Re: French

Grandsire, C.A. wrote:
>
> nicole perrin wrote:
> >
> > I would say
> >
> > Votre langue devait jtre ici
> > Your language should be here
> >
>
>         Actually, "your language should be here" is more like "votre langue
> devrait e^tre ici" with a conditional present. 'devait' is the
> imparfait, which has only a past meaning (past imperfect to be precise).

Yes, I meant conditional present, yes yes, I'm sorry my fault.  I used
the wrong stems for both of them.  Ahh, my French teacher must have
truly taught me well...(And I always thought I knew verbs pretty well)


>
> > or
> >
> > Votre langue pouvait jtre ici
> > Your language could be here
> >
>
>         Then again, it's "votre langue pourrait e^tre ici", but it doesn't feel
> right for me (I mean, as a translation for "your language goes here").

See above.  <looks embarrassed>


>
> > <looks to native French-speakers for approval>Come on guys, I know
> > there's more than one of you out there, why aren't you helping us
> > beginners out here?
> >
>
>         I do, I do! Give us some time! Remember the jet lag! :) Mathias, help
> me! They're getting out of control! :)
>
> > And by the way, I never learned that the subjunctive was only used in
> > the written language.  They make us practice all the time, things like,
> > "Je veux que tu m'attendes", or is that wrong/not done?
> >
>
>         It is good, and can be used in spoken French. But in this particular
> case, the sentence seems a little bit rude to me. I would simply use the
> imperative: "attends-moi ici", with "s'il te plai^t" if I want to be
> more polite, or even a rhetoric question: "est-ce que tu peux m'attendre
> ici?" if I want to be very polite. Strange thing this fact that the
> imperative sounds more polite than the indirect order. Does it happen in
> other nat/conlangs?
I didn't even think about the meaning of that sentence, I just wanted to
choose an -re verb so the difference between present subjunctive and
present indicative would show, but yeah that is sorta rude.

<snip>

Nicole