MetaFilter posts tagged with French and English

MétaFiltre!

Shepherd — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:21:54 -0800

The Canadian Government’s Translation Bureau recently made its French/English/Spanish technical terminology database, Termium, free to access after over a decade as a subscription-based service. While off-the-cuff translations are often available from free services like BabelFish, Termium focuses on technical terminology such as scientific, medical and legal terms. Of equal interest to the core service are other tools like The Canadian Style, the government’s official rules for how to write "Canadian" (an odd hybrid of British and American styles), HyperGrammar 2, a series of educational grammar modules developed for self-directed learning, and Word Tailoring, an attempt to create a translation database for idiomatic French words and expressions that don't necessarily offer a single literal translation. There are also a wealth of French-language tools for learning grammar, improving your writing style, and seeking alternate terms for common verbs and expressions. Also worthy of note is the always-free Grand Dictionnaire, the product of the Quebec government's Office de la langue française, which is far less robust than Termium but has a stronger focus on "proper" language for Quebec. And, if you're struggling to improve your French writing skills, Bon Patron is a (frequently slow-loading) Java-powered tool that will check your French spelling and grammar and offer correction suggestions in real time.

Keeping Celtic languages alive on TV and the Web

joeclark — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 11:21:14 -0800

Since 1980, the Celtic Media Festival has brought together people who broadcast, and now Webcast, in Celtic languages. Videoblog Gwagenn.TV provides a report (with autoplaying video) from the 2009 festival whose clips and interviews are spoken and subtitled variously in Breton, French, English, Welsh, Scots Gaelic and Irish, Catalan, and Basque, not all of which are actually Celtic. Special feature: Man-on-man kiss during Catalan soap opera. (Poke around at Gwagenn.TV and you’ll find such amusements as a rocket launch carried out entirely in Breton with Beastie Boys soundtrack, an interview with an Occitan-language reggae band subtitled in Breton [Flickr snippet], and a report from a Manx-language workshop.)

Déja vu ?

nicolin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:05:38 -0800

A tale of two countries Some time ago, the french & German tv channel Arte had created an internet extension devoted to audio only, Arteradio. This website contains hours of audio creations. This is the place where you can listen to The first radio drama /la première fiction radio /in two languages and one version /en deux langues et une seule version /a BBC-ARTE Radio coproduction /enregistrée à Paris et London /recorded on location /diffusée en hertzien /broadcasted on BBC Radio 4 on February, 4th, 2009 /online on arteradio.com. You can also listen to McKenzie Wark, or to the moment of silence created on September the eleventh 2002, to Steve, to English pupils in Paris, to Susan George, to Dean Hurley commenting his work, and then dive into the complete unknown, and pure French sounds, like these testimonies about masturbation, or about la chanson, like a Paris postcard, or even a street snapshot.

Thai fiction

carsonb — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:07:14 -0800

Modern Thai fiction, in English et plus en français.

English Sans French. Quelle horreur!

kokogiak — Fri, 14 Mar 2003 12:55:45 -0800

English ~~Sans~~ without French. ~~Imagine~~ Think of a world of English without any French ~~influence~~ impact, including linguistic. Some beautiful folks at the Christian ~~Science~~ Studies Monitor have done just that.

I slap my balls against it!

jonson — Thu, 23 Jan 2003 13:36:51 -0800

The English have landed! In the spirit of international confederation, Nerve.com offers this all too brief list of common curses, epithets, and scandalous phrases, along with their French counterpart, and more interestingly, a transliteration of the French so one can better understand the Idiom.

johnnyboy — Fri, 02 Aug 2002 03:46:27 -0800

blimey charlie the french are getting right hot under the collar. There is growing indignation in france at the creeping use of the english language. Well now it seems that the EU, with an impeccable track record of supporting the french is suddenly ruffling a few feathers.

todd — Thu, 12 Oct 2000 04:45:21 -0800

October Coffee Crisis. Montreal Gazette: "In its communiques, the BAF warned that Second Cup franchises were to be 'in the line of fire' and warned of an escalation of violent acts if Second Cup and other chains insist on keeping their trademark English names." More Trudeau nostalgia?