Teach me your language I teach you mine

[Catherine*]

LATVIAN

hello-čau
love-mīlestība
fashion-mode
cool-forši
goodmorrning-labrīt

 

[evisu donna]

How do you write an adresse in France on a letter?

Like this:
Mme Gaultier
4-6 Rue Pierre Lescot
75001 Paris

or this:
Mme Gaultier
4-6 Rue Pierre Lescot 75001
Paris

or this:
Mme Gaultier
4-6 Rue Pierre Lescot 75001 Paris

 

[Party.in.Paris]

the first one!!

 

[evisu donna]

I thought so But thanks!!

 

[KatieD]

^ I meant the endings for that particular set of verbs were the same. To Spanish speakers; what does "nos" mean?

"nos" means us. e.g. "nos daban de comer" - they fed us, ok weird example, but you know what i mean! It's also a reflexive pronoun, as in what sleepingbeauty13 was saying "nos fuimos de casa" - we left home. untranslatable into english.

The past tense that sleepingbeauty13 wrote out was the imperfect - used for something done repeatedly in the past, or over a long period of time in the past - NOT just a one-off event ,done once, which is the form you learnt - bebí, viví etc (the simple past or "perfect" tense). If you're saying "I was having a bath when the phone rang" (an example of imperfect interrupted by perfect, which is how it works mainly) you say "me estaba bañando cuando sonó el teléfono". And if you're talking about one-off things you did the other day e.g. had a whiskey , you say "me tomé un güisqui" or "bebí un güisqui". There is also another past tense used I think only in Spain for what they have done that day - the past perfect - he hecho la compra (I've done the shopping), hemos ido al banco (we've been to the bank) etc. but I don't think you have to learn that, being american. North Americans don't use the past pefect and south americans don't either - only Brits and Spaniards do in their respective languages!!!

Hopefully I've been helpful and not just boring!!!

 

[sleepingbeauty13]

Here's a link to a chart of the different verb tenses in Spanish :

http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/COURSES/vtenses.htm

 

[xmodel citizen]

"nos" means us. e.g. "nos daban de comer" - they fed us, ok weird example, but you know what i mean! It's also a reflexive pronoun, as in what sleepingbeauty13 was saying "nos fuimos de casa" - we left home. untranslatable into english.

The past tense that sleepingbeauty13 wrote out was the imperfect - used for something done repeatedly in the past, or over a long period of time in the past - NOT just a one-off event ,done once, which is the form you learnt - bebí, viví etc (the simple past or "perfect" tense). If you're saying "I was having a bath when the phone rang" (an example of imperfect interrupted by perfect, which is how it works mainly) you say "me estaba bañando cuando sonó el teléfono". And if you're talking about one-off things you did the other day e.g. had a whiskey , you say "me tomé un güisqui" or "bebí un güisqui". There is also another past tense used I think only in Spain for what they have done that day - the past perfect - he hecho la compra (I've done the shopping), hemos ido al banco (we've been to the bank) etc. but I don't think you have to learn that, being american. North Americans don't use the past pefect and south americans don't either - only Brits and Spaniards do in their respective languages!!!

Hopefully I've been helpful and not just boring!!!

Thanks for info! Yeah, I was looking at my Spanish book today (much easier than consulting my "teacher") and saw the "imperfect" tense. Thanks for the link sleepingbeauty13! I'm going to memorize the verb tenses as much as I can. It's so awful, there's like 7 different tenses!

I would LOVE to learn Italian as well, but unfortunately, as of now, all I know are filthy words and phrases

 

[Warholsmuse.]

Amharic (native lang.) hello-selam love-fikir fashion-joli cool-dink good morning- indemin aderachihu

 

[BerlinRocks]

^sorry. but what's this language?

 

[Party.in.Paris]

^ it's Amharic- a language sopken in Ethopia (looks a bit like arabic)

 

[KatieD]

There is also another past tense used I think only in Spain for what they have done that day - the past perfect - he hecho la compra (I've done the shopping), hemos ido al banco (we've been to the bank) etc. but I don't think you have to learn that, being american. North Americans don't use the past pefect and south americans don't either - only Brits and Spaniards do in their respective languages!!!

Oops - I meant present perfect, not past perfect! It was late!!!

 

[Pashen'ka]

...
I would LOVE to learn Italian as well, but unfortunately, as of now, all I know are filthy words and phrases

Well, that's always a start!

 

[MulletProof]

One verification...about English language :
I know this has been some sort of debate for quite some time now but I still have my doubts...see, I often use 'I couldn't care less about blahblahblah', but some people claim it's 'I COULD care less'. really, if you could care less it's because you still care a little, right?, whereas I couldn't care less means your caring level is really at the bottom, no?. ugh, i want someone to verify this for me, which one is the correct phrase and why.

 

[mundodabolsa]

One verification...about English language :
I know this has been some sort of debate for quite some time now but I still have my doubts...see, I often use 'I couldn't care less about blahblahblah', but some people claim it's 'I COULD care less'. really, if you could care less it's because you still care a little, right?, whereas I couldn't care less means your caring level is really at the bottom, no?. ugh, i want someone to verify this for me, which one is the correct phrase and why.

I couldn't care less...

People ALWAYS say this wrong.

My sister would always pick on people, if they say "I could care less", she'd say, "oh really, so you care, a lot."


And while we're discussing the English language, it drives me crazy when people don't use the subjunctive, yes, it exists in english. People always say, "I wish I was at school today." nooooo, it's "I wish I were at school today."

ok, rant over

 

[MulletProof]

thanks!.
i still remember a conversation i had with some girl a few years ago, I said I couldnt care less about something and she corrected me with a smile saying 'You could care less?'. i thought she might've been correct and the sense of the phrase was only visible to those whose first and only language is english.

 

[Warholsmuse.]

The reason why it's not I Couldn't care less is because you can not use double negatives in a sentence. Using double negative gives it the opposite meaning. It's a bit hard to explain, but saying I could NOT care LESS is like saying There is nothing I can care less for =care more.

 

[xmodel citizen]

^ Yeah, that does make sense! Double negatives are a big no-no. I've always said "I could care less". Saying that you could care less about something does not necessarily mean that you could care MORE. In fact, it implies apathy, so you couldn't really use, "So you must care a lot then" as a comeback.

About the present perfect, that whole subject is fascinating because I've only heard people use it in British TV shows and movies. No one in America would say "I've done the shopping". You say "I went shopping" or "I went to the store".

 

[mundodabolsa]

The reason why it's not I Couldn't care less is because you can not use double negatives in a sentence. Using double negative gives it the opposite meaning. It's a bit hard to explain, but saying I could NOT care LESS is like saying There is nothing I can care less for =care more.

that's exactly what you're trying to say with the phrase though!!

I still think I'm right but the American Heritage dictionary seems to think either work

could care less! you might say sometime in disgust. You might just as easily have said I couldn’t care less and meant the same thing! How can this be? When taken literally, the phrase I could care less means “I care more than I might,” rather than “I don’t care at all.” But the beauty of sarcasm is that it can turn meanings on their head, thus allowing could care less to work as an equivalent for couldn’t care less. Because of its sarcasm, could care less is more informal than its negative counterpart and may be open to misinterpretation when used in writing.

However, the Columbia Journalism Review provides us with this:

The article said the lawyer representing a murder victim's family made it clear that the family wasn't interested in cooperating with the media horde, "that the family could care less about exclusives." But if those people could care less, they do care some, and th[at's not what the writer meant. The phrase has to be negative: "could not care less." That means the family cares so little — presumably not at all — that it can't reduce the caring any further. A quick Nexis search suggests that we bat about .500 on this one, which would be great if baseball were our game.

— CJR, Jan./Feb. 1998​

Or, from dictionary.com

Which is correct: I could care less or I couldn't care less?

The expression I could not care less originally meant 'it would be impossible for me to care less than I do because I do not care at all'. It was originally a British saying and came to the US in the 1950s. It is senseless to transform it into the now-common I could care less. If you could care less, that means you care at least a little. The original is quite sarcastic and the other form is clearly nonsense. The inverted form I could care less was coined in the US and is found only here, recorded in print by 1966. The question is, something caused the negative to vanish even while the original form of the expression was still very much in vogue and available for comparison - so what was it? There are other American English expressions that have a similar sarcastic inversion of an apparent sense, such as Tell me about it!, which usually means 'Don't tell me about it, because I know all about it already'. The Yiddish I should be so lucky!, in which the real sense is often 'I have no hope of being so lucky', has a similar stress pattern with the same sarcastic inversion of meaning as does I could care less.

oh the joys of google....clearly it's a big debate!

 

[sleepingbeauty13]

The reason why it's not I Couldn't care less is because you can not use double negatives in a sentence. Using double negative gives it the opposite meaning. It's a bit hard to explain, but saying I could NOT care LESS is like saying There is nothing I can care less for =care more.

You are right about not using double negatives, but less is a quantity adverb not a negative adverb. So is not a double negative.
I think both are correct if you are using I could care less in a sarcastic way, like it says in mundodabolsa's post, but I couldn't care less is also correct.

 

[Bluestar07]

I would LOVE to learn Italian as well, but unfortunately, as of now, all I know are filthy words and phrases

Me too ..... things that I cannot repeat here