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Land of the Maple Leaf ~ Canadian Club

Yusshin

♪ Yggdrasil ♪
2,414
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14
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Because it means "please"?

"Hello! Can I have two bags please?"

Since I'm younger than him, he addresses me informally.
 
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I've only ever heard s'il vous plait before :\

I only know like two people that smoke weed. And I'm not even sure if they do, or if they do it often.
 
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BlahISuck said:
And did you guys know that Canadian teens smoke more weed than those in other developed countries?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...ticle11221668/
I can't say that it surprises me all that much, but then again, I am in BC. I won't use it myself, but at least 2 or 3 times a month I've had random people come up to me and ask if I wanted to by some weed, which I still find odd every time. My high school was pretty bad with people who smoked it, though. I can't remember if it was grade 9 or 10, but one of those years, more than 50 students (out of ~1300) were caught on school grounds with some.

As for the whole tu vs. vous thing, my French teacher in middle school made a big deal about it. We had a split class (half grade 6, half grade 7), so any time we spoke to each other during presentations, the younger students would have to ask things like Quel âge avez-vous? instead of Quel âge as-tu? or else we would lose marks. I thought it was a little silly since we were all still classmates, but it did drive home the difference between the two.
 

Yusshin

♪ Yggdrasil ♪
2,414
Posts
14
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Normally classmates wouldn't have to do it. It's appropriate at my work, though - client vs. service person. The little kids use "vous" with me, but same-age or older use "tu." I always try to use "vous," unless I get too comfortable, have had the person by my cash already or if the person is like, five.

Losing marks for that... I can understand if you weren't using "vous" for the teacher; otherwise, it really doesn't matter and it's appropriate, unless you're in front of the WHOLE class. Then you would use "vous" because you're addressing a lot of people.
 

Captain Gizmo

Monkey King
4,843
Posts
11
Years
I'm not surprised, lol. People in Montreal can smoke weed in front of cops and they won't do anything about it, lol. Take my old high school for example, they had teenagers that would go out in front of the school to smoke some cigarettes or weed. You could basically get high by all the fumes that they emanated lol.
 
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Weed is so gross. I smell it everywhere. It smells even worse than cigarette fumes! I've had a weed activist approach me assuming that I smoked... what gave it away? :O
 
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Yusshin said:
Normally classmates wouldn't have to do it. It's appropriate at my work, though - client vs. service person. The little kids use "vous" with me, but same-age or older use "tu." I always try to use "vous," unless I get too comfortable, have had the person by my cash already or if the person is like, five.

Losing marks for that... I can understand if you weren't using "vous" for the teacher; otherwise, it really doesn't matter and it's appropriate, unless you're in front of the WHOLE class. Then you would use "vous" because you're addressing a lot of people.
I think it was moreso because the teacher himself knew very little French, and assumed that you had to use vous as a sign of respect even with a very trivial 1 year age gap. Even at that point I knew it seemed a little silly (considering my previous teacher told us to use tu with each other), but everyone just seemed to play along with it.
 
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Good luck! I remember having to do those once upon a time, but that's a distant memory. Congrats for taking French up to Grade 12! I didn't have that much fun doing it, so I stopped in Grade 9.
 
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Strange that since it was just recently brought up, I heard on the news today that roughly 3/4 of BC residents support research in legalizing marijuana. It wouldn't be legal right away, but instead there would be research done on how much money could be made both through the taxation and actual growing of marijuana itself, and if it could turn the province a good profit, steps would be taken to legalize it.

Like I said, I wouldn't ever use the stuff myself, but if it could help boost the provincial economy, I say why not legalize and regulate it, since it's less harmful than either alcohol or cigarettes. If it could also cut down the number of drug related crime and arrests, that'd free up the police for more important things, too (things like marijuana DUIs would still be tracked, though).
 

Yusshin

♪ Yggdrasil ♪
2,414
Posts
14
Years
I thought "s'il-te plait" translated as "If you please."

Anyways, yeah. Gotta do a pamphlet featuring a destination and it all has to be in French. Gosh it's hard .__.

More or less.

Si = If
Il = It (Because the "it" is unknown at this point, masculine form is used)
Te = You
Plait = Pleases

If it was "if you please," it would be "Si tu plais." Verb form is a big hint here that it's a reflection of "Il" - meaning "It" - and not "Tu." In fact, if it was written "S'il-te plais," it wouldn't make sense.

On a side-note, just saying "Si tu plais" doesn't make sense without a context.
 

Yusshin

♪ Yggdrasil ♪
2,414
Posts
14
Years
"Si" can actually mean three things.

1. In conditional, it means "If."

When "Si" is conditional, it will always be followed by some sort of "If x, then y" statement:

Code:
"Si tu ne complètes pas tes devoirs, tu recevras une mauvaise note."

2. In response to a negative accusation, it can mean "Yes."

By using "Si" after an accusation to rebuttal, your point or sentence is "stronger" than if you use simply "Oui."

Code:
Genevieve : "Tu n'as pas fait tes devoirs."
Etienne : "Si, je les ai faits."

3. In regards to an intensifier, it can mean "So."

Much like tellement and très. I find them to be generally interchangeable; however, in degree, I find that "tellement" is the most powerful, then "Si" followed by "Très." It doesn't really matter, though.

Code:
"Je suis tellement heureuse !"
"Je suis si heureuse !"
"Je suis très heureuse !"
 
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Cherrim

PSA: Blossom Shower theme is BACK ♥
33,267
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21
Years
Now that we have a French club, we should probably keep the very specific French discussion (as in, stuff not really related to Canada) over there. n_n;
Strange that since it was just recently brought up, I heard on the news today that roughly 3/4 of BC residents support research in legalizing marijuana. It wouldn't be legal right away, but instead there would be research done on how much money could be made both through the taxation and actual growing of marijuana itself, and if it could turn the province a good profit, steps would be taken to legalize it.

Like I said, I wouldn't ever use the stuff myself, but if it could help boost the provincial economy, I say why not legalize and regulate it, since it's less harmful than either alcohol or cigarettes. If it could also cut down the number of drug related crime and arrests, that'd free up the police for more important things, too (things like marijuana DUIs would still be tracked, though).
I'm on board if only for taxation reasons, but I'd kind of prefer if marijuana stays illegal. I absolutely cannot stand the smell so the less people able to or seeking to smoke it, the better, imo. :P
 
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Lightning said:
I'm on board if only for taxation reasons, but I'd kind of prefer if marijuana stays illegal. I absolutely cannot stand the smell so the less people able to or seeking to smoke it, the better, imo. :P
I've always felt taxation and the amount of drug related arrests going down are pretty good reasons for legalization. But, I do have to agree that the smell of it is awful, and many including myself would like to stay as far away from it as possible. Unfortunately I've just got to deal with it though, since if you go anywhere near downtown you can smell it somewhere (I don't even want to imagine what it was like today being 4/20 and all). Maybe an "under the influence" law similar to that of public intoxication could be tacked on, too, so we could keep it away from public areas, but people would be free to use it within the law.

EDIT: Actually, after looking it up, Colorado's Amendmant 64 does almost exactly what I proposed, so I guess it wouldn't be unprecedented if BC were to adopt it.
 
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I don't have any experience or damning second/third-hand experience, but is being under the influence of marijuana considered "intoxication"? Because I hear from everybody who's told me that it doesn't really do much in terms of your judgement.
 
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I don't know if it's really intoxication so much, but I'm probably not the one to be asking about it, either. It definitely does affect your judgement a little bit (slower reaction times, some disorientation, etc.), but to what extent vs. alcohol or other drugs I'm not so sure. I guess it would also depend on how much marijuana was actually consumed- following CO's amendment, it allows no more than one ounce in your possession.
 
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Wow, that sounds pretty legit. And most people would grow their own so they don't have to buy it from drug dealers eh? Plus legal stores too - it seems that marijuana will go mainstream and cease to become a thing any longer.
 
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It does seem to be the way that things are heading, now that the stigma behind marijuana is diminishing. It wouldn't surprise me if we see something similar to Colorado's law adopted in BC within the next 2-3 years (depending on how the upcoming election goes), and I'm sure other provinces would begin following suit down the line as well.

Also, off that topic, the Toronto Maple Leafs officialy qualified the playoffs tonight for the first time since 2004 (every other team in the league besides Toronto has been in them since then). I'm not the biggest fan of the team, but after how bad they've played the last few years, I can imagine there'll be a big sense of excitement in and around the city for the next couple of weeks.
 
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