#honeydabee

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

shrewd kestrelBOT
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Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

fallen bone
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This question was auto generated for me as a comprehension check for a paragraph of a story that was also generated.

My hopes via the paragraph and comprehension questions were to have a way to familiarize myself with new vocab terms.

This could very well be unnatural phrasing as a result, but I have no idea so I'm asking here

cunning jackal
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what

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what paragraph? what are you talking about exactly?

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Please tell me you didn't ask chatgpt to ask a question for you

fallen bone
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Hmm? No I asked it to generate a story and some comprehension questions

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I didn't share the paragraph because I didn't want to distract, just wanted to add context that I didn't see this reading a sample of French from like a native. So I wanted to see what this was about

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Screenshot for clarity

image.png
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I learn better with stuff in context. Almost all of the bolded words in the paragraph are vocab words I'm trying to learn. I figured that would be better than nothing

cunning jackal
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Chatgpt, like google translate, is not a learning tool. wouldn't recommend it.

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There is no shortage of French media and learning material created by actual human native speakers. i would stick to that.

fallen bone
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Yeah I have tutors and am reviewing with friends, I just wanted something quick to read. I feel like this is distracting from my original question

cunning jackal
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As for your question, -t- is inserted when you use inversion in 3rd person singular (il/elle/on) to break up the syllables. It's a pronunciation thing, it has no meaning or grammar to it. Inversion itself is pretty formal so I wouldn't worry about using it, just know when you see it it doesn't mean anything.

fringe spade
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It's a holdover from when Latin was evolving into Latin. You see, the third person singular conjugate used to end in a T; you can see this more clearly in the imparfait: « il/elle/on parlait ». As Latin slowly evolved into French, it lost this final T sound in the present conjugation but when inverted, it was still kept because the third person pronouns started with a vowel. Thus, we have this -t- insertion.

Where does that leave us? Well, for the first group conjugation (verbs ending in -er like commencer, parler, manger), whenever we're inverting with the present or future tense, we insert this -t-.
Il mange => Mange**-t-il
Il mangera => Mangera-t-il
This also happens with « avoir ».
Il a => A-t-**il

cunning jackal
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You're the one who distracted from your original question lol js

fallen bone
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Thanks

fringe spade
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On Tangerine's point, « commencer ses courses » is missing a verb. As the excerpt above writes, the correct expression is « faire les courses » so in the sense of 'start doing shopping', the translation should've been « Où commence-t-elle à faire ses courses ? (Where does she start doing her shopping?) »

fallen bone
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Good to know! I'll consider this moving forward when I feel like I'm missing materials to drive certain vocab home

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@fringe spade if you don't mind me asking because I really like your explaination, are there any resources you'd recommend or maybe concepts to look into in the future?

I've just started learning French for almost a month now. I've been enjoying Kwiziq and some LawlessFrench atm

fringe spade
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just keep to that

fallen bone
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Do you use anything to look up words in context? Its easier for me to stick when its in a phrase, but I'll be going through a unit in my textbook that has a long list of words and not every word is used in a dialogue.

So I feel like I have to make up my own sentences, but I don't want them to be too repetitive. Right now I'm learning about food and restaurants

fringe spade
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WordReference

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Linguee and Reverso for contextual stuff

cunning jackal
fallen bone
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Awesome thank you! I just took a peek at WordReference and its doing everything I need.

I'll look up Linguee and Reverso too. Idk how to close a thread here but I appreciate the help and extra time with my questions

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I'll be more discerning in the future as well

cunning jackal
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If you take anything away from this exchange, let it be that you don't need a computer to make things up for you to learn a language, and that will probably impede your progress more than anything

fallen bone
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That is why I asked for additional resources so I wouldn't feel like I had to rely on that cat_thumbs_up

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I feel pretty well equipped now and I already have Kwiziq which I think has a partnership with LawlessFrench I read about earlier.

Not certain how exactly that works, but WordReference is definitely going to be used a lot more

static shuttle
fallen bone
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I was about to ask about that actually, because I noticed it had grammar checks and a context tab

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I wasn't certain if a particular page was something I should stick to or if the site was considered generally okay.

I have a tutor I meet with weekly, so I'm checking in with them while I'm reviewing content on my own the remainder of the week

static shuttle
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You'll never get anything that's going to be 100% as good as human translation and explanations, but they're okay tools if you're only using them when more reliable resources (dictionaries, grammar explanations, etc) aren't working for you

fallen bone
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Yeah that makes sense, was just wondering if there was something recommended to stick to when using Reverso in particular

snow wing
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don't trust reverso's translation tools but reverso context is generally pretty good, even if weird translations sometimes slip through

fallen bone
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Thanks!

static shuttle
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I used to check reverso context and linguee for context stuff occasionally, but found myself faced with complete nonsense so often & by that time I was already able to rely on better resources

snow wing
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for reading practice, actually read something in French though, individual sentences won't help that much

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hmm, i think reverso is more consistent than linguee

static shuttle
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I do remember that one was worse than the other

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But can never remember which

snow wing
fallen bone
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Yeah what I do is look at reading excerpts in Kwiziq because I believe thats created by people

static shuttle
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Yeah

fallen bone
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And narrated as well so I can map sounds with pronunciation

static shuttle
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Human made resources often aren't perfect either tbf

snow wing
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part of learning a language is learning a language in context and being able to follow an argument or a situation, even one relatively "basic" like a vlog or wikipedia article

fallen bone
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Yeah definitely big on learning in context

snow wing
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it's just not that helpful of a thing to do, even if the sentences are always translated properly

fallen bone
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Hmm, these are stories originally written in French by teachers

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I'm not looking at translations most of the time

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I'm trying to avoid them tbh. I'm figuring out how to find words in context

snow wing
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i'm actually not familiar with qwizik, i think i may be mixing it up with quizlet...

fallen bone
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That may be it

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Kwiziq has a lot of resourcing made by natives and teachers available and its recommended by LawlessFrench. They have some sort of partnership actually, I learned that today

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I've noticed a few articles had links to Kwiziq as well when I was searching for more details on a word

snow wing
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either way for reasons of enjoyment, i'd recommend trying to find some native speaker content on the internet to support not supplant your learning

fallen bone
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Yeah I listen to podcasts as well

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Like InnerFrench, etc

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I'll get better at finding words in context / making up stories on my own. Its the best way to learn and I can just read more native text for inspiration even if "X" word isn't used

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Thanks for the recs, I'm going to get more creative with what is already out there and I'll continue to ask questions here, ask my friends, etc

static shuttle
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Kwiziq is good for building up a basis for your grammar, it's very good for saving yourself some confusion and frustration later on (but obviously most of learning is through doing stuff more naturally)

fallen bone
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Definitely! I found it handy for Spanish when I was concentrating on that as well.

Right now, I'm listening to an audio of someone speaking and am trying to write down what I hear. I feel like if I keep doing exercises like this and combine it with added grammar context with Lawless French and Kwiziq, it'll go a long way.