Post Punk Kitchen Forum

A quick look around at work reminded me that both Åke Edwardson and Anna Jansson (Kommissarie Winter and Maria Wern respectively) have been filmed for tv. And of course there's Wallander and Beck.

You could also check out Magnus Nordin. He's written YA in the genre and the books seem to be written more or less in a way people talk.

I've been using duolingo for a little over a week now, thanks to Gulliver who posted the link! I'm trying to learn spanish since I'm planning to visit my sister, who lives in Costa Rica, in a near future. Feels like I've learned a lot, just by using it a little bit everyday. It's really fun!

Bonjour, je suis québécoise. Ça fait du bien de voir des francophones ici. Émilie, je reconnais le personnage de ton avatar, j'aimais ces livres dans mon enfance^^

Ma passion est la littérature jeunesse (je suis un auteur pour la jeunesse), donc je conseille à ceux qui cherchent de la littérature jeunesse pour pratiquer leur français de jeter un coup d'oeil à mon site francophone où je recommande nombreux livres: http://chateauimaginaire.e-monsite.com/
(Translation: for those looking for French-language children's literature, I am an author and make many suggestions on my French-language Website, http://chateauimaginaire.e-monsite.com/).

I also speak English fairly well. My accent is frenchy, though. Or rather quebecish? (Let's just call it sexy.) That's because I read lots of books, but I hardly ever hear English spoken. So I'd say I have a nearly excellent knowledge of literary English, while not knowing the pronunciation of many basic words...

Nihongo ga daisuki desu! 2005 nen kara benkyôshiteimasu. Totemo tanoshii desu. (I know, I should reinstall that Japanese-writing function on my computer). The funniest homophones/homograms I know have to do with Japanese. "Letter" in Japanese is written exactly the same way as "toilet paper" in Chinese. And "tchin-tchin" is something you say loudly when making a toast in French, but in Japanese, it means male genital parts...

Ich habe Deutsch fast vergessen.

No hablo espanol bien.

So I'm sorta kinda learning-ish a new language! I'm taking a class where we learn to document a language we don't know (and they generally pick underdocumented languages). This semester it's Songhai from eastern Mali. It's probably the coolest class ever, even though it's definitely going to be challenging.

I know this isn't about classes we're taking really but mine are literally all language related, so I'm going to share anyway. In addition to the research class, I'm taking a class on pidgin and creole languages (the socioling phenomenon, not actually learning any), phonological analysis (totally planning on writing my final paper on Hebrew phonology) and history of the french language, which is unfortunately being taught in English, mais j'ai prit le feuille de devoirs en francais par hazard aujourd'hui, si je peut practiquer un peu, et aussi je pense que certains des sources sont en francais aussi. C'etait tres bizarre quand j'ai entré la salle de classe et mon prof m'a dit "hey how are you". J'ai suivi un cours de la phonetique francais avec lui le printemps dernier qui a été tous en francais.

Sorry for my bad grammar/lack of accents!

"mais j'ai pris la feuille de devoirs en francais par hasard aujourd'hui, si je peux pratiquer un peu, et aussi je pense que certaines des sources sont en français aussi. C'était très bizarre quand je suis entrée dans la salle de classe et que mon prof m'a dit "hey how are you". J'ai suivi un cours de phonétique française avec lui le printemps dernier qui était entièrement en francais."
In case you'd like the corrected version.^^
I'd love to study what you do.

Thanks! I generally know where to put accents, but I'm so used to just having spellcheck do it for me that I frequently forget to add them when I type. Also, it seems my grammar wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. Mostly the fear of making mistakes keeps me from practicing more, (and therefore I continue to make mistakes).

Linguistics is really amazing, I'm so glad I decided to give it a shot.

(PS I looooooove talking about linguistics if anyone wants to start that conversation. Fair warning, I might not be able to stop though).

eeeeh! cool, je me demandais si quelqu'un connaissait Emilie :)

(now I'm going to have a look at your site!)

...Awwwwivederci*



(* guys if you havent seen inglorious mustards you should)

Me! me! I'm an insane linguist!


writing a paper on french-spanish "almost cognates" -I've been getting lost in phonoplogy for the last 10 days and I love every minute of it !!!!!

We should open a seperate linguistic thread.

good idea

i'll be looking if you start up that thread, this specific topic (different languages, though) is the bane of my existence.

I'm 3 modules into an MA in English Linguistics, and I have a BA in French and Linguistics, so I'd be more than happy to join in the funsies.

(Though you wouldn't know, as I talk like a children's TV presented half the time and type like I'm wearing boxing gloves.)

ok I start one. Be ready for the grrreat grrrand adventuerrr with: THE VOWELS

there viewtopic.php?f=4&t=25687&p=702576#p702576

Awesome experience: Last night I was at satsang, listening to my friend Padma tell a story in Dutch and then re-tell it to her mom in Marathi. Not only did I understand the Dutch story word-for-word (forking awesome, considering the English bubble that I live in and that I haven't done a Dutch class), I understood the Marathi .... even better than the Dutch, and I haven't heard or thought about Marathi in at least 4 years. Kick asparagus. Thank you, languagey brain.

Good collection of "Language X has no word for Y" claims:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1081

LanguageLog = <3

I have a question for you French speakers out there. I am writing a film review for my French class and I am having a hard time figuring out how to say, "she was murdered." If I write, "elle a tué" or "elle a assassininé" doesn't that imply that she was the one doing the killing? Is there a really obvious answer that I am not seeing? Please help!

Correct.

By the way, the distinction between homicide, meurtre and assassinat are different in French. Meurtre implies that the killing was deliberate, assassinat that it was premeditated. No implications about political motivations or anything.

Merci beaucoup! (And yes, that was kind of obvious. Silly me!)

Elle a tué and elle a assassiné both mean "she killed" or "she murdered" or somesuch.

I just thought I'd clarify what aelle and mumbles have said.

To write "she was killed", or "she was murdered", you use a form of être and then the past participle, much like we do in English.

Using "kill" tuer as an example:
The past participle of tuer is tué (which you correctly identified). This roughly means "killed" in English.

You then use the past tense of "to be" être: elle a été and then add tué on the end. So, now you have elle a été tué. Which is almost right, but verbs that come after être like this kind of act like adjectives, so it needs the feminine e ending.

So, that gives us elle a été tuée.

This is called the passive! Grammar is fun.

Thank you for the explanation Gulliver! I am still in first year French, so we haven't really gotten that far yet. My teacher discourages us from using things we haven't learned in class when we are writing our compositions, but I find that to be really limiting so I usually do it anyway. Besides, how are you supposed to explain the plot of the film Ne le dis à personne if you can't say was murdered?

Je me rappelle de ce filme-là ! J'ai complètement oublié l'histoire, mais je me souviens que ce n'était pas mal.

Dwi’n trio dysgu siarad Cymraeg après avoir fini avec einem Hörbuchkurs med vem jag lärte mig svenksa in the car each morning. I think I've got enough Swedish to go it alone for a while with my Tatoeba-based Anki decks.