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🙏🏻
That example doesn't make sense to me, if they are referring to the duration of time they spent in Spain, then why use an instead of année ? Even without the need of emphasizing the amount of time they spent in Spain, wouldn't the usage of année be required anyways due to the rule stating that you should use it when considering the amount of time in it's duration ?
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🙏🏻
J'habite à Alexandrie en Egypte. Est-ce correct ?
For 'Elle va avoir soixante ans demain', can we also say 'Elle aura soixante ans demain'? Merci!
Would "À bientôt !" be an acceptable answer?
I saw that there was more than one correct answer to this question, but the format was such that I could only choose one answer, and therefore only got it partially correct.
Hi, with regard to:
“when suddenly, an enormous sawshark swam above their heads!”
Half of the answers are of the type:
“quand soudain, un requin-scie énorme est passé au-dessus de leur tête !”
This set is in a format that I’ve encountered many times.
The other half are of the type:
“lorsque soudain, un requin scie énorme leur est passé au-dessus de la tête !”
This set is outside of my grammatical experience. I’m okay with the “leur tête/la tête” difference, as I’ve learned that in French we don’t always use the possessive “leur”, and can use a definite article such as “la”, especially when the owner of the body part is obvious. But could you explain why in these “la tête” answers a “leur” has appeared in each case earlier in the sentence. Is this early “leur” necessary in order to change “leur tête” to “la tête”? How can we consider this early “leur” to connect to the later “tête” when it is separated from it so much?
One of the things that continues to confuse me is when to use à , sur, dans when working with dates ( dans l’après midi - ) , sur La Canebière. Etc because sometimes they use au, à la and they are correcting me . Is there a lesson I can review to clarify this?
J'ai choisi créer pour "made up" mais il ne marchait pas. À sa place, vous avez proposé "inventer." Dans la deuxième instance, j'ai utilisé "inventer ". Vous avez fait la correction, "créer ". Je pense que tous les deux devraient être acceptable dans chaque traduction. Make up, imagine, create sont des synonymes dans le contexte de cette histiore. L'histoire était mignon comme d'habitude. Félicitations !
Shouldn't it be changions de voitures for "change cars" - i.e. plural form for cars? Isn't there a difference between 'change cars' and 'change our car' - i.e. the noun being singular or plural?
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