And now, a selection of random French sentences

After a bit of judicious flinging of phrases through Google Translate, and cross-checking verbs against my shiny new 501 French Verbs book, I can now say the following things about myself:

Je suis une musicienne amateur. Je joue le piccolo, la flûte, et un peu de guitare et bouzouki. Je parle seulement un peu français. J’ai deux chats. Ils sont nommés Fred et George. J’ai lu un nombre ridicule de livres.

I particularly like that last one, since if I understand it correctly, it’s “I’ve read a ridiculous number of books.” Thank you, compound past tense!

Also, it occurred to me that one phrase right out of my beloved “Trois Navires de Ble” from GBS makes grammatical sense to me, too. I.e., the chorus: “sur le bord de l’eau nous irons jouer dans l’île”, or, “at the edge of the water we will play on the island”. A good chunk of that song still doesn’t parse to me, but that line does. It’s responsible for me being able to parse the title of the Le Vent song “Au bord de la fontaine”, and it’s why I could parse the chorus of La Volée’s “Belle, embarquez!”, too, since “sur l’bord de l’eau” is in that. (Note the smooshing of “le bord” into “l’bord”. I am advised by cow that Quebecois French likes to do that kind of thing!)

So this is all fun! I’ve started slapping lyrics onto the various song files in my iTunes collection, so that I can read along with them as I listen on the bus going to and from work. It is helping LOTS for my ability to comprehend these words as words.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

And now, a selection of random French sentences

After a bit of judicious flinging of phrases through Google Translate, and cross-checking verbs against my shiny new 501 French Verbs book, I can now say the following things about myself:

Je suis une musicienne amateur. Je joue le piccolo, la flûte, et un peu de guitare et bouzouki. Je parle seulement un peu français. J’ai deux chats. Ils sont nommés Fred et George. J’ai lu un nombre ridicule de livres.

I particularly like that last one, since if I understand it correctly, it’s “I’ve read a ridiculous number of books.” Thank you, compound past tense!

Also, it occurred to me that one phrase right out of my beloved “Trois Navires de Ble” from GBS makes grammatical sense to me, too. I.e., the chorus: “sur le bord de l’eau nous irons jouer dans l’île”, or, “at the edge of the water we will play on the island”. A good chunk of that song still doesn’t parse to me, but that line does. It’s responsible for me being able to parse the title of the Le Vent song “Au bord de la fontaine”, and it’s why I could parse the chorus of La Volée’s “Belle, embarquez!”, too, since “sur l’bord de l’eau” is in that. (Note the smooshing of “le bord” into “l’bord”. I am advised by cow that Quebecois French likes to do that kind of thing!)

So this is all fun! I’ve started slapping lyrics onto the various song files in my iTunes collection, so that I can read along with them as I listen on the bus going to and from work. It is helping LOTS for my ability to comprehend these words as words.

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.

Book roundup, special bilingual edition!

Picked up in print, as of today, ordered for me courtesy of the awesome cow:

• Bilbo le hobbit, the French-language edition of The Hobbit
• Avis de tempête, the French-language edition of Storm Front, the first book of the Dresden Files!

Meanwhile, from Barnes and Noble, I grabbed the ebook editions of all my previously owned X-Files novels:

• Whirlwind, by Charles Grant
• Antibodies, by Kevin J. Anderson
• Skin, by Ben Mezrich
• Goblins, by Charles Grant
• Ruins, by Kevin J. Anderson
• Ground Zero, by Kevin J. Anderson

I also have grabbed three more books from Carina Press, to wit:

• Altered Destiny, by Shawna Thomas. SF/romance, it looks like.
• Rulebreaker, by Cathy Pegau. SF. Grabbed this one very, very specifically because it’s an F/F story, and those are so thin on the ground outside of specifically LGBT presses that it ain’t even funny! If you’re looking for F/F SF (with a likely heap o’ romantic interest on the side), I’d encourage making a point of checking this one out so’s to encourage Carina Press to sell more.
• Dangerous Magic, by Alix Rickloff. Historical/paranormal romance. The heroine’s a witch, and she’s rescued a smuggler with the intent of convincing him to father her a child. Hoping it’ll be fun!

Here’s a freebie I snarfed the other day without remembering to attribute it before–got the heads up about this one, I think, from the Smart Bitches:

• The Inconvenient Duchess, by Christine Merrill. Historical romance. I have no idea if I’ll like it, but hey, it was free!

Last but not least, the aforementioned 501 French Verbs. The 3rd edition was the version in print that maellenkleth sent me, and the 6th edition is the one I’ve bought for the Nook!

Counting the verbs book twice for two different editions, that’s 216 for the year! J’ai lu un nombre ridicule de livres, indeed!

Mirrored from annathepiper.org.