Topcho

Lol, when reading some of the comments here, I had a vision of Mortisha and Gomez all over her when she speaks French! Anyway, on the topic. I think it all depends of the tone and the matter of speaking. Of all the languages I had the chance to listen to, all can sound romantic when spoken in a certain manner, or harsh when in different. French can be so flowing, Japanese can sound so cute and Russian often makes me smile

To be honest, I don't remember the title of my first book in English. It was thin tho, It was about some team of kids saving the world. I must have been about 11 years old. Later I remember reading the HP books in English first, since I just couldn't wait for them to get translated.

Well for a very short while I had a pen pal I met thanks to one magazine with a "searching for a pen friend" section, but it didn't really work out. Anyway, later when I got into crafting, I made many :grin: Not all of them are native English speakers - I've exchanged letters with people from Romania, Portugal, England, USA... We usually send out some small hand made crafts along, or cross stitch supplies, or do whole exchanges. But evem if it is just the letter, the feeling of receiveng something in the mail, handwrittend and just for you, is amazing! I must say, that even if this helped me with the language, what I love most about pen palling is the emotion.

Depends on the language. For English, it would be speaking. Since I've learnt a lot by reading, I ended up with many words I know the meaning of, but have no idea how to pronounce. In Russian it is speaking againm and writing. Now, I am pretty good at reading and listening. The similarity between both languages and the little I studied is enough to make it understandable. But I've completely forgot the rules of grammar and so I don't dare to speak or write. :speechless: In French - def listening! Especially if the speaker is a native

I join the club My language is quite different. Starting with the fact that we use anothe alphabet, and some sounds are missing, others are present. I still can't pronounce perfectly "th" so I will have to live with this ,lol. We have genders for each noun, and quite often every other word - adjectives and the conjugation of verbs - changes accordingly. The articles also depend of the gender and are attatched to the end of the word - and if can be different for words in masculine depending if it's the subject un the sentence. But on the other hand, we don't have a real infinitive. All of these can lead to many missing "to" and "a"-s.

Non native here! Well Hamlet is part of the program for... 10th grade, I think, but in translation. It was a beautiful one by the way, by our poet Valery Petrov, but since I've always thought Hamlet to be absolutly annoying as a character, I didn't enjoy it much. Since my school didn't focus on English, in original we studied some sonets. Later I read more for my own pleasure. My favourites are Love's Labour's Lost and Much Ado About Nothing. You can guess now my fav genre

Well, my favourtie books to read in English are the ones not translated yet Actually, I haven't read that many classics in English, apart from what we studied. This year most of my English reads were books sent for reviews. Among them many were indie books - this was my first time reading indipendent works and I found some real gems! But tha fact that many of these books will never be translated makes me sad, because even if I had the chance to read them I won't be able to share with many of my friends.

I've always studied in a group - first the usual class, from forst grade up to highs school, we took all classes together. And later, in a smaller group I studies English for a bit. My preparation for the French DELF exams was also held in a group. I could say I studied on my own by writing, blogging, and reading.

Aaah, I reached 200 points and then it gave me error 520! :cry:I still had lives left! Anyway it is really cool game! The first three tries were all slavic languages, so pretty easy, but the next one I guessed on total luck Gonna try it again, wish me luck!

Thanks, tulosai. I have nothing particular in mind. I am just a medicine student and after I get my diplome I just want to know I will be able to practice in other countries - just in case. I still have 3 more years until I finish the General medicine, and maybe a few more, depending on qualifications. I don't plan to study abroad for now, tho maybe going for a practice in the future would be nice. I was just interested if anyone else had taken those, to share some experience - if the C is much harder than the B level, what can you do with one level but can't with the other and so on

Err, now these were just for illustration Tho I did stitch them. I was just asking in this topic what were your fav French exercises. And maybe if you did those kind of exersices in class, like Cherchez l'ereur or Trouvez l'intrus (both are about searching a word that doesn't belong with the rest in the line.) I loved this type, because it was fun and easy. Reading with comprehension was another type I liked - in opposite to grammar I am sorry if my first post confused you. Stitching is just my hobby. Most likely, it won't help you to learn French. I just thought it would be cute to decorate the thread and make it more colourful, lol.

"Les misérables" in original is on my list. But I def need to start with something lighter and take it slow

Probably not :cry: Well I will carry my tablet with me, so if I am lucky and got some stable internet connection in the hotels, I will be able to check what's going on in the forum I hope so!

Is it baguette? :grin: With it you can go to a movie, to game or a play But when given to you, you mibht have a fine to pay

I am going to Croatia tomorrow - but just for a week! XD So I looked some things about this language too, and it is interesting indeed. Apart from improving my skills in the languages I kinda know, I would really love to learn Polish, Hungarian and Japanese.

One of the mosy curious examples from my country is the word we use for women that use too much make up, don't act or dress (you know what I mean) accordingly the situation, with nasty, stupid, slutti behaviour. Here you'r call such girl KIFLA, which actually means small pastry, usually filled with chocolate or jam. Sounds pretty cute, right? Actually, the diminutive form of the word - KIFLICHKA, can still be used with kindness and warm feeling. So they say to be careful not to turn from kiflichka to kifla. P.S. I actually love eating these. Especially with sugar on top, and some raisins added inside.

When I was younger, in high school, I was doing the whole write down words-make exercises-compose sentences routine. Now I am learning new words mainly from reading. I've always read a lot, but starting this year I have a blog for book reviews and this proved very useful. Because when writing the review - I make the posts billingual - I have to start thinking in English and usually end up using the new words I found in the book. Like "spinster"for example. Read it, used it, memorised it! Almost the same thing is with reading and commenting blogs. The cool thing here is that there is a chance in engaging in conversation.

On top of my list is "mojo". When I started blooging, all the time I was reading posts about people who "lost their sticthing mojo" . I was all :confused:. Mojo? Mojo Jojo? Did anyone have a little monkey the called this? Is it necessary to have one to stitch? Should I acquire myself a monkey or a goldfish will do? Anyway, I cleared it out and now use it often. Other word I find amusing for some reason is "nifty". Not sure why. :grin:

Cyrano is wonderful, isn't he? :love: And true, Harry Potter isn't the easiest, but it sure is fun! This thread really got me pumping, so I finally picked myself a real book in French to read! Haven't done this in 2 years! (I don't count comic books and articles) So wanna see my picks I adored the animation series of this when I was a kid! and I love supernatural young adult books and this one looked good! Ok, so now I am all loaded, but I need to read them too What about you all, any other picks and recommendations?

Table? :grin: It is season and it is water coming out and you can find it in your toys and clock

It really can be hard sometimes. One of my friends has just graduated from university. She wanted to become a translator and just got her first job and first book to translate. She was still feeling pretty akward and asked me to be her "test reader" . After reading few chapters I told her honestly that in some places it is visible that she is scared to go "away"from the original structure and the words from the sentence. I think sometimes it's better to twist the sentence a bit in order to capture the spirit and this is what the really talanted translators do. For example, I don't know if you've read Terry Pratchett and especially his series about Tiffany. When translating in Bulgarian, they used a local accent for the speaches of the Wee Free Men, that fitted perfectly! I guess the translator took a risk doing this but the result was brilliant.

I find sign language fascinating, but apart from watching it in the news or in different shows, I didn't have any contact with people who actually use it. I think it is beautiful and wonderful tho. Maybe, if I never meet person who usues the sign language, I will never learn it. But I really admire the people who do.

Oh no, your clues were good, it is just that I didn't read them right :shy: I've never heard this saying with this words actually. So this game really is good for learning new stuff :grin:

Hmm I am not sure about this... Maybe sight? Like what we see isn't always what is right? I would like a confirmation if I am right or not lol! It flies in the skies It is made of magic and fire It dies and from ash it aspires.

Hmm this game sounds quite interesting even if it turns a bit hard for me... I would love to share some words from my native language with you, but with the different alphabets it can turn rather messy... Ok, I will try. YAZVA - it is actually written in 4 letters in Bulgarian, but every 5 lettered word starting with this sound will become 6 lettered when translitterated... messy I told you. In Cyrillic it is written ЯЗВА It means ulcer.