History Correction

Hi Sid, 

one of the true joys of learning a second language (and more generally about having a rich encounter with someone from a different background) is the conclusion (most people) reach that there are millions of amazing people around the world, whose company you can truly enjoy, and yet they have a totally different perspective to you on the same topic.

Jim and Maarten thank you for your comments, as usual, they represent the best of our community spirit.  Jim, you're certainly correct, as a discussion forum about language concepts this isn't an ideal place for political opinion!  Maarten while we certainly have community standards that sometimes call for deletion of posts, I think it's worth leaving this one up, to allow for a productive response from anyone who is interested, initially me!

Sid, you obviously have a different view on this than many other people, and for that, I thank you for sharing.  It is what we're trying to facilitate on Kwiziq, albeit generally, we'd be looking for a less aggressive approach (and perhaps next time you could try it in French, so we can all learn from it?)

To paraphrase in return, Sid, "what of your points would you consider factual"? 

All of your points are opinions:

"a view, judgment, or appraisal formed in the mind about a particular matter"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/opinion

As opposed to facts:
"a piece of information presented as having objective reality"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fact

Opinions, of course, are based on historical events, many of which could indeed be objective and factual; but the view you have expressed is subjective, not objective. Perhaps more importantly, when presented in the manner they were, their contribution to meaningful discussion is extremely limited because if you can have your own "facts" so can other people, which produces a most unedifying result.  Sadly, this is a pattern we often see in modern discourse, but it's not the best way to share ideas, I'm sure/hope you can agree, and it is the antithesis of what we're trying to achieve at Kwiziq.

Nonetheless, I appreciate your opinion, it certainly serves to illustrate an essential part of language learning, that is, the need to be open-minded about the views of the people you're sharing stories with.  I live in France, and I am extremely confident (based on experience around many dinner tables) that the average French person would hold their own in a debate on this topic; I would, however, suggest that you'd get a lot out of any future encounter by listening to their perspective on whatever topic was being discussed, rather than correcting it in advance.

I hope all the lessons on Kwiziq help you do just that.

Bon courage!

Hi Sid,

Do you have a French grammar/language question for the forum to consider?

A much more extensive account of a great and also humanly flawed man. 

Your comment is insulting to millions of French people and totally unnecessary here. Whatever background has driven you to your viewpoint, the comment is way out of line here  There are other forums you can go to. Hopefully both your comment, and this response will soon be deleted by site administration

 https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle