Multilingual and Polyglot Wannabee Thread! MK I

On an unrelated note, how is peuvent pronounced? I've always thought that it sounded like 'perv-ont', but Wiktionary shows it as 'perv'. Same goes for aiment, parlent etc. Is the -ent bit silent? I understand that French isn't exactly the most phonetic language out there when it comes to orthography...

On an unrelated note, how is peuvent pronounced? I've always thought that it sounded like 'perv-ont', but Wiktionary shows it as 'perv'. Same goes for aiment, parlent etc. Is the -ent bit silent? I understand that French isn't exactly the most phonetic language out there when it comes to orthography...

-ent is silent.

其实有时候我认为看电视剧来练习听力比看央视广播更有效、有用，因为除了北京和邻近地区，你不会听到人们用“央视腔”说话。我去年到西安旅游的时候看陕西卫视，他们广播员的发音比央视的“正常”得多。

You place emphasis (or at least I do) on the end.

I'd say:
Perv
Aim
Parl

And place some emphasis on the last consonant but in reality it sound the same as aime, and aimes even

-ent is silent.

Or this

Thanks guys!

For those who understand Chinese, this is a very cool video: http://tv.cntv.cn/video/VSET100170338675/32e2049bc9df4ec0910fb23afaf2727d

Bonne matin!

Commence allez-vous/vous-allez? (Can I say that? Or is it only ça-va?)

Si je voulais dire:
"I have been learning it since the age of 5"
"Je l'apprends depuis j'avais/j'ai cinq ans?"

Thanks for the corrections! When you say that I should say à Hong Kong because it's a city, does that mean countries use a different preposition? And is it ever correct to use merci pour ...? If so, when do we use pour and when do we use de?

The morning thing was that I had written quatre heure du matin, and Constant thought he had read in a book au matin instead.

On an unrelated note, how is peuvent pronounced? I've always thought that it sounded like 'perv-ont', but Wiktionary shows it as 'perv'. Same goes for aiment, parlent etc. Is the -ent bit silent? I understand that French isn't exactly the most phonetic language out there when it comes to orthography...

Bonne matin doesn't exist, we just say bonjour and matin is masculine.

It's " comment allez-vous ? ". " comment vous allez ? " without - inbetween is never really used because vous is formal, so you'd always say " comment allez-vous ? ". But you can say " comment tu vas ? " as tu is informal.

And it's " je l'apprends depuis que j'ai 5 ans ".

Yes, countries use different prepositions. You use en when the country is feminine (ex : j'habite en France/Suisse/Turquie/Italie), au when it's masculin (ex : j'habite au Royaume-Uni/Portugal/Japon), aux when it's plural (the gender doesn't matter here) (ex : j'habite aux Etats-Unis/Pays-Bas/Iles Caïmans).
You say " merci de " when it's followed by a verb (ex : merci d'avoir parlé avec moi/merci d'être venu) and " merci pour " when it's followed by a noun (ex : merci pour l'invitation/merci pour le repas).
It's indeed quatre heures du matin. You say au matin when you don't know what time it is exactly, and it's quite formal (usually used in written language).

Ok thanks! It's difficult to remember so many prepositions!


Yeah, I wasn't sure about the 'pour toute ma vie' and Baconemperor did mention 'depuis', but I didn't know if it could be used with constructions like this one or only time expressions like cinq heures.

Regarding au matin, I checked about.com and it said du matin, and several Wordreference threads as well as the WR dictionary say du matin. Where have you heard au matin, and could you send a link, s'il vous plaît?


It doesn't matter whether you're native or not, I could use all the help I can get! Merci beaucoup!

但是电视剧有字幕. 我读字幕. 所以阅读能力越来越好. 听力也有进步吗? 我不知道. 恐怕没有.

Weshalb möchtest du gerne asiatische Sprachen an der Uni lernen?

It's time for one of those depressing moments. (Also, it's August, Phantom. August. We have four days, not a month.)

Ich lerne Deutsch seit einem Jahr. Before I go on, I'll just mention that a couple of pages earlier, Fish mucked up the French equivalent for much the same reasons! Both the French and German nearest equivalences of our for/since are regularly tested in A2 language papers, so it's not exactly a rookie mistake.

1) In German seit is used in the present (apart from when it isn't, but this isn't one of the "isn't" times. How many more times can I use "isn't"?)

Literally, word-by-word, it's "I am learning German since a year ago". (Thus neatly illustrating why word-by-word translation doesn't work very well, and why we both have a bright future in the translation industry.)

2) Seit takes the dative case. Thus einem, as Jahr is neuter.

3) Ronove, is this one of the times it's posh/elevated/idiomatic to put an -e on? Or just one of the times when you don't?I'm going to be starting at 27 this year (if they ever sort my forms out...) and graduating at 33+. If I don't drop out...

Hello! I know this is a random question, but how often do you practice your chosen language(s)?

It's time for one of those depressing moments. (Also, it's August, Phantom. August. We have four days, not a month.)

Ich lerne Deutsch seit einem Jahr. Before I go on, I'll just mention that a couple of pages earlier, Fish mucked up the French equivalent for much the same reasons! Both the French and German nearest equivalences of our for/since are regularly tested in A2 language papers, so it's not exactly a rookie mistake.

1) In German seit is used in the present (apart from when it isn't, but this isn't one of the "isn't" times. How many more times can I use "isn't"?)

Literally, word-by-word, it's "I am learning German since a year ago". (Thus neatly illustrating why word-by-word translation doesn't work very well, and why we both have a bright future in the translation industry.)

2) Seit takes the dative case. Thus einem, as Jahr is neuter.

3) Ronove, is this one of the times it's posh/elevated/idiomatic to put an -e on? Or just one of the times when you don't?I'm going to be starting at 27 this year (if they ever sort my forms out...) and graduating at 33+. If I don't drop out...

God kväll, jag är lärdom svenska... have no idea if that's right but it's a start

Hello! I know this is a random question, but how often do you practice your chosen language(s)?

Lärdom is a noun. I've had a look on the interwebs and it looks like the present tense conjugation is jag lär.

Hello!! Tbh, i rarely practice French although I speak a bit of it on here, so I suppose you could count that as practice. on the other hand, I practice German about every day for one or two hours at least...How about you? Do you speak any languages?

I try to practice my reading and listening for roughly 45 minutes each for German and Spanish. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I've only just set myself into the habit of doing this, as previously I wouldn't do any for a few days and then study for hours at a time; which is absolutely not the most enjoyable method to learn a language.