I'd say dégage was more like 'shove off' when used by smaller children - some of my pupils use it simply to mean 'go away'. It isn't nice but it is neither obscene nor actively offensive. Depends on tone of voice really.
Thanks guys. Cor, you're good. Twerp's fine. He says it doesn't hurt. When I asked him how he did it, he said during play and he didn't remember. As he kept looking at the floor I knew that was a porkie so the Spanish inquisition took place. I do hope he's given me all the facts (i.e. he didn't pull her pigtails first or something) as a letter has been written. And thank you David - now I can put the right word in. Google translate didn't come up with that one!
Yup - I agree with David. Hope twerp is ok xx
Yeah, the mild translation would be bog off or sod off...
Yes Valerie, "dégage" means piss off, and is rather rude. I wouldn't use it at work.
Help wanted tonight if poss!! Rather a random question but I need please to know (if anyone does) whether there is a word, phonetically as I have no idea, "degage" which basically means p**s off according to my 9 year old. This might be a "kids" version or something or adult, I have no idea. Upshot, a girl (bless her cotton socks) walked up to Twerp in the line for the cantine, tried to push in and said "degage", he said no and he now has a black eye. I need to know what I'm talking about in my obvious letter to the school. Thank you in advance.
Steve my daughters are in 5eme and have been doing German LV1 and English LV2. As they are bilingual the English is an easy 3 hours a week so hardly any work to do. We felt that Latin would be an addition and help them with their French (they have only been in France for 5 years and didn't speak it on arrival). The main thing is later on if you want to get into the best schools, even with a great moyenne if you haven't done the extra work such as Latin you are not seen as a student that tries hard. It is all a game that starts very young and if you don't know these things your children can be penalised without having done anything wrong. We feel that they will not have to do that much additional work but will do them more good in the long run.
I had the Greek too. Classics, yes, the way I had them a million years ago perhaps not. The big plus is that languages are no longer a 'mystery' when the Latin and Greek are part of learning. There again we had Latin six days a week (Saturday morning was school too) and Greek every other day, French and because I already had German were daily. That, on reflection, might just have been all round too much... But classics have their place whatever.
In Latin at collège they have it as an option for the brevet (only points over 10 count) so it is a plus for the moyenne, and they do a lot of mythology, it isn't remotely like the Latin I did from the age of 7 in GB, no construing!! She MAY also be able to do Greek in 3eme, not all collèges offer it... My daughters have all done Latin & Greek so far & it hasn't done them any harm & they seem to have enjoyed them.
I would say Latin helps with etymology certainly but mainly with linguistic precision and I can't understand why classics aren't compulsory (as they were in my day ;-) )
Steve, yes. When I had to learn Spanish to go to work in Peru I was a good leap ahead, even in my 50s with my present OH whose first language is Italian (means family too) I had a good start. I have always found that it was least helpful with French of all the languages with a Latin base because words do not correspond with Latin roots quite often, pronunciation is entirely out of the window, grammar has too many exceptions. Nonetheless, why not? I found it helped.
Hi ,
my Daughter has the option of doing 3 hours of latin per week at school and with "light homework "
i read online that latin helps with a deeper understanding of the structure of various languages in particular English / French / Spanish etc
The school are keen to promote latin as apparently it is advantageous later on when trying to go to particular lycees for some reason which i cant quite understand.
she isnt particularly keen but i just wonder if its worthwhile or not ?
any advice appreciated.
Thanks
Steve
Welcome Lorraine. I learned American reading Chandler and Hammett, well really Steinbeck, Kerouac and other great American writers count too.
Hi Lorraine, a big 'hello' to you and your so lucky bi-lingual kids. My kids are bilingual too but I only speak English and French - I'm learning American English courtesy of my clients and SFN Americans in France:-)
Hello everyone - i'm bilingual American/French (no I don't speak English! ;) ) and my 3 kids are also bilingual and living in France. I thought it would be nice to join the group...
As said by the previous posters, it depends on your commune. Ours here, in rural Charente-Maritime, have decided to delay the change until Sept. 2014. Even then, nobody knows how the commune (AKA the tax payers) here are going to be able to afford the cost of putting this into place.
How, as a concept, this proposal is mean't to help disadvantaged families is beyond belief. The government thinks that middle-class children are advantaged by having parents whom, at home, help them with their homework / extra-curricular activities / interests, so the government decides to change the school days so that "pure education" happens across 4 and a half days and extra-curricular education happens at the end of each school day. This would be fantastic EXCEPT the extra-curriculum education will not be undertaken by the teachers already in place at the schools; other trained professionals will have to be employed by the communes to do this. The communes can't afford this so parents will have to start paying.
On top of this, wednesday morning school is likely to end at 11.30. Which parent is likely to finish work at 11.30am?
It's probably pretty obvious that I'm totally frustrated by this whole idea..... and I don't even have to start worrying about it until Sept. 2014!
Apparently not, it has allegedly been delayed, or at least it might just be this district in the department. Nobody is saying exactly what the situation is and my friend who is a teacher and parent (will still have one at primaire) does not know for sure. Anyway, Wednesday is to be a half day anyway, rather than a real five day week!
hi - has anyone heard about whether the primary schools will be doing 5 day weeks again or not in Sept 13?
Just go to Amazon.fr and put in 'livres ecole primaire' and there are loads. We unfortunately gave all the books we had three years ago away. What the schools use themselves is so limited that when our daughters arrived with no French and had to learn, if it had not been for Usborne and various things we found on Amazon it might have been tough going for them.
Hi, I am wondering if anyone has any advice about French reading books for children of CP age? My son's only reading book at school is Lire CP and compared to the phonics and other reading programmes in the UK such as Oxford Reading Tree, seems a bit limiting when trying to get to grips with the language. The vocab and content in the books I have come across in the shops is varied. I have bought all the bi-lingual ones I could find in the UK. Any ideas? Many thanks
Haha Véro, I picked up Berlin in all my years there and my Dutch sounds to Dutch ears like that, even though I do the 'g' far more gutterally than my physio who I guess is from the south of the Netherlands. When we lived the year in Portugal I used to use Spanish and guesswork and was often told how good my (almost non-existant) Portuguese was. I bugger people about by speakin Souf London, going quite Cantabrigensian and then aff tae hieland Scots frae a guid laff. Hannover is posh German, they say, but also Platt which people avoid mentioning. I occasionally go there for a family visit, but get slated heavily for Berlinern. At the end of the day I do not give a monkey's (London)!