Teaching English

Just checked- as in French, there is an 'en' before the culo

LOL we have exactly the same in French- so I know what you mean ;)

Granjura it's everybody's favourite Va fan culo! On Montalbano they usually translate it as F* off but it's rather more graphic than that.

'San' in Japanese means Mr/Mrs/Miss but is also one way of pronouncing 'three'. So I answered the phone in the student hostel and then went round shouting that there was someone on the phone for Miss Seven Five. It was our phone number.

LOL mamie. I shall be making 'orties' soup soon, as we have plenty growing in the back field, and it's lovely when they are young and fresh.

Oh come on Deeda, do tell...

I once asked a market in Germany for 1 kilo of 'Dirne' instead of 'Birne' (prostitutes instead of pear ...).

I had a blank moment in the pharmacy the other day and confused ortie (stinging nettle) with orteil (toe). Pharmacist was a bit about a rash caused by stinging toes.....

One of my favourite Italian expressions is "Faccio I gattini". It means "It makes me sick" but the literal translation is "I make little kittens" - no I have no idea why either! (my other favourite expression is just obscene)

I said that too, mcem, when I was staying with a French family one Easter.

They also assured my friend and me that they had never heard of tricks on 1st April. When we went to bed there were no beds .....

Never really took on- and the few adepts are on the way out. One of the worst missed opportunity is with sign language- where instead of d&d people for once having an advantage over us for once- each language has developed its own sign language- what a shame.

Whatever happened to Esperanto?

Around here, je suis pleine means I am drunk. So does 'je suis bourrée' which translates as I am stuffed.

Made so many similar mistakes when I first was in the UK- great fun, although very embarrassing at the time, lol.

Might as well all speak English and be done with it then .... a shame imho.

Nice to know that so many of us can make a faux pas in another language. I was 16, proud of my prowess in French and we were entertaining friends from France as part of a student exchange programme. We'd finished an excellent meal and I declared ' je suis pleine ' thinking I'd indicated that I'd had enough to eat. Shocked looks from visitors who went on to explain that I'd used a colloquial expression to tell the assembled company that I was pregnant !

I will try to send her that link!

DD2 teaches as a foreign language, and some of her advanced students are learning far more advanced grammar than is taught these days in British schools.

In fact , if she speaks to me about her syllabus, it reminds me of my Latin lessons at school rather than anything I learnt in English lessons!

I presume, granjura, that they would still decline the endings, vocative, accusative, etc., but only in one gender. It would save having to remember what gender in German and was it the same in French.

Yes that is nice. Haven't heard it before.
As well as walls having ears, my neighbour was telling me about a scandal as we walked past someone's house,. She whispered in French, "the corn has ears". Well yes, indeed it does.

Not used in my region, lol. I love 'en perdre son Latin' = become very confused by a complicated situation.

More the leg than the foot that you pull in English. Why, I know not.
According to the neighbours: Perdre ses billes : perdre ses moyens
I like to think it comes from the Latin!

Perdre ses billes? Means aboslutely nothing in French, lol. I just love those colloquial expressions which just cannot be translated without totally losing the meaning. I got caught out once, not with the words, which I had translated correctly- but with the accompanying gesture, I had not!! In English you say 'my foot' when you don't believe somebody (or pull the other one)- but in French we say 'mon oeil' (my eye) and point to said eye. One day a kid at school told me he hadn't done his homework because his dog had been run over- but I knew from his expression (and past history) that he was pulling my leg- so I said 'my foot' but automatically pointed to my eye. He asked why I did that- 'Did what' I replied. It was really funny as I had no idea I was regularly doing this!!!

German had a big simplification review not that long ago- but I've not heard of getting rid of der, die, das- because of the declension system (for instance, der, becomes, den- when it is the direct object, and dem, when it is the indirect object, etc, etc)- it would mean not just replacing der, die, das- but all the declension system- which would be huge and destroy the language imho, and sad.

I heard a few days ago that the German language is trying to get rid of Der/die/das and just stick to one gender for nouns, but cannot decide which. Is that true, granjura?

I think the link is American English, isn't it?
Granjura, my neighbours often say that French is very hard, but it seems to me that English is much more irregular?
I find it amazing that some nouns have a different gender in Spanish than in French.
I had a lovely walk with a friend yesterday when we compared sayings. Walls have ears - yes in both languages; eyes are bigger than stomach - yes; mutton dressed as lamb - no. Losing one's marbles - not sure, may mean something different in French?
I love language too.

Found it very entertaining and thought provoking.
But has anyone 'dove' into the swimming pool today?
Do we still use 'dove'? I say 'dived'.
By the way I'm very lucky my cats don't like mouses but our GC certainly enjoyed their choc ices

I also teach French (my MT) and German (my second language). German looks so difficult at first- but in fact it is not when you've got the hang of it, as there are almost NO exceptions- and prepostions are so often replaced by declension (different endings for the article and adjective depending on case, like direct object or indirect object, etc- unlike in French, when no sooner you've taught a rule, that many totally unexplainable exceptions come about!

Love languages, I do

grannyactivist, thanks for that link, I'd never seen that one. It is oft said that English is so easy- and yes Grammar is indeed very simple- but pronunciation can be a nightmare, and phrasal verbs too. Think of how many different totally different meanings there are for 'to put down'!!!