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I've been trying to recall how we call in in French; trying to recall how I would have brought it up while speaking to somebody.

Remembering conversations with my assistant, we definitely said trois petits points. The colon is deux petits points and the semi-colon is point virgule. Though I don't know if that is the official term for them.

It's like the @ sign. People will always say "A commercial" instead of "arobas".

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what the hill the second thought 's got to do with the subject?

I was thoughtifying about Céline's titre, not ses trois points. Me comprenez vous?


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Ouah ! Trois petits pois.
All those ... are micro-cliffhangers.

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I've often wondered. Is the colloquial ouais only Parisian for 'yeah' (as I'd always rather naïvely assumed) or does it span the francophone world?


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You'll see "ouais" written in books and people recognize it to mean yeah or yup, but in the spoken language of French Québec, yeah is said in a different way.

I racking my brain as to how I can possibly write this so you'll understand the sound.

O.k., think of the word "wine"

The sound the WI makes finished with a barely perceptible exhaled middle-of-the-mouth vowel sound.

No help here, eh?

Oh, and people also say ouaip

Last edited by belMarduk; 02/17/08 02:45 AM.
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think of the word "wine"

The sound the WI makes finished with a barely perceptible exhaled middle-of-the-mouth vowel sound.


Hmm, assuming you're talking about how an anglophone pronounces wine, the vowel is really a diphthong: /'wajn/. I guess the vowel is a little like the i in tin, i.e., /'tɪn/. Is the sound of the Quebecker yep, like the wi in wit? Or something else? Is there a standard French word that this vowel sound occurs in?


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think of the word "wine"

The sound the WI makes finished with a barely perceptible exhaled middle-of-the-mouth vowel sound.



Now imagine that sound pronounced by a duck...

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heh


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A lady I know (whose accent even I could tell was, um, less than perfect) said that when she was in Paris she heard it as oo-eye.

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Ahh, but in Paree she is different, no.
To sound Parisienne you must pucker your lips as if waiting for a kiss while you talk.
To sound Parisien you only pucker the lower lip but you have to raise one eyebrow at the same time.

Originally Posted By: Jackie
A lady I know (whose accent even I could tell was, um, less than perfect) said that when she was in Paris she heard it as oo-eye.

Perhaps she heard people spee king vay ree su low lee.

On the other hand i speak French with a strong Italian accent so you might want to add a few grains of salt to the above.

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