Re: Help with collocations, please

On 2008-06-03, Fred Springer wrote:

> Thanks for that very interesting clarification. From my own experience 
> of learning foreign languages, I'd say that learning set phrases and 
> trotting them out in appropriate situations is a good way of making 
> native speakers believe your competence in their language is greater 
> than it really is. The only problem is, you can then find yourself in 
> deeper linguistic waters than you'd bargained for, when your 
> interlocutor stops making allowances for your learner status and 
> launches into high speed fully idiomatic mode -- but that bracing 
> experience does motivate further learning.

I've had the disconcerting experience (especially in Italian) of
asking someone a question and getting back a reponse that I couldn't
even tokenize, much less understand.


> A German-speaking friend commented once on an interview given by the 
> then British Ambassador on German TV: "He's impressively fluent, until 
> you realise all he's doing is repeating cliches". I thought she was 
> rather underestimating his ability, but I got her point. (There's 
> another one for you).

That's often true about politicians, even in their native languages.


> I remember once  hailing a taxi in Paris, and being treated after a 
> brief exchange of courtesies to a long diatribe about the iniquitous 
> taxi-driver strike that was just about to start. I only understood about

> a half of it, but made appropriate interjections from time to time, such

> "alors!" "vraiment?" "merde!" and so on. Paying him after 25 minutes of 
> this, he said "Vous parlez tres bien Francais Monsieur".

Especially if you shrug and say "bof".


-- 
It is probable that television drama of high caliber and produced by
first-rate artists will materially raise the level of dramatic taste
of the nation.      (David Sarnoff, CEO of RCA, 1939; in Stoll 1995)