Nice people thread 2 - now even nicer

Malcolm.

Exocet wrote: »

Can I just confirm that I am not gay in case the thread moves into that, er, arena.

Do not fear.....we all know you're Bi. :D

(wink to signify a joke rather than a come-on)

treliac

Malcolm. wrote: »

Do not fear.....we all know you're Bi. :D

(wink to signify a joke rather than a come-on)

Hi Malc, you still [STRIKE]up[/STRIKE] awake too?

SingleSue

I'm still awake too......

Have spent the weekend at my parents caravan with them (well went down yesterday afternoon and arrived back home late this evening), boys were bored at home, parents at the van and a swimming pool readily available - no contest.

I did offer to cook a Sunday roast for us all in the caravan kitchen but mum and dad took us all out for dinner instead..scrummy.

treliac

vivatifosi wrote: »

DH says he's still not sure about me now so you're not alone .

I'll repay the compliment viva.... I'm sure

treliac

silvercar wrote: »

I thought it was obviously girlie to be bothered about the colour of your car, but the mere mention of "car" led to people assuming I was male. So I added an avatar that was jewellery, still didn't convey the message.

Probably too sophisticated for most of us.

I'm unashamedly girlie. In my early teens my headmaster told my mum that I was a very feminine girl.

Trying to forge my career in my twenties, I was happy to drink pints and smoke roll-ups. When I met DH he thought I was a feminist.

It was all flim flam and once I had my children, I became who I really was - a working mum, trying to balance an impossible juggling act... like so many working women do.

Much of life is an act and the rest is darned hard work. IMO it's best not to over complicate things. We should be proud to be who we are.

N.B. I haven't smoked for 15 years now. I still enjoy a pint, but not when I'm wearing a really girlie dress... it doesn't feel quite right

tomterm8

lemonjelly wrote: »

Yes, it did appear a little technical.:o

Thanks for the suggestion. Despite my conversation with viva the other day, I've added your suggestion to my books to buy list.:)

I'm wondering whether to ask you why you are learning french, without coming over all blackadder...:D

All good magic books tend to be very... um... precise. At first, this can be intimidating. The royal road is written in something that to a first time magician can sound a little like... well... sanskrit. One of the benefits of the royal road is that there is a good DVD series by Wilson that actually shows you what the authors are talking about.

Basically, the way I read magic books is quite selective. I read them through from cover to cover once, quickly, trying to find interesting things to learn. Once I've read the book once, I go back to the things I want to learn. I read them through very slowly, actually using the prop to carry out the instructions. It can take half a dozen times before I think I've got it right. Once I think I know what to do, I practice it in front of the mirror a couple of hundred times, and then go back and read the book again. I find that there are allways details you glossed over before you practiced them.

It's a slow process.

Um... on the French thing, English linguistically derives from old German – basically a tribe rowed over from the Netherlands speaking some crazy language which we improved and made into sensible old English. Then the French rotters, in 1066, invaded and enslaved the poor old English people (boo hiss). They imported a huge amount of language. Something like 50% of English words, are, in fact, also French words spoken in a really bad accent.

So, basically, the easiest languages to learn are Dutch and French. if you learn French it is pretty easy to pick up basic Spanish, Italian and Portuguese very quickly as a combo deal, since they all derived from Vulgar Latin. This means learning French gives you easy access to languages that are spoken almost everywhere in the world. Learning Dutch gives you access to the Dutch, who all speak better English than British people anyway.

silvercar wrote: »

Confessing a total inability to learn any foreign language, I would have thought that the danger of learning a foreign language by concentrating on reading means you could be teaching yourself really bad pronunciation.

Well, yes, that is a risk, but changing your accent is actually the easiest thing to do in learning a language. Look, if you move to another region of Britain then within a year, your accent is going to change... the human brain is wired to make it sound like other people. No effort required. It is much harder to keep your accent than lose it, and in fact people who keep their accent have made either a conscious or unconscious effort to do so.

Generali

tomterm8 wrote: »

Yes... there is a reason I'm reading it in French... I want to learn french, and I think reading easy things in a foreign language is the best way to learn how to read.

I have found L'Equipe (daily sports newspaper pretty widely available in the UK) is good for learning French. Watching TV, the news in particular, is also good as the pictures give you some context and you can't just rely on a dictionary for the difficult bits.

silvercar

Take your word for it, I am completely hopeless at languages. The only exam I've ever failed was an O level in a foreign language.

Younger son has GCSE results tomorrow, I'm nervous for him. Tried to do the boosting confidence, "whatever you get is fine" etc but I know (a) he won't match his brother's scores and (b) although he worked hard at the end, he didn't start serious revision soon enough. Existing pupils have a lower requirement to stay on for the sixth form than new entrants, so he shouldn't feel a school places pressure that some of his friends have.

tomterm8

Generali wrote: »

I have found L'Equipe (daily sports newspaper pretty widely available in the UK) is good for learning French. Watching TV, the news in particular, is also good as the pictures give you some context and you can't just rely on a dictionary for the difficult bits.

I'm not really at the stage where watching TV is that useful, although I do it. What I am doing is a combination of reading... Paris Match, harry potter, tintin, and various computer magazines... and listening-reading.

Listening-reading is a really useful technique where you get a book that's been translated from your language into an audiobook in the foreign language, and you read a passage ahead in your language and then listen to the passage in French. By listening-reading to each chapter in a book three times, you really start picking up a lot of listening comprehension.

silvercar wrote: »

Take your word for it, I am completely hopeless at languages. The only exam I've ever failed was an O level in a foreign language.

Younger son has GCSE results tomorrow, I'm nervous for him. Tried to do the boosting confidence, "whatever you get is fine" etc but I know (a) he won't match his brother's scores and (b) although he worked hard at the end, he didn't start serious revision soon enough. Existing pupils have a lower requirement to stay on for the sixth form than new entrants, so he shouldn't feel a school places pressure that some of his friends have.

You probably aren't hopeless at languages. I've never met anyone who actually learned a language successfully at school. I've met plenty of people who failed to learn a language at school, and then learned it at home.

Do the sums... the average school year is 36 weeks, and if you do 2 hours of lessons a week - more than I had at school - you have 76 hours of study a year. Except that summer holiday means you forget everything you learned. If you study a foreign language in school for 5 years, you will have had 380 hours of tuition. Most of which you will have forgotten, since there is not enough intensity.

The FSI - the US government body that teaches diplomats French- thinks that for highly intelligent, professional people, who have already learned at least one other foreign language, working full time, with access to the best teachers, it takes 760 hours of study to learn french to a fluent standard.

Good luck to your son;)

lemonjelly

tomterm8 wrote: »

All good magic books tend to be very... um... precise. At first, this can be intimidating. The royal road is written in something that to a first time magician can sound a little like... well... sanskrit. One of the benefits of the royal road is that there is a good DVD series by Wilson that actually shows you what the authors are talking about.

Basically, the way I read magic books is quite selective. I read them through from cover to cover once, quickly, trying to find interesting things to learn. Once I've read the book once, I go back to the things I want to learn. I read them through very slowly, actually using the prop to carry out the instructions. It can take half a dozen times before I think I've got it right. Once I think I know what to do, I practice it in front of the mirror a couple of hundred times, and then go back and read the book again. I find that there are allways details you glossed over before you practiced them.

It's a slow process.

Um... on the French thing, English linguistically derives from old German – basically a tribe rowed over from the Netherlands speaking some crazy language which we improved and made into sensible old English. Then the French rotters, in 1066, invaded and enslaved the poor old English people (boo hiss). They imported a huge amount of language. Something like 50% of English words, are, in fact, also French words spoken in a really bad accent.

So, basically, the easiest languages to learn are Dutch and French. if you learn French it is pretty easy to pick up basic Spanish, Italian and Portuguese very quickly as a combo deal, since they all derived from Vulgar Latin. This means learning French gives you easy access to languages that are spoken almost everywhere in the world. Learning Dutch gives you access to the Dutch, who all speak better English than British people anyway.




Well, yes, that is a risk, but changing your accent is actually the easiest thing to do in learning a language. Look, if you move to another region of Britain then within a year, your accent is going to change... the human brain is wired to make it sound like other people. No effort required. It is much harder to keep your accent than lose it, and in fact people who keep their accent have made either a conscious or unconscious effort to do so.

Fascinating stuff tomterm8, many thanks for this.:T
I must admit that at first, I found expert card technique to be very complex, but that said, what is to be expected from such a book? I've also been reading up on cold-reading, but haven't been able to come anywhere near mastering this yet.
I did manage one or 2 of derren brown's tactics, but again (probably like expert card technique et al) it is a book requiring study, and at the time, i didn't have time, so I never got past chapter 2.:o

Generali wrote: »

I have found L'Equipe (daily sports newspaper pretty widely available in the UK) is good for learning French. Watching TV, the news in particular, is also good as the pictures give you some context and you can't just rely on a dictionary for the difficult bits.

I work with a lot of people for whom english is a 2nd language. In conversation with them, television is one particular source they have invariably used to develop language skills.