Ruth

I tried to make a translation :

 

 

Can you speak about your new single " celebrate " ?

 

The song speak about a break up, a sadness, i don't know what to do, i don't know where i live, i don't know where i must be but in the sadness you gave me, because it's about a break up song, everybody around me going to party, you will see i'll not lost all because you left me.

 

Can we find Mika's style in your new album ?

 

it's surely my universe because of the melody and it's dansing, i said " i want to make dansing song " but with a little part of electronic but i want to put lot of heart in this music. All is true, it's musician in a room playing, it's my friends playing together and after that on the computer i cut all.

 

The subject of love is really present..

 

The tittle of the album is " the origin of love " because a song is called the origin of love. And it's love songs but for me love songs it's not a slow song with cords and a piano. There are lot of sorts of love songs. I speak about religion, politics, i speak about alcohol, drugs... All my experiences. I'll not talk about childhood, not about teenage years. I speak about the perspective of a man, i feel like if i have a neutral perspective. I speak about women, about men, i speak about all, about my 8 mothers because i have 3 sisters, 4 aunts, a grandmother who thing she's my mother so it's like if i have 8 or 12 mothers. So i speak about them.

 

Will you make gigs this summer ?

 

Only festivals. For test new songs, and french songs so for these 3 shows ( french festivals ) i'll test them for the fist time. A song is called " L'amour dans le mauvais temps " a really beautiful song. And a song i sang before called " Karen 82 rue des martyrs " which speak about a girl in a pub called 82 rue des martyrs, a real pub near the Michou's pub. I went a night and i met a girl called karen and she told me all her story while she was drinking. She told me all her story, i was with a friend Doriand, we looked each other it was 3.30a.m and we said : " we will write a song about that "

 

Sorry if there are mistakes

Thanks for the translation. I couldn't catch some of what he said.

(but I'm improving)

Is this the same?

http://www.cheriefm.fr/videos-3833/toutes-les-videos-3834/media/video/578504-la-minute-cherie-mika.html

Yes, I see it is - the url is much shorter in the link.

Lovely.

She's lovely looking too isn't she?

That middle picture is fabulous. I can't get clear shots of moving objects, let alone with well composed backgrounds!

Nice glimpse of tummy. . . is it inappropriate to say?

It's lovely to hear the excitement on this thread. I hope people (Sara) have good cameras all charged up.

I've even found a way to 'cope' with the band changes. It's like moving to a new job - you like your old colleagues, but when you move on, they become part of the past; professionally speaking.

. . . . and, as my son said about the prolonged Mika absence - but it's applicable here: 'it was nice while it lasted!'

I only heard about this 2nd hand so I hadn't realised it was the whole band; I thought it was just iMMa and Cherisse. It is rather sad, although I imagine they will have other projects to move on to. Indeed it could be that they had other commitments that made them unavailable for Mika's work.

I don't envy the new folk, but I'm sure (I hope ) Mika will choose great musicians with good characters.

Happy Ending played in the background in The Voice on BBC last Saturday. And I'm getting so used to hearing it on the Pantene advert.

A question...

 

If this sentence is right:

 

I want you to do it

 

 

 

What about this one?:

 

I need you to do it.

They are both fine grammatically. The 'need' verb is more pressing than 'want'. My son, when young learnt that 'I want . . . ' didn't get him anything but it was much harder to resist 'I need . . . '

I don't really know how to use the word "ain't". I don't even get what it means

If you are not a native English speaker don't ever use this word. It's such incorrect grammar that it can only be used ironically or perhaps poetically like Mika's "special yes, but lucky ain't". But even in Mika's case there were people who found this line really bothersome.

Yes, it's somehow worse than slang, it's completely wrong in British English and - sorry - it's a marker of poor education. (Except when Mika sings it. . . )

so guys q3 task 3 was wrong and the very last one.

it was 'I too wanted...'

Interesting. . .

"I too wanted to go" is very formal and old-fashioned (not wrong but . . . ) and it's not what we say in spoken English. We would say what silver said

Saying 'they left me behind too' means that someone else was left behind when they went.

So it depends on context.

"Le" is used for words that are masculine and "la" for those that are feminine. I think this site explains it pretty well.

 

http://www.french-linguistics.co.uk/grammar/le_or_la_in_french.shtml

There's also l' . It's used to avoid le (or la)+ word beginning with a vowel or a h that is silent. For instance: l'école (we can't say la école, and have to use l' instead but we can say une école ), l'herbe/une herbe, l'animal/ un animal.

 

There is no particular rule to know if a word is masculine or femine. I remember fleur is a French feminine word but is masculine for the Italians (il fiore)

It's always seemed bizarre to me, the allocation of gender to nouns. French speakers just 'get it' like breathing, but it's tricky to learn. I wish I'd always had to connect the correct le/la to any noun I used as it might have stuck better. I was wondering if masculine for French nouns would be masculine in German but if it isn't the same in Italian as French then there's no chance. And that's before popping neuter into the mix!

The simple 'a' and 'the' are, apparently, one of the reasons for the ascendancy of the English language.

here I am again

 

here's the pics of the tasks and the red ones are what I wrote. and pleasee can anybody tell me what's wrong?

 

 

The only one you seem to have wrong is task 3 number 3. Task 4 number 3 is odd. You are right but the whole sentence isn't. And task 5 number 4: I, as a native English speaker, would have gone with 'B' but - depending on context - 'A' could also be used.

And it's pretty advanced stuff so well done!

When I was at school the French we studied was too academic & grammatical, too based on reading and especially writing correctly, so the important bit - the accent - didn't feature enough. I wasn't told, to the best of my recollection, about stressing the last (sounded) syllable. I heard that on a Michel Thomas CD and it's been very helpful.

There is an EarWorms for French too which we bought but I haven't listened to; it's probably a bit basic for me in as much as I am rubbish at French but I have studied it for many years.

I have been thinking of taking conversational German just because the Goethe Institut is in my office building. I prefer French but it's far away and I am lazy

It's hard to compare learning a language in my teens for exams etc with learning for pleasure as an Oldling, but German seems to me to be very much easier. Maybe at the simple level it's not too bad and it may get worse. But I'm coping with genders and putting verbs at the end of sentences. In French it's the accent as well as the grammar and vocabulary.

I bought an audio (audible) book called Earworms which I highly recommend. I've had it in my car for weeks and play it all the time, the German goes in like the words of songs.

Anyway, we warned our prof that we'd have forgotten everything by October and she said she was used to it!

De toute façon,- ou quand même (?) ou d'ailleurs (?) - nous avons averti notre prof que nous avions tout oublié par Octobre et elle a dit qu'elle le savait bien !

You're welcome! The more you'll practise, the better your French will be :wink2:I hope my answers helped you.

Oui merci bien.

Cet après-midi sera ma dernière leçon française jusqu'en Octobre.

Je pense que j'oublierai beaucoup!

Et j'ai besoin aussi d'apprendre l'allemand parce-que mon fils et sa famille sont partis vivre là-bas.

Hi Ruth!

 

You would like to translate this sentence:

 

If you had listened better you would have known what to do.

 

And tried: Si vous aviez écouté mieux, vous sauriez ce qu'il faut faire( or auiez su)

 

"Auriez su" in the last part is the right answer. I'd say "Si vous aviez mieux écouté, vous auriez su ce qu'il fallait faire". It's conditionnel passé.

 

You can check this website, they explain grammar rules and provide exercices: http://www.françaisfacile.com

Thanks for that - I am at the limit of my learning, but I'm far more confident about getting by when I speak French

Merci macboll

So, how about the next one:

If you had listened better you would have known what to do.

Si vous aviez écouté mieux, vous sauriez ce qu'il faut faire.

or is it . . . . vous auriez su. . . . ?

Thanks again.

Ils voudraient voir leurs copines anglaises OR ils aimeraient voir leurs copines anglaises

 

are sentences au conditionnel, you can drop 'si ils pouvaient'. I also think that we avoid the use of 'si i...' as it is a hiatus

Ah, my homework is specifically to finish with a 'si' phrase and use the imperfect there.

Can you check this one please?

Envoyeriez-vous des cartes postales si vous aviez le temps?

(it's supposed to say: would you send some postcards if you have the time)

Merci

Salut!

J'ai besoin d'aide s'il vous plait. . .

Nous apprenons le conditionnel. J'ai des phrases pour traduire:

'they want to see their English girlfriends'

J'ai écrit 'ils veulent voir leurs copines anglaises'

Mais, maintenant, je dois les écrire au conditionnel et de les compléter avec mes idées.

Donc j'ai écrit:

'Ils voudraient voir leurs copines anglaises si ils pouvaient.'

Is that right??? Please

- I have more. . .

Well done MFC for raising so much money. And congratulations to Karla. I hope you get to visit somewhere amazing and enjoy the gig enormously ~x~

Oh, I bought my ticket right at the beginning and more or less forgot about it. I didn't realise it was ending this Friday. Excellent news. Good luck everyone who contributed x

The Irish "Si" combination is pronounced "sh".

 

"o" is "ee"

 

"bh" is "v"

 

The fairy folk - The Sidhe - is pronounced "Shee" - the "dh" is completely silent

 

And you thought English was hard

Simples

I had to call someone named Siobhra recently and I wasn't sure.

sh-vaughn (I don't know the official phonic way to write it though) So weird.