Hoping for some corrections

hi- i know a smattering of french- enough to love the song Parlons Vite or Bizet's Habanera but can't quite grasp the intricacies [never was good at verb tenses despite all those years of classes] so i'm just hoping this sentence is coherent without appearing illiterate. if it's not grammatical i'd appreciate some pointers. merci:

ceci livre n'est pas en la langue anglais, mais une argot ce il y a peu qui en branché, une patois peu souvent entendre, et la parole encore moins parlent.

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by tyler on December 17, 2010 at 10:03pm

thank you for your thorough help... the part i made incomprehensible should read something like: and an argot that there are few who are 'in the know'/'hip to'

however one thing though is your corrections have excised the Saussurian distinction and contrast between langue and parole.

another is a question: if one was to read that sentence in the book to which it referred would one then use 'ceci'?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by tyler on December 17, 2010 at 11:07pm

again let me begin by thanking you for your diligent help. however i think the sentence is become more muddled as to my intentions. i wanted the 'entendre' to be ambiguous but leaning more towards its meaning of 'hearing', as in: a dialect few hear.

furthermore the composed juxtaposition between argot and branché I feel to be necessary. as in: slang few are hip to

and ultimately these features are subsumed within the Saussurian system of langue- which is the totality, or possibility of a certain language- and not language [langage] itself- versus the utilized and uttered portions [parole] of those permutations. thus we can't simply excise 'parole' because of the conjugation of 'parler'

so if i were to open, say for example, a book by Rochefoucauld would it be legitimate to read a warning or statement, say from an editor, which reads: Ceci livre n'est pas écrit en la langue Anglais...

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by tyler on December 18, 2010 at 12:20am

no i think you did a great job of proving i have very little knowledge of french other than a very broad view which fails upon inspection, lol. thanks again for being polite and informative and assiduous