English Speakers and French subtleties Hey everyone,
I’m a novice when it comes to spoken French and the subtleties of the language but I really want to do it justice when I reference it in my novel. The particular scene I need help with is a first person account of a French woman where she tells the reader about an occasion when was approached by English Gentleman (an official and very well educated) who was fluent French speaker, but not a native, and how she knew he wasn't French. I wanted to include details of how she
she might have missed initially if she wasn’t paying too much attention to him but as her guard was up already in the scene, she was able to spot the giveaways that others may have missed.
Whether it be pronunciation, tense, inflection or something to do with the time etc.
The English man in the scene approached the French woman when she’s at work in a post office and hands her a note. He tells her something along the lines of ”I need this delivered by tomorrow morning, 9:30 at the latest. Tracked” with a French name and address on the envelope. I’m thinking something around the way he says the time could be interesting, but I’m not sure how it would work yet?
What are some subtle giveaways that native French speakers pick up with non native French speakers that indicate to them them that they’re not French? (That aren’t so obvious.)
Any thoughts will be helpful. Thank you for your time🙏🏻
In the conditional phrase in the second sentence, we have "...si je ne voulais pas être père...". I have terrible hearing, but I thought I heard d'être père. I know that vouloir does not take a preposition to introduce an infinitive, so I was dubious. I certainly did not hear an elision of the 's' of pas with être. Are my ears deceiving me?
I continually get tripped up with this. I interpret the statement as being the last (previous) time so I enter ‘la fois dernière’ which is marked as incorrect. If the correct answer is ‘la dernière fois’ what is it about the statement that tells me that it’s the last (final) time?
Why isn't "je lui ai fabriqué un album photo" not "j'ai fabriqué pour lui un album photo"? The grammar section on lui v le focuses exclusively on verbs followed by à such as plaire and téléphoner.
Google Translate says "I made an album for him" = "J'ai fait un album pour lui" (but weirdly, "I made a photo album for him" = "Je lui ai fait un album photo").
Why is it not "je ne changerais *pas* ma vie pour rien au monde"? Is "pour rien" a varient of the "ne... rien" negation?
This appeared in my test. The question I have is not around the the subject pronoun, but about "ont de jolies poupées". Is this a rule regarding "avoir de"? So whatever object follows it, whether it's singular or plural you always use "de"?
Hi in this when he said the word diner, the audio gets cut.
Is it a fault at recording. just wanted to point out.
Alexandre is a proper noun, so shortening it to "qu'Alexandre" is optional and not necessary. Yet I got marked wrong for writing "n'a embrassé que Alexandre"
Hey everyone,
I’m a novice when it comes to spoken French and the subtleties of the language but I really want to do it justice when I reference it in my novel. The particular scene I need help with is a first person account of a French woman where she tells the reader about an occasion when was approached by English Gentleman (an official and very well educated) who was fluent French speaker, but not a native, and how she knew he wasn't French. I wanted to include details of how she
she might have missed initially if she wasn’t paying too much attention to him but as her guard was up already in the scene, she was able to spot the giveaways that others may have missed.
Whether it be pronunciation, tense, inflection or something to do with the time etc.
The English man in the scene approached the French woman when she’s at work in a post office and hands her a note. He tells her something along the lines of ”I need this delivered by tomorrow morning, 9:30 at the latest. Tracked” with a French name and address on the envelope. I’m thinking something around the way he says the time could be interesting, but I’m not sure how it would work yet?
What are some subtle giveaways that native French speakers pick up with non native French speakers that indicate to them them that they’re not French? (That aren’t so obvious.)
Any thoughts will be helpful. Thank you for your time🙏🏻
Why are we using "Fantaisie" and not "fantasme or fantastique" - as it my research shows "fantaisie" is to do with the music?
Next is why is it "Magie" and not "magique"? As my research shows that magie is to do with magic tricks whereas "magique" is to do with something amazing (i.e the film)
Next why is "S'assurer que" followed by the subjunctive "soit"? I've looked up this phrase and it says it's always followed by the indicative?
In the sentence below the verb emmener is used, however doesn't that give the impression that her mother stayed with her daughter to watch the film? Whereas the english text says that she watched the film with her best friend. Given the context and thinking retrospectively, I guess her mother would have stayed with her to watch it, but it's a little ambiguous (she could have just dropped her off at the cinema).
I used amener instead of emmener, but that wasn't given as an option.
j'avais dû casser les pieds à ma mère pendant des semaines pour qu'elle m'emmène voir "Amélie" avec ma meilleure amie Lola.
Nick
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