French LS3/5a site

Então Dunc - tu tambem falas Português? Há vários Portugueses neste forum mas nem todos parecem - como o RdS por exemplo Escreve inglês tão perfeito que sempre pensave que ele era inglês

And if you think du/sie tu/vous is complicated - it's a walk in the park compared to the various levels of formality in Portuguese!

Genau, ich bin ganz erstaunt das so viele hier französich order deutsch sprechen! Deutsch is eigentlich meine mutter sprache. Ich habe erst mit 6 jare englisch angefangen zu lernen.

...et malheruesement mon Français a disparu quand j'appris portugais

Michael.

 

Unfortunately, my Portugese disappeared around the time I started learning Latin.
My Latin went AWOL around the time I started learning girl talk...
Now I'm stuck with French and Japanese.
Enfin, c' est pas le fin du monde, quoi.

 

Falo, mas é portugues brasileiro, que é práticamente uma língua própria. Faz um tempão que não falo e estou rápidamente descobrendo como está desaparecendo! (Não tava perfeito quando eu morava no Brasil - mas agora tá feio mesmo! )

Hehe, the Brazilians are sensible enough not to worry too much about such things.

Moi aussi; exactement comme ça.

Dunc

 

Aren't the English equivalents: "You", "Oy you" and "F**k you"?

 

Muito obrigado pelo elogio :shame: - mas não falo nem escrevo assim tão bem. Agora, é verdade que tenho certo cuidado quando escrevo!

E, Dunc: o Português do Brasil é igual ao de Portugal com pequeníssimas diferenças - eu sei porque vivi no Brasil alguns anos e tive uma namorada brasileira; a pronúncia sim, é completamente diferente.

O GTM também fala Português. E, claro, o Lowrider.

As a matter of fact it is so complicated it is difficult to explain it in English!.

Let's just say that in Portuguese there is the French tu and vous, or German du and Sie; only 'vous/Sie' is never used; when one wishes to adress someone other than that by tu/du, one uses the most fantastic gynmastics: one used to call the other by 'your mercy'; only 'your mercy' is now contracted from 'Vossa Mercê' to 'Você', which is considered vulgar! So one must find a way to adress him or her by his our her name or title. Suppose one wishes to adress a Professor, and ask him what he thinks about something. This would be: So what would be the Professor's view on this; the same goes with Father and Mother and all the rest. When adressing one's friend, one doesn't say: what does 'você' think?, but 'what does Michael think?', this when addressing Michael directly; and, of course, when addressing someone of high hierarchy, one doesn't call him Professor, but Mr. Professor; which reminds me that one can adress someone as Mister - Senhor. What does Mister think?.

You are very lucky German was your first language - because it is rather difficult to learn when one is an adult. I began German when I was 14 but quit because there were no pretty girls in my class - other priorities!!!!! I can more or less read it, understand a very simple everyday conversation, but it wouldn't cross my mind to speak it.

In fact there is a very interesting story that happened to a brother of mine. He went to Germany - having learned the language before - to attend to some academic thing. Arriving there, he couldn't find his way. So he asked a policeman: 'Bitte, zum Universität'. The policeman began explaining; all my brother could understand was rechts and links (turn right turn left). When the policeman ended (Ist es Klaar?), my brother nodded, thanked him, and went his way. The policeman tapped him on the shoulder: he was going in the opposite direction...

>P.S.: This was edited because, mixing up all those languages I managed to make errors in every one of them! I even capitalized Nouns, as in German, my Portuguese was attrocious, and some of the English bits were plain incomprehensible!

 

Ahh, yes. I know that feeling all too well.
The earliest linguitic faux pas I remember making was while spending the summer in South West France when I was 10 or 11.
After dinner, I announced that I was very tired and that: "mainenant, je vais au ma lit...." That was a cracker

 

Joel:

The first time a Portuguese cousin of mine went to France (she went with the above mentioned brother, who does speak several languages) she asked for salt at a restaurant. Salt in French is called 'sel'. But in Portuguese it is called 'sal' (an open a, just like in French.

She was not very cognizant with French, so she didn't know how to composed the sentence - which ought to be: Monsieur (ou Garçon, at the time, but I think she said Monsieur), du sel, s'il vous plait. instead she just said: Monsieur; sal. Now 'sal' exactly sounds like sâle in French, which means dirty... There was a very merry commotion after that.

 

on pronounciation

From my experience, calling a waiter "dirty" in France is (was, times have changed, sadly) hardly likely to cause offence.
OTOH, shouting "Garcon" at a middle-aged, professional waiter from Gascony is very likely to land you in big trouble (I have never done this, but I have spent years researching many rive gauche establishments and seen it happen ).
My wife studied French Lit at uni, but came to Paris only in her final year.
Day one, she arrives at the deux magots and asks for a "cafe au lait".
Waiter is d'accord. Only to come back 5 minutes later with... a nice bottle of Coca-Cola :shame:

 

Ack! I think my head's about to explode! I lived in Brazil for 9 years, and I never realised it was that complicated! Either Brazilians don't know about it, or they just don't care! (My vote is on the latter... )

And my knowledge of German is limited to the bare necessities - e.g. "ein bier bitte" (and "zwei biere bitte", and "drei" and "vier"..... )

Dunc

 

e italiano?

C'é qualcuno qui che sa l'italiano? :cry:
Altrimenti ci lasciamo soffoccare da questi inglesi, francesi, portoghesi,..

 

I'm having real problems with my browser - running MS IE on Mac o/s 9.2 gives me foreign looking text. just switching to Mozilla as my accessibility reference.

 

Well, one of the differences in 'Brazilian' is that they ditched most of those complicated formalities and everyone pretty much just uses the more formal "você" for "you" (whether familiar or formal) rather like English ditched the informal "thou" and stuck with the formal "you" .

I must admit that I use você for most formal situations myself. The whole addressing someone in the 3rd person business (eg me saying "would Duncan like some tea?" when I'm talking directly to you) really threw me when I first heard it and I still find it weird allthough I do use it sometimes when I don't know someones name by using "o senhor" or "a senhora" (eg "o senhor quer cha?" - "would Sir like some tea?") which sounds ridiculous in English but that's how it is.

It gets even worse when you have to write formal letters but it's pretty amusing. Whenever I get a letter from the bank or gas company that starts with the equivalent of "Most excellent Sir Brown" and continues to refer to me as "your excellency" it never fails to make me laugh

Michael.

 

LOL, I think that might just make up for all the difficulties.

Dunc

 

Portuguese people, when well bred, are extremely polite. For those who read French I'll post a part of a letter I wrote some years ago to a Belgian Professor who wondered about the extreme civility of Portuguese language.

I answered him by quoting Hergé - the fellow who created Tintin.

That's what I wrote:

It's not very practical, I know, and it becomes extremely easy to be rude without wanting to be so. But I really find there is a certain charm.

Anyway, foreigners are forgiven for not mastering the code; they couldn't have learned it anyway, could they?

Italians - at least northern Italians - are expected to know the code, I don't really know why!.

Even making all the allowances, Germans are often considered to be blunt.

The English are considered pragmatic;

the French pettish and unpolite.

Spaniards are thought to be gross.

But there is a great tolerance towards Brazilians, especially beautiful young ladies, who are thought to be charmingly refreshing.

There are certain English analogies. The way Oxford people used to talk to one another.

And if you remember the unforgetable Yes Minister series, you will find some similarities with Sir Humphrey Appleby's manner.

Perhaps Michael would care to try to translate the Portuguese businessman's invitation to English? It will make you laugh to tears.

 

Re: e italiano?

OK, I read Italian without difficulty, but don't speak it. Nevertheless, I'll give it a go:

Caro Ticciano,

Io leggio e capito l'Italiano senza difficolta; ma io no riesco a scrivere in italiano. Al contrario, mia Mama parla l'Italiano et il Francese comme si le due fuossero la sua lengua materna. Questo estate io e mia moglie (et mia madre) suomi andati a Roma; mia Madre parla l'italiano perfectamente, mà è divenuta un pò sorda; mia moglia no lo parla del tutto. In conseguenza, io o parlato un po italiano. Mi sono faccio capire. Non a stato male.

Is is very bad? I think so! Anyway, I tried to raise to the challenge.

 

Well, it's something like:

"The Portguese, in his style, addressed Tintin as follows: I am the representative of the "Diário de Lisboa" from Lisbon. If your excellency would do us the most illustrious honour of goodwill to give us exclusivity of his report on the Congo, we would have the pleasure of paying your excellency the sum of 20000 escudos."

...and I'm not joking when I say that formal business is often still conducted in language like that above!

Michael.

 

Just to muddy the waters a little more: how about some Espanol (sorry about the spelling, I can't seem to get the forum software to do the wave with the n) and Nederlands?

Regarding formality, the Argentines do it right, replacing Tu and Usted with an all-purpose Vos.

 

To the best of my knowledge, that survives in French only for the end of a formal business letter - no "yours faithfully" dans l'Hexagone! It's something to the effect

Veuillez agréer, Monsieur, l'assurance de mes sentiments distingués

subjontif and all.

 

I can get by in Spanish-speaking countries quite happily with a fairly limited vocabulary just by speaking pseudo-Portuguese with a Spanish accent! I certainly don't have a problem understanding 80-90% of what is said to me, as long as they speak at a somewhat slower pace than usual!

In any case, I know a number of Spanish-speakers, and have been to quite a few Spanish-speaking countries, so I have a reasonable grasp of the language - though that's not to say I can actually write it!

Dunc

P.S. - Before going to Montevideo for a school trip, I was instructed by a Spanish-speaking friend to memorise two phrases that would serve me well: "Una cerveza por favor" and "Quieres dormir conmigo esta noche".

 

And which of these phrases did you use on the waiter?