Teach me your language I teach you mine

[BerlinRocks]

i came after the war but...
for i don't care french translation it would be hard to explain...
it's je m'en fous but this is VERY familiar... never write this!!!! you can tell it with your friends etc. but never write it!

the right translation would be... actually this is hard... heu...
for instance :
Did you hear about xxxx ?
No I don't care about this!
=
As-tu entendu parler de xxxx ?
Non, ça ne m'intéresse pas!

for the not use of "pas" in je m'en fous... I think this is because of the verb... s'en foutre is already negative as it means you don't pay attention to it, you don't care about it etc. so it's already negative... I think noone could explain this, this is the french use of this verb that's it...

Does jouer apply to the general changes in ending, like jouer, jouent?...where does joue(/) accent come into place?...

The question in my exercise is...

Daniel et Luc vont-ils jouer au hockey ce week-end? (accorde(/)on et saxophone)

A: Non, ils vont jouent du accorde(/)on et du saxophone.

is this right at all?

or would it be...

A: Non, ils vont joue(/) du accorde(/)eon et du saxophone.

??


How would the context change if the original question was joue(/) instead of jouer?
is it the difference between past and present?

why are you talking about accent, i don't understand...
after the verb aller you always put the next verb into his infinitif form.
as Party in Paris explained...
je vais jouer, nous allons manger etc.

(...)

and I think I already explain about the "de+ l' ", non??? ahah you're not good pupil!!!

oh and by the way you cannot cut accordéon (=accordion)... this is a word!
but maybe you were talking about the accent because of a phonetic exercize, non?

 

[xmodel citizen]

Random questions coming up!

First, how do you say, "ago", as in "I was his friend 20 years ago"? I know "Fui su amigo..." and how to say "I was his friend for 20 years", but not in the past tense like that. Also, when speaking in the past tense, do you conjugate "hace" for the past tense? Like, to say "I was his friend for 10 years", do you say "Fui su amigo hace diez años" or "Fui su amigo hizo diez años"?

 

[sleepingbeauty13]

I was his friend 20 years ago.
Fui su amigo hace 20 años.

I was his friend for 10 years.
Fui su amigo durante 10 años.
or
Fui su amigo por 10 años.

 

[BerlinRocks]

i have question : what means ditto and dunno?
always hear, always read... never know what it means!

 

[xmodel citizen]

^ Ditto is like an agreement with what the person says. Like, if someone says "I love you", you can say "Ditto" instead of "I love you too" (haha Ghost!).

Dunno is just slang for "I don't know":
"Do you remeber when the test is?", "No, I dunno"

 

[Fashion.mania]

This is such an amazing thread! I have sth to translate into Swedish, can anyone help? That is sth like: “Girls’ attention please!!!
A guy who has a girlfriend but still wants other girls is not good boyfriend material. Don’t get involved with guys like that.”

You can translate it loosely, just make it look like words from a Swedish poster or so. Thanks very much in advance.

 

[BerlinRocks]

^i'll be happy to see that translation, too.
Pojken... is the first word...non?

xmodel-citizen : thank you for clearing this up ...

 

[stersita]

there's also the bad habit of not respecting the difference between C, S, or Z

I love this

In French does "rien" need the "ne"? For example in "I don't know anything", what would you say? Je ne sais pas rien? Je ne sais rien? Je sais rien?

It gets really confusing

 

[Pashen'ka]

^ The correct french phrase is: "Je ne sais rien"
Though in spoken language you can use also "Je sais rien" (even shortened as "J'sais rien")

 

[stersita]

^ Thank you so much Pash! I think I'll stick with "Je ne sais rien", I find it impossible to pronounce that "J'sais", it comes out the same as "Je sais"

 

[Pashen'ka]

^

Btw, perhaps we could write down some tongue twisters?

Here's one in english:

Betty Botter had some butter,
"But," she said, "this butter's bitter.
If I bake this bitter butter,
it would make my batter bitter.
But a bit of better butter--
that would make my batter better."
So she bought a bit of butter,
better than her bitter butter,
and she baked it in her batter,
and the batter was not bitter.
So 'twas better Betty Botter
bought a bit of better butter.



...and one in italian:


Se l'arcivescovo di Costantinopoli si disarcivescovizzasse,
voi vi disarcivescovizzereste?

(= If Costantinoble's archbishop 'ceased being an archbishop', would you do it too?)

 

[stersita]

The first one's easy, well kinda I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing the second one correctly though, I can never remember if in Italian 'c' (Arcivescovo) is pronounced as 'th' (like the Spanish 'c' sound I mean) or 'ch'

 

[Pashen'ka]

^ We pronounce "C" as "CH" if it's followed by "E" or "I", otherwise as "K" (so to pronounce it as a "K" before an "E" or "I" we need to put an "H" between them... )

 

[stersita]

^ Kinda complicated... So it's pronounced as "ch" when it's "ce" but not when it's "che", ok

Oh I just noticed that first part is like in Spanish, the "e" and "i" part, now I'll remember

 

[Pashen'ka]

^ Yep, it's a bit confusing...

And again, in order to pronounce a "sweet c" (as in spanish "ch") before an "A", "O" or "U", we need to put an "I" between them.

Example:

Sweet C:
cesto (basket)
città (town)
ciao (hi)
ciò (this)
ciula (milanese for "stupid")

Hard C:
che (that / what)
chi (who)
caffè (coffee)
coppa (cup)
culo (*** - ehm, sorry, but I couldn't thing of other words starting with "cu"... )

But then we have words like cielo (sky) where the "C" would be sweet even without the "I", which is totally useless pronunciation-wise, but regardless of that, it's written with "C+I+E"...

Yep, italian IS complicated...

 

[xmodel citizen]

I was his friend 20 years ago.
Fui su amigo hace 20 años.

I was his friend for 10 years.
Fui su amigo durante 10 años.
or
Fui su amigo por 10 años.

Thanks! But I'm still confused

Hey, in Spanish, how do you say "It scared me"? Would it be like "it made" (lo me hizo...) me scared or something else?

 

[sleepingbeauty13]

Thanks! But I'm still confused

You're welcome. I'm sorry you're still confuse.

Hey, in Spanish, how do you say "It scared me"? Would it be like "it made" (lo me hizo...) me scared or something else?

It scared me.
Me asustó.

 

[xmodel citizen]

^ Thanks! It's OK about the confusion part. LOL, I asked my teacher and she confused me. She was like "We're not even worrying about translation, blah, blah, blah". I don't care, I want to know!

Pash or any other Italian speakers, how do you pronounce the 'g' as in 'gnocco'? And what about the 'g' in (haha, I KNOW it's a bad word!) 'sega'?

 

[Pashen'ka]

^


Ehm, ok, let's start with the latter...
With the "G" it's the same as with the "C", so when it's followed by an "A" it's hard (like the english "g" in the word "game"

The "G+N" is pronounced like the spanish "ñ"


p.s.
Anyway, "sega" means also "saw", "sawing machine"...

 

[stersita]

culo (*** - ehm, sorry, but I couldn't thing of other words starting with "cu"... )

I'll remember it thanks to this example! Molte grazie Pash! (I think it's "molte" what goes before grazie)