> Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 18:13:36 +0100
> From: Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
> Subject: Re: French transitivity etc.
> >Not really knowing what progressive aspect is (I can wager a guess,=20
> >though... "I am eating" is it, at least...), I can at least tell you
that=
> =20
> >in French, "I eat" and "I am eating" (je mange) are the same thing. In
my=
> =20
> >3+ years of studying French (and I'm fairly competent in it...), I've=20
> >never encountered a correctly French way to express "I am eating" that=20
> >differentiates itself from "I eat". It may be confusing, mais c'est la
vie.
>
> Believe me, it's not confusing at all :)) .
Indeed the difference between English "I eat" and "I'm eating" is often
quite confusing for Italians... we have "mangio" and "sto mangiando", but
there is no clear-cut opposition as in English: the meaning of the latter
only stresses the progressive aspect of the action in particular conditions.
Another problem is the use of present continuous for future actions as in
"I'm leaving next Saturday"; we'd use a present simple instead: "Parto
sabato". We'd also use a present for sentences like "it will rain tomorrow"
("domani piove") and also "I'm going to study law next year" can be rendered
with "l'anno prossimo studio legge". Germans should have the same problems,
I think: "Ich esse" both means "I eat" and "I'm eating" (also: "Ich esse
gerade")- "I'm leaving tomorrow" = "Ich fahre morgen ab"...
> Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:45:35 -0500
> From: Roger Mills <romilly@...>
> Subject: Re: French transitivity etc.
>
> Christophe wrote:
>
> >Believe me, it's not confusing at all :)) . Also, you seem to forget the
> existence of the expression "être en train de", which indicates
progressive
> aspect. But due to its length, it has quite a strong progressive meaning
> which fits only some cases of use of the English progressive aspect
(namely
> when you insist on the idea of an on-going action).
As Italian stare + gerund has...
> That was my impression. Perhaps as a response to "What were you doing
when
> the bomb went off? ~What were you doing when the police
> arrived?" --??"J'étais en train de...".whatever
The same applies to Italian.
> Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:59:01 -0600
> From: "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@...>
> Subject: Re: French <chez>
>
> From: Roger Mills <romilly@...>
> > John Quijada wrote:
> > > When I travelled in Italy, I saw several small restaurants and shops
whose
> > > names were the word Ca' followed by a person's name, as in Ca'
Giuseppe.
> > > I assume it's a colloquial or dialectal shortening of _casa_ used
exactly
> > > like French _chez_.
> >
> > My impression has been that that's Venetian, or perhaps just Northern?
>
> It's the Venetian dialect form of _casa_;
Not only Venetian: Lombard has "cà" as well; Genoan has both "casa" and "câ"
(or "cà"- I can't remember).
Luca