I just did French and English Grammar and Spelling tests...

English was no surprise (95%)

And I've decided that everyone that has ever told me that my French is sloppy or imperfect can kiss my ass. 
It wasn't perfect, but it was 80%.

From: [identity profile] waterspyder.livejournal.com


I think it's remarkable that I am as fluent as I am considering I speak the language for about 5 minutes a month.

And as for the "dying language" bit...

I'm a girl who bothered to learn Latin. As Magistrar Claves (Mr. Keys) always said "Latin is not dead; the people who speak it are."

From: [identity profile] ironphoenix.livejournal.com


I try to switch to French whenever I'm talking to Francophone friends or co-workers in order to keep some semblance of colloquial fluency... if you're managing on 5 minutes a month, I'm impressed!

He, and you, are right: Latin is all over the place, tarted up as French, Italian, Spanish, and scientific and literary English. I can read it somewhat, but I haven't got the grammar to write or speak it.

Greek is everywhere too, but it's less obvious because of the alphabet difference.

From: [identity profile] waterspyder.livejournal.com


I went to Greece and had a little forced crash course on how to read Greek otherwise I would have been lost on the subway... and in the streets... and in shops

From: [identity profile] ironphoenix.livejournal.com


I've gotten my crash course in the Greek alphabet through math and physics. There are even cases where we've run out of Greek letters and gone on into Hebrew (e.g. א, a notation for the cardinality of infinities) and Cyrillic (e.g. Ш, the "comb" function).

From: [identity profile] corradus.livejournal.com


Latin is a different matter. It may not be a spoken tongue all that much but it is the lingua franca of international science. Scientists around the world agreed on that tongue, so it is ubiquitous. Learning it for that reason alone makes sense.

It is also the foundation of a number of languages, and if you learn Latin, you have a leg up on learning them.

The French you're taught in school/formaly is generally spoken by a currently thinning intellectual class in one province in this country. Many 'Franco's' don't even speak that French and would indeed ridicule you if you did.

So yeah, one thing t'aint the other IMO.

From: [identity profile] ironphoenix.livejournal.com


The French you're taught in school/formaly is generally spoken by a currently thinning intellectual class in one province in this country. Many 'Franco's' don't even speak that French and would indeed ridicule you if you did.

Well, we're agreed here. Vide supra, my comment on French snobbery. To borrow a phrase from Churchill, "This is the sort of nonsense up with which I shall not put."
.

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