English Check?

[elye]

Yep, the Quebeqois translation of "hardly" is ne guere (cannot figure out how to put these *!@#!!* accents above the letters! I do very little French typing, I guess)...Doesn't "hantisse" mean a kind of intimacy?

I must say it is great teaching the French diplomats. They are wonderful people, and I hope to visit France in the next couple of years. I tell you, though, it is challenging because there are a lot of differences between the Quebec French and the France French, particulary in idiomatic concerns (I am not Quebeqois, but all of the French I have ever learned is Quebec French). I probably learn as much from them as they do from me!

[eleep]

eleep? (did you meet yet?) Casey (Karen) speaks much better French than I do but she specialises in 13C French literature and as she gets progressively drunker she slips further into 13C French....with which she is most comfortable....

Wow -- I missed this thread, but it's a good thing since I'm a graduate student in English right now and about the worst lame pickup line I hear from guys these days runs something like: "I'll have to watch what I say around you!".

Anyway, Steve, I haven't heard from Casey -- but have you heard from her since she came to UF? The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is imploding right now -- the provost is trying to dismantle it but we've got a really active and vibrant resistance going among the graduate students and faculty. I'm actually doing my RAship with the GA union this semester, so I'm in the thick of it!

There's also another celiac UF graduate student on this board from Romance Languages -- maybe she knows Casey? Wow -- I need to start making good on these celiac connections so I have someone to eat Thanksgiving dinner with when I get stuck in Gainesville in November!

[heathen]

i find it refreshing that you care enough to get a proofreader. and i love the british spellings. my personal favorite is "oestrogen." not that you mentioned it in your response.

[gfp]

Wow -- I missed this thread, but it's a good thing since I'm a graduate student in English right now and about the worst lame pickup line I hear from guys these days runs something like: "I'll have to watch what I say around you!".

Anyway, Steve, I haven't heard from Casey -- but have you heard from her since she came to UF? The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is imploding right now -- the provost is trying to dismantle it but we've got a really active and vibrant resistance going among the graduate students and faculty. I'm actually doing my RAship with the GA union this semester, so I'm in the thick of it!

There's also another celiac UF graduate student on this board from Romance Languages -- maybe she knows Casey? Wow -- I need to start making good on these celiac connections so I have someone to eat Thanksgiving dinner with when I get stuck in Gainesville in November!

Casey isn't celiac but she's on the very short list of people I trust to cook for me....

i find it refreshing that you care enough to get a proofreader.

Well, I figure that a newspaper like 'The Observer' does care about spelling, however they don't seem to care enough to have answered....

[VydorScope]

It happens to me all the time when I'm teaching. Of course, I do not translate English words to the students but rather have them discuss what the meaning could possibly be given its context. In a lower intermediate class, it goes something like this:

Me: The last sentence could read, "No one ever respects my privacy".

Student: Privacy. What this means?

Me: (Quick review of simple present question forms, then:) He's talking about how no

one respects him, his parents don't trust him, and they insist on knowing everything that is

happening in his life. What are they not respecting?

I then usually elicit the French word in response, and from there I introduce a new vocabulary word. Some words are tougher than others, though, to explain their meaning without translating to beginners. Try to define "hardly" or "remember", par example....

Sure, and then theres the expresions that mean nothing like what the words the mean say. Such as "Take my side". If I were to translate that literely, I would be telling someone to get a knife and cut the side fo my body off! Its funny how much more I am learning about American English by studying another language.