicitly ask you to correct what they just said ("was that right?"), sometimes they halt in the middle of a sentence and look at you expectantly so you just finish/reword it for them, etc. But generally speaking you shouldn't try to correct people too much unless it really impedes proper understanding, it can really undermine people's confidence in their speaking ability even when they are otherwise fluent. And when you do correct them, only do so with respect to grammar or improper choice of words; correcting pronunciation can be a minefield given how it can change widely within a native population, what with accents and suchlike. (Some people, especially in such a centralized language featuring very normative institutions, will argue that they don't have an accent and everyone else does, but they're wrong.) It should only be corrected when it would otherwise lead to misunderstandings.
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