abclanguages

[abclanguages]

Expressions of time

Après-after

Avant-before

D’abord-first

Enfin-at last

Ensuite-then

Finalement-finally

Pendant-during

Hier-yesterday

Hier matin-yesterday morning

Hier soir-last night/yesterday evening

L’été dernier-last summer

L’année dernière-last year

Maintenant-now

Aujourd’hui-today

Ce matin-this morning

Ce mois-ci-this month

Ce soir-tonight

Demain-tomorrow

Demain après-midi-tomorrow afternoon

Lundi prochain-next Monday

La semaine prochaine-next week

Une fois-once

Deux fois-twice

Trois fois-three times

Par semaine-a week/per week

Par mois-a month/per month

Par an-a year/per year

À toute vitesse-(very) quickly

De temps en temps-from time to time

Ne… pas encore-not yet

Ne…presque jamais-almost never

Parfois-occasionally

Quelquefois-sometimes

Rarement-seldom/rarely

Souvent- often

Toujours-still/always

Tout de suite-right away

[abclanguages]

The Best Parts of the French Farmers Market (Strasbourg, France) 

We eat to live. Seriously. Learning French while in France is an enormous culinary boondoggle. Today we passed by the local farmers’ market and couldn’t get over the strawberries. (Don’t they look gorgeous?!) The taste as delicious as they look, and we had better eat them quickly because they spoil in about 24 hours. (As opposed to the American versions that stay in the refrigerator for a week but basically taste like plastic with strawberry scent. Apologies, California, but France has yours licked!) 

Voulez-vous des fraises? (Would you like some strawberries?) 

[abclanguages]

Click the picture to hear the tune I learnt. (I still remember it so it must be good.)

[abclanguages]

Les saisons / The seasons

[abclanguages]

[abclanguages]

5 ways to say you like it in French. #learn #French -

[abclanguages]

Wishing you a great weekend! Abclanguages.net #abcmarketing #abclanguages #languagelearning #onlineschool #learnlanguages #elearning #distancelearning #French #esl #italian #spanish #greek #russianlanguage #russe #portuguese #swahili #switzerland #montreal #moscow #hongkong #tokyo #qatar #dubai #emirates #paris #newyorkcity

[abclanguages]

Greetings in #french ! #abclanguages #languagelearning #learnlanguages #onlineschool #Skype #skypelessons #francais #frances #france #paris #london #novosibirsk #nottingham #newyorkcity #zurich #Geneva #qatar #oran #sydney #tokyo #seoul #singapore #elearning #languagelearning

[abclanguages]

Agree?;) #abclanguages #languagelearning #languages #onlineschool #school #languageschool #Skype #skypelessons #german #French #spain #spanish #italian #palmademallorca #london #newyorkcity #zurich #stockholm #copenhagen #tokyo #buenosaires

[abclanguages]

Interesting article!

[abclanguages]

Our motto! #abclanguages #learnlanguages #onlineshool #languageschool #skype #lessons #french #esl #italian #russian #farsi #german #swahili #spanish #london #newyorkcity #moscow #russianlanguage #russia #geneva #sydney #losangeles #manchester #tokyo

[abclanguages]

Study-Hack : When studying a Foreign Language tips... very helpful ! -

[abclanguages]

Do you know this #French actor? #abclanguages #francais #pierrerichard #comedie #comedy #cinemafrancais #frenchmovies #paris #marseille #lyon #montpellier #perpignan #london #losangeles #nyon #zurich #lausanne #Geneva #moscow #saintpetersburg #novosibirsk #ekaterinburg #estonia #kiev #odessa #stockholm #copenhagen

[abclanguages]

Why don’t the Americans have the British accent? 

There are many evolving regional British and American accents, so the terms “British accent” and “American accent” are gross oversimplifications. What a lot of Americans think of as the typical "British accent” is what's called standardized Received Pronunciation (RP), also known as Public School English or BBC English. What most people think of as an "American accent," or most Americans think of as "no accent," is the General American (GenAm) accent, sometimes called a "newscaster accent" or "Network English." Because this is a blog post and not a book, we'll focus on these two general sounds for now and leave the regional accents for another time.

English colonists established their first permanent settlement in the New World at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, sounding very much like their countrymen back home. By the time we had recordings of both Americans and Brits some three centuries later (the first audio recording of a human voice was made in 1860), the sounds of English as spoken in the Old World and New World were very different. We're looking at a silent gap of some 300 years, so we can't say exactly when Americans first started to sound noticeably different from the British.

As for the "why," though, one big factor in the divergence of the accents is rhotacism. The General American accent is rhotic and speakers pronounce the r in words such as hard. The BBC-type British accent is non-rhotic, and speakers don't pronounce the r, leaving hardsounding more like hahd. Before and during the American Revolution, the English, both in England and in the colonies, mostly spoke with a rhotic accent. We don't know much more about said accent, though. Various claims about the accents of the Appalachian Mountains, the Outer Banks, the Tidewater region and Virginia's Tangier Island sounding like an uncorrupted Elizabethan-era English accent have been busted as myths by linguists.

TALK THIS WAY

Around the turn of the 18th 19th century, not long after the revolution, non-rhotic speech took off in southern England, especially among the upper and upper-middle classes. It was a signifier of class and status. This posh accent was standardized as Received Pronunciation and taught widely by pronunciation tutors to people who wanted to learn to speak fashionably. Because the Received Pronunciation accent was regionally "neutral" and easy to understand, it spread across England and the empire through the armed forces, the civil service and, later, the BBC.

Across the pond, many former colonists also adopted and imitated Received Pronunciation to show off their status. This happened especially in the port cities that still had close trading ties with England — Boston, Richmond, Charleston, and Savannah. From the Southeastern coast, the RP sound spread through much of the South along with plantation culture and wealth.

After industrialization and the Civil War and well into the 20th century, political and economic power largely passed from the port cities and cotton regions to the manufacturing hubs of the Mid Atlantic and Midwest — New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, etc. The British elite had much less cultural and linguistic influence in these places, which were mostly populated by the Scots-Irish and other settlers from Northern Britain, and rhotic English was still spoken there. As industrialists in these cities became the self-made economic and political elites of the Industrial Era, Received Pronunciation lost its status and fizzled out in the U.S. The prevalent accent in the Rust Belt, though, got dubbed General American and spread across the states just as RP had in Britain.

Of course, with the speed that language changes, a General American accent is now hard to find in much of this region, with New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Chicago developing their own unique accents, and GenAm now considered generally confined to a small section of the Midwest.

As mentioned above, there are regional exceptions to both these general American and British sounds. Some of the accents of southeastern England, plus the accents of Scotland and Ireland, are rhotic. Some areas of the American Southeast, plus Boston, are non-rhotic.

[abclanguages]

Are you in love with #Russia? #abclanguages #russophile #russie #moscow #saintpetersburg #russe #russian #russianlanguage #distancelearning #elearning #learnrussian #learnlanguages #polyglot #linguistics #travel #wanderlust #voyage #rossiya

[abclanguages]

Meet Wesley, our new #German teacher ! #abclanguages #allemand #learngerman germanlessons #onlineshool #learnlanguages #elearning #distancelearning #kenya #geneva #zurich #copenhagen #stockholm #basel #berlin #hannover #switzerland #schweiz #belgium #lausanne #bienne #skype #lessons #germanteacher

[abclanguages]

Click the picture to hear the tune I learnt. (I still remember it so it must be good.)