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Post by chexbres on Apr 24, 2016 19:40:41 GMT
kerouac - La Pagode had young women who sold candy on the landing and would help old people to their unmarked seats, if needed. There was a sign on the door stating that "les ouvrieres" were not paid, and depended on tips. Too bad this cinema is closed, now - I wanted to live in the building... cinematreasures.org/theaters/6906/photos
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Post by lagatta on Apr 24, 2016 21:43:23 GMT
I bought a Rosetta Stone for Turkish yesterday and think it's pretty crap. But I think any method is crap that starts with sentences like "The horse is jumping." If all their CDs are like that I'd say they are overrated." I remember a German method where one of the first sentences was "I hear the cow". Sorry, I'm having trouble with the quote thingy. Worked fine before.
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Post by chexbres on May 7, 2016 13:16:33 GMT
There are a bunch of dog owners who walk around the same time each day, and we chat in French. Yesterday, someone asked me to help his Chilean wife practice English. Her French is a lot worse than mine, and I only know a few phrases in Spanish - wonder how this will pan out?
I had two "students" last year - people I just met at a cafe - a young woman who needed to brush up her English for work and an Australian who was more interested in learning how to meet girls and order beer. The woman really didn't need much help, but the Australian was really dedicated and had started classes with Alliance Francaise, but wasn't getting much out of it. So I suggested that he forget trying to memorize all the verb conjugasions and concentrate on everyday phrases and the most common verb forms, instead. He made a lot of progress...until he found a girlfriend and took off to go pick olives in the South of France.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 7, 2016 13:54:37 GMT
Sorry, I'm having trouble with the quote thingy. Worked fine before. It still works fine. Simply remember to add your own comments after the brackets -- [/quote] -- indicating the end of the quote.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2016 12:13:52 GMT
I was reading that learning a foreign language modifies one's moral values by making you think in different ways. The added reflection needed to express yourself makes you understand things that you had never thought about before and makes you more tolerant.
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Post by htmb on Sept 21, 2016 12:43:26 GMT
I can certainly understand that idea and have witnessed it in myself, but I also think the fact someone even wants to learn a new language in order to communicate with others must also play a role. I wonder if a person learning a new language could initially be more tolerant than someone who expects to communicate in their own language even while in another country. Are people who want to learn new languages more tolerant than those who aren't to begin with?
I'm in a very nice French class right now. I had hesitated to sign up because I'll miss four of the ten classes, but I joined when they said I could pay for just the classes I will be attending. The class is a good size: five, including me. The teacher was raised in France, but has an American mother. She's very patient and kind, but is conducting the whole class in French, which is how it should be for this level. I have always struggled with languages and three of the four people in the class are much more fluent (and two are very young), but I can see that just being in the class and forcing myself to try to communicate should help me become more conversational.
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Post by fumobici on Sept 22, 2016 2:19:36 GMT
The last few times I have visited my family in Italy I've joined a weekly session where we native Anglophones wanting to work on our Italian are paired with local Italians who want to improve their English. We are paired up, find quiet spots in the town library and just chat for a couple of hours rotating partners. We're supposed to talk for x number of minutes in one language and then x minutes in the other, but I prefer to just let it flow. It's really a great learning opportunity, and at the same time I've met some very interesting locals, some of whom I've known for years now and after a while doing this in a small town you can run into friends just walking down the street! I love that.
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Post by htmb on Sept 22, 2016 3:46:18 GMT
That does sound like a good opportunity for everyone, fumobici. A nice way to sharpen your language and get to know others at the same time.
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Post by chexbres on Sept 22, 2016 18:54:28 GMT
htmb - the next time you visit Paris, you might check out Franglish - they meet up in certain cafes and do the same thing you described. I don't believe it costs anything except for what you have to drink. But then again, by the time you come back, kerouac and I will be glad to keep you chatting en francais tout le temps
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Post by htmb on Sept 22, 2016 19:59:33 GMT
Thank you, Chexbres. You're always taking care of me.
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Post by rikita on Sept 26, 2016 6:46:02 GMT
There are a bunch of dog owners who walk around the same time each day, and we chat in French. Yesterday, someone asked me to help his Chilean wife practice English. Her French is a lot worse than mine, and I only know a few phrases in Spanish - wonder how this will pan out? I had two "students" last year - people I just met at a cafe - a young woman who needed to brush up her English for work and an Australian who was more interested in learning how to meet girls and order beer. The woman really didn't need much help, but the Australian was really dedicated and had started classes with Alliance Francaise, but wasn't getting much out of it. So I suggested that he forget trying to memorize all the verb conjugasions and concentrate on everyday phrases and the most common verb forms, instead. He made a lot of progress...until he found a girlfriend and took off to go pick olives in the South of France. i suppose you taught english to one and french to the other? because for a moment, i was thinking you meant you had two students you were teaching, so then seeing that one was australian confused me a bit ...
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Post by rikita on Sept 26, 2016 6:49:59 GMT
There are a bunch of dog owners who walk around the same time each day, and we chat in French. Yesterday, someone asked me to help his Chilean wife practice English. Her French is a lot worse than mine, and I only know a few phrases in Spanish - wonder how this will pan out? I had two "students" last year - people I just met at a cafe - a young woman who needed to brush up her English for work and an Australian who was more interested in learning how to meet girls and order beer. The woman really didn't need much help, but the Australian was really dedicated and had started classes with Alliance Francaise, but wasn't getting much out of it. So I suggested that he forget trying to memorize all the verb conjugasions and concentrate on everyday phrases and the most common verb forms, instead. He made a lot of progress...until he found a girlfriend and took off to go pick olives in the South of France. i suppose you taught english to one and french to the other? because for a moment, i was thinking you meant you had two students you were teaching, so then seeing that one was australian confused me a bit ... i have a new student: my brother's girlfriend. when she came to germany half a year ago she barely spoke german at all (she is polish) but by now she is pretty good. she wants to work on her grammar so we started exchanging lessons for babysitting. also, the "sprachcafé" (where volunteers can teach refugees - mainly conversation, and you often have different students each time) has started again, though i have to see if i manage to go there regularly, as agnes has her music school on the same day ...
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Post by chexbres on Sept 26, 2016 14:05:25 GMT
The Chilean wife got cold feet, and it turned out that they were really looking for someone to escort their 3 year old to daycare and back and keep him busy during the afternoon, because the wife got a job.
The Australian guy was never heard from again - presumably, he's still down South picking grapes and picking up women. I'm sure he's learning a lot more French than he did when I tried to teach him!
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 12, 2017 23:11:20 GMT
If we start practicing this now, we can all sing it at the next anyport get-together.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 13, 2017 4:24:48 GMT
That is quite cute and not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be when I read about it in the news. I thought the entire song was in Icelandic.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 13, 2017 4:34:03 GMT
It is! You must have spontaneously understood it in French or English -- amazing!
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Post by whatagain on Oct 13, 2017 6:54:12 GMT
A feel good song - always refreshing.
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Post by patricklondon on Oct 13, 2017 7:50:09 GMT
Here are several thousand people getting an impromptu lesson in Finnish at the BBC Proms last year (this was an encore to an interestingly folk-y performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto - there was a sort of mini-trend for instrumentalists to sing part of their encore): My blog | My photos | My video clips My Librivox | "too literate to be spam"
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 13, 2017 12:16:08 GMT
Impromptu? Wow. Polished, but exuberant and fun!
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Oct 13, 2017 14:02:19 GMT
My son will love this...his GF is Finnish and he spends as much time as he can over there. Great stuff.
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Post by Kimby on Oct 13, 2017 14:08:38 GMT
There are new earbuds available that instantaneously translate 40 languages, both for listening and for speaking. Forget who they’re made by. I wonder if learning languages will now become obsolete.
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