Showing posts with label Welcome to the school of life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Welcome to the school of life. Show all posts
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Vachement Perdu
Today I got vachement perdu (really really lost). As in, the 2 km I had to walk turned into upwards of 12, as I made wrong turn after wrong turn.
Short Adverb lesson:
Vachement: Comes from the word "vache" which means cow. French people love using vache in everyday convo... "Oh la vache" (sort of like our "holy cow"). Vachement means literally "cowly" but actually means "REALLY." Like, damn.
Carrement: Also means very. You'll hear "carrement d'ac" in certain age group conversation. Short for Carrement D'Accord, which means "really in agreement."
Vraiment: Translated literally and truly means "very."
I'm feeling rather tired, and while my host brother likes to tease me about going out all the time, I don't think it is completely that. Partially, bah ouais, but not entirely. Learning a language is vachement difficult, and even with proper sleep I find I'm "dans la lune" (on the moon, aka daydreaming) accidentally in class these days. This happened back home too, at about the one month mark. School is tiring. This doesn't change. Still wish I could go back to hippie school and bake me some cookies all day e'ryday.
Fun experience of the day: trying to explain what a baby daddy/momma was to my writing professor. Ah, the things that arrive in the international student's life.
Some vocabulary for you to enjoy! I got most of this from an article about how the second in command police officer in Paris was arrested/charged for drug trafficking and being generally naughty. I shake my finger at you. Anyways, this is regular CSI jargon.
Puant- stinky. Slangy-wise, it means pretentious, or vain. It was puant of him to think he wouldn't get caught.
Indicateur/Indic- Informant. Sort of like our version of "narcs" typically unsavory people who inform the police in exchange for favors or lessening of sentences. "indic" is the shortening of that.
Voyou- GANGSTER. Salut voyou (what's up, badass?)
tonton- What little kids/everybody call their uncles. Also means men of a certain (older) age, typically men you don't mess with. "les tontons flingueurs" is a cult film from 1963 about gangsters. If you speak fluent-enough french, let's watch it together.
Des Papas Poules- "Father hen." Papas who are very occupied with their children, extremely invested etc etc.
So I filched a magazine from the library today (50.5% sure it was free for the taking...). On the back was the advert for dinosaures... Including the Bambisaur.
The bambisaur is the new velociraptor, it's official.
Sad story of today.
Friend (grabs a chunk of my hair and inspects it): My goodness, your hair is a pretty color. How do you get it to be so blonde?
Ex-Friend: The trick is thinking like a blonde.
Shuddap.
Short Adverb lesson:
Vachement: Comes from the word "vache" which means cow. French people love using vache in everyday convo... "Oh la vache" (sort of like our "holy cow"). Vachement means literally "cowly" but actually means "REALLY." Like, damn.
Carrement: Also means very. You'll hear "carrement d'ac" in certain age group conversation. Short for Carrement D'Accord, which means "really in agreement."
Vraiment: Translated literally and truly means "very."
I'm feeling rather tired, and while my host brother likes to tease me about going out all the time, I don't think it is completely that. Partially, bah ouais, but not entirely. Learning a language is vachement difficult, and even with proper sleep I find I'm "dans la lune" (on the moon, aka daydreaming) accidentally in class these days. This happened back home too, at about the one month mark. School is tiring. This doesn't change. Still wish I could go back to hippie school and bake me some cookies all day e'ryday.
Fun experience of the day: trying to explain what a baby daddy/momma was to my writing professor. Ah, the things that arrive in the international student's life.
Some vocabulary for you to enjoy! I got most of this from an article about how the second in command police officer in Paris was arrested/charged for drug trafficking and being generally naughty. I shake my finger at you. Anyways, this is regular CSI jargon.
Puant- stinky. Slangy-wise, it means pretentious, or vain. It was puant of him to think he wouldn't get caught.
Indicateur/Indic- Informant. Sort of like our version of "narcs" typically unsavory people who inform the police in exchange for favors or lessening of sentences. "indic" is the shortening of that.
Voyou- GANGSTER. Salut voyou (what's up, badass?)
tonton- What little kids/everybody call their uncles. Also means men of a certain (older) age, typically men you don't mess with. "les tontons flingueurs" is a cult film from 1963 about gangsters. If you speak fluent-enough french, let's watch it together.
Des Papas Poules- "Father hen." Papas who are very occupied with their children, extremely invested etc etc.
So I filched a magazine from the library today (50.5% sure it was free for the taking...). On the back was the advert for dinosaures... Including the Bambisaur.
The bambisaur is the new velociraptor, it's official.
Sad story of today.
Friend (grabs a chunk of my hair and inspects it): My goodness, your hair is a pretty color. How do you get it to be so blonde?
Ex-Friend: The trick is thinking like a blonde.
Shuddap.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Text Like A Frog
So I've had a couple forays into the scary world of texting in french. It's difficult, yes, but with this handy dandy guide you too can make friendsies.
MDR- mort de rire. Dying of laughing. Sort of like our LOL, but way better, because they take it to the extreme aka dying.
Ne tkt- Ne t'enquete. Don't worry.
bjr- Bonjour
bsr- Bonsoir
D100- Descends. Get down/come down.
FDS- Fin de semaine. End of the week.
KDO- Cadeau. Present, gift.
kestufou vs Ksk t'fu- Qu'est-ce que tu fous? What the hell are you going?
RDV- rendez-vous. Please tell me you know what a rendezvous is.
ti2- T'es hideux. You are hideous.
Fun story of the day (for the easily amused): So my tram sometimes is Ligne 1, Jamet. A lovely voice tells us every stop "Terminasion, Jamet." Which is approx. "Last stop, Jamet." Except Jamet sounds exactly like "Jamais" which means "Never." So what the tram lady is telling us is that this train never ends.
I laugh.
Also, flunked an orale comprehension test. This is for two reasons, the first being that the subject was cell phones. I genuinely know almost no vocabulary surrounding cell phone companies (thank you granny for lending me your phone!). So that was rough. The other bit was that I spaced out for half of the test. The answer to my problems is that I'm going to sleep more/better (I started sleepwalking again >:( ) and download french podcasts to listen to. So interesting! The great part about being here for solely my own learning pleasure is that me failing tests is not the end of the world. My grades here don't matter in terms of a later degree. I'm just here to learn french, make friends and grow up.
Welcome to the school of life!
MDR- mort de rire. Dying of laughing. Sort of like our LOL, but way better, because they take it to the extreme aka dying.
Ne tkt- Ne t'enquete. Don't worry.
bjr- Bonjour
bsr- Bonsoir
D100- Descends. Get down/come down.
FDS- Fin de semaine. End of the week.
KDO- Cadeau. Present, gift.
kestufou vs Ksk t'fu- Qu'est-ce que tu fous? What the hell are you going?
RDV- rendez-vous. Please tell me you know what a rendezvous is.
ti2- T'es hideux. You are hideous.
Fun story of the day (for the easily amused): So my tram sometimes is Ligne 1, Jamet. A lovely voice tells us every stop "Terminasion, Jamet." Which is approx. "Last stop, Jamet." Except Jamet sounds exactly like "Jamais" which means "Never." So what the tram lady is telling us is that this train never ends.
I laugh.
Also, flunked an orale comprehension test. This is for two reasons, the first being that the subject was cell phones. I genuinely know almost no vocabulary surrounding cell phone companies (thank you granny for lending me your phone!). So that was rough. The other bit was that I spaced out for half of the test. The answer to my problems is that I'm going to sleep more/better (I started sleepwalking again >:( ) and download french podcasts to listen to. So interesting! The great part about being here for solely my own learning pleasure is that me failing tests is not the end of the world. My grades here don't matter in terms of a later degree. I'm just here to learn french, make friends and grow up.
Welcome to the school of life!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)