«Réponds à nos questions, McDonald’s, ou Ronald mourra!»

I felt like a change with today's French lesson, and so decided to attempt to translate a French news article into English.

The above image stuck out, and led to the selection of «Réponds à nos questions, McDonald's, ou Ronald mourra!» as the article for translation.

With the help of Google Translate (required much less than expected!) I produced the following:

times are hard for Finnish Big Mac fans. Their favourite mascot, a big statue of a smiling clown, Ronald McDonald, was kidnapped last week, then threadented to be executed by a group of activists fighting against junk food. The police conducted the investigation.

The kidnapping was on 31st January 2011, in a McDonalds restaurant situated in the center of the capital Helsinki. The gang who call themselves 'the army of liberation of food' --- repair the statue of Ronald

During the first hours after the kidnapping, people did not --- the disappearance of the station. But the day after, the gang launched a video where the threat is made clear: if Ronald doesn't respont to questions on the quality of the food from its restuarants before 11th February, they will decapitate.

Two other videos have been released on the internet at the beginning of february by the FLA. In the first , the gang ---. In the second, --- "why are we not transparent on the industrial processes, the first contents and additives used in your products? How much of tons of no recyclable waste do you produce chaque année? Have you illegal immegrants among your employees?

These videos have been watched by over 300,000 international customers in a few days. ---

"---" indicates where a sensible translation could not be offered, except for the last "---", which indicates that I could no longer be bothered :3

Obviously my translation doesn't read as well as the English version of the original article; sentence components aren't in the most sensible order, colloquial phrases haven't been noticed properly, etc etc, but upon reflection, the technique worked fairly well.

It led me to learn the days and months, for example.

This then led me to learn the words for 'next' and 'last' and combine them with temporal descriptors to make such phrases as 'last week', 'next year' etc.

Then I learned some location describing words ('dans', 'sur') and some sequential words ('durant', 'avant').

Now I'm about to figure out some question words. So far I have 'oú', 'comment' and 'porquoi', which I believe are 'where', 'how' and 'why' respectively. (Although I also saw 'combien' translated as how; not sure a) whether that's correct or b) what it means!)

twenty eight: second post about French

This morning's post was about various aspects of the immersion technique for language learning.

This evening's post is about the more 'traditional' textbook and audio technique, which I am also using.

The following is what I'm able to write after completing chapter one of this book:

bonjour, je m'appelle Chris. et vous? j'ai vingt ans. vous avez quel age? quelle est votre profession? un deux trois quatre cinq six sept huit neuf dix onze douze treize quatorze quinze seize dix-sept dix huit dix neuf vingt, trente, quarante, cinquante, soixante. j'habite á Leeds, en Angleterre. oú habitez vous? je suis anglais / britannique. je suis né á Maidstone, en Angleterre / Britain. quelle est vous nationalité? Ça va? bien. Tres bien. Je suis bien. Pas trés bien. comme ci comme ca.

hello, my name is Chris. and you? I am twenty years. How old are you? what is your profession? one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty. I live in Leeds, England. Where do you live? I'm English / British. I was born in Maidstone, England / Britain. What is your nationality? Okay? well. Very good. I'm fine. Not very well. so-so

twenty eight: first post about French

I'm listening to some French radio on my Blackberry. A technique I've read a lot about with language learning is immersion: AJATT is a blog/website encouraging total immersion in Japanese language through using only items with Japanese packaging, watching only Japanese television, conversing only in Japanese and so on. Obviously this approach, while potentially hugely valuable, isn't compatible with all lifestyles. Nonetheless, aspects of it interested me enough to consider methods of learning a language I may not have used otherwise.

One of these methods being the use of foreign radio.

Despite understanding <90% of what is being said, it's interesting to hear what sounds are prominent in the language. There aren't many strong consonant sounds, for example. Some words I've picked up sound different when spoken by French natives. Others I've seen written sound different to how I'd expect them to. It's also good to hear where emphasis is used and trying to identify where words begin and end. (This is native conversational French rather than textbook-accompanying-CD dumbed down French, remember.)

Another benefit of this technique is the music. The programme I just listened to was a presenter talking to a youngish sounding guy, their conversation being occasionally punctuated by live music by, as far as I could tell, aforementioned youngish man. The format worked really well, and the songs were good. (Although unfortunately I didn't get the guy's name..)