Why not a French speaking freediving section ?

[subaquaticus]

subaquaticus,

I wouldn't read much into the number of viewings. They are not "unique persons" only number of times the thread has been read. There have been 9 people posting to this thread and if they revisited the thread on every post they alone would consist of 342 views which is the majority.

I still have yet to be pursuaded that it is a good idea to open a french (or any foreign language) section.

It would be interesting first to assess the number of French speaking DB registered members... The two French speaking DB "effective" participants have an outstanding level in English (one of them living in Britain)...

I suspect quite many of my compatriots had a sufficient level in English to register and read with an imperfect comprehension some posts, but were unable to "take off", out of sheer linguistic shyness...

On the other hand I got in touch with "greendiver" who is a Dutch speaking freediver living in Spain ; I intend to organize a freediving trip on the "Costa Brava" which is an amazing freediving region...

It would be interesting for me to get in touch with Catalan freedivers, but the proportion of Catalans speaking English is even lower than for the French (and Catalan language is closer to the French language than to Spanish...)...

 

[Rémi]

The two French speaking DB "effective" participants have an outstanding level in English (one of them living in Britain)...

are you talking about me ? :duh
Not sure it is true, but you deserve some reputation for this :thankyou

 

[subaquaticus]

are you talking about me ? :duh
Not sure it is true, but you deserve some reputation for this :thankyou

Flowers are not that expensive !... :friday

Let us congratulate each other ! :thankyou

Vive la France ! :girlie

 

[island_sands]

Flowers are not that expensive !... :friday

Let us congratulate each other ! :thankyou

Vive la France ! :girlie

i'll drink to that.. bring on the Rothschild :friday

 

[subaquaticus]

i'll drink to that.. bring on the Rothschild :friday

Hi Sara :girlie

by the way... are you a native English speaker or a native Spanish speaker ?

How is your stray cat ?

I am envisaging to go to the delicious Costa Brava next summer...

Viva Espana !

Viva Catalunya !

 

[subaquaticus]

Following thread : [ame="http://forums.deeperblue.net/showthread.php?p=541803#post541803"]Help needed by native speaking freedivers - Page 2[/ame]

launched 18 months ago expressed the same idea as that of present thread... that is "lowering the threshold to participate"

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Actually that thread is about translating the FreeDivingSpots.net website not about launching a French section on DeeperBlue.net

I'm going to have to ask you to stop trawling the site for old threads and pushing the French section concept.

I have already stated my position on this. I am not going to be opening a French section on here but as stated before would be willing to help either build up or setup a French speaking site that was seperate to DB.

 

[subaquaticus]

Actually that thread is about translating the FreeDivingSpots.net website not about launching a French section on DeeperBlue.net

I'm going to have to ask you to stop trawling the site for old threads and pushing the French section concept.

I have already stated my position on this. I am not going to be opening a French section on here but as stated before would be willing to help either build up or setup a French speaking site that was seperate to DB.

Do not worry Stephan !

I am not going to "push" a "French Connection Concept"...

I might have given the impresson to "put the cart before the horse" when I mentioned a "French speaking section"...

In my mind the technical solution was vague... As Henri Poincaré, a famous French mathematician said, a problem correctly set is already half solved...

Don't pay too much attention to the phrase "French Section" which sounds a little bit like "French Connection"...

You are much more aware than I am of "legal issues"... I confess I was not aware of the legal implications of speaking French on the Web !

Some twenty years ago we had a Minister of Culture named Jacques Toubon (in English Jack Allgood !) who edicted a law forbidding the use of English (without simultaneous translations) in every symposium held on the French soil, even if there was - and that was sometimes the case - no one French speaking participant in that symposium ! But as many laws in France, I think that this has never been put into practice... This law is often referred to - mostly jokingly - as "la loi Toubon"...

Have you got in the UK your own "Allgood laws" dedicated to defending the absolute dominance of the English language ?

I have heard that in Quebec there is a linguistic police whose officers measure the letters of the bilingual posters ; the French letters have to be by law twice as big as the English ones, and if it is not the case, the owner of the poster gets a fine !

Before proposing a technical solution, I was just trying to assess the need of linguistic interface...

Why do you think there are so many posts asking the same question about the paradisia nose-clip ? I was surprised to learn that the - only ? - manufacturer of this product is French... and those English speaking freedivers not speaking French seem to be at loss because of the lack of a suitable interface... As far as I understood, new AIDA (AIDA is BTW a French acronym ; the English acronym would be : IADA...) regulations are going to allow for the use of nose-clips for CW competitions, which will increase the need for a linguistic interface...

Three worldwide competitions are taking place in France in 2005... The expression "survival guide" used in a recent Finnish post implies that linguistic interfaces should be more than welcome by most freedivers...

As I said I only proposed to put a little "linguistic oil in the machinery" - as I already spontaneously did before onthe occasion of comps taking place in France... and I was struggling a little bit :martial with the - IMHO very naive - common fallacy that every decent freediver in the world should be able to read Shakespeare in the text... Which is - IMHO - by far not the case :waterwork ...

 

[Adrian]

Suba, I'm Catalan and I speak English!

I like this phrase from your last post: regulations are going to allow for the use of nose-clips for CW competitions, which will increase the need for a linguistic interface... Does this mean that I'll need a translator to put on a nose-clip?

Adriá

¡Visca Catalunya!

 

[subaquaticus]

Suba, I'm Catalan and I speak English!

I like this phrase from your last post: regulations are going to allow for the use of nose-clips for CW competitions, which will increase the need for a linguistic interface... Does this mean that I'll need a translator to put on a nose-clip?

Adriá

¡Visca Catalunya!

Just have a look at this thread : http://forums.deeperblue.net/showthread.php?t=39897&highlight=paradisia

December 3rd, 2003
donmoore
Registered User
Rep Power: 10
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Corpus Christi, TX
Posts: 768

Need French speaking person!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Would someone who speaks French well, help me? I am trying to purchase some Paradisia nose clips from Bernard Chabannes and we can’t understand each other. He tried to give me his e-mail address because apparently he can read and write English better than speak it, but I just couldn’t understand him enough to get the address correct.

The e-mail address on his web page is no longer working and he has another one.

Please PM me and I will give you his phone number. I’ll reimburse you for the phone call.
Many Thanks,
don



It seems extremely complicate to buy this astounding nose-clip...

Apparently, the producer of this nose-clip does not master English...

His having access to Deeper Blue might make things simpler......

 

[Adrian]

he he...I called Bernard for Don way back then and we resolved the problem. Not that I speak French well, but between his English and my French we managed. The problem with Paradisia is not the language factor, it's that he doesn't produce many.

Adrian

 

[subaquaticus]

he he...I called Bernard for Don way back then and we resolved the problem. Not that I speak French well, but between his English and my French we managed. The problem with Paradisia is not the language factor, it's that he doesn't produce many.

Adrian

I have been begging for one for months in Paris but Parisian scuba diving shops do not give a shit about freedivers...

There was only one ugly yellow paradisia remaining and they were waiting for it to be sold before ordering some new ones !

In the end, since he lives in Villefranche, Bernard will bring me one in Nice next week on the occasion of the CIPA Open...

 

[subaquaticus]

..........but between his English......

Hablando inglès entre un Frances y un Catalan :duh es un crimen contre la Latinidad :rcard :waterwork ...

Por supuesto Catalan es mas proximo del Frances que del Castellano, de verdad ?

 

[alix.leclerc]

Bon, je n'ai pas eu le temps de lire tout les messages, mais bien sur c'est une bonne idee. Sur tout parce ce que je trouve que la france et beucoup plus belle que ou je vie en anglaterre. Je m'excuse en avance, mon ecriture et tres mal en francais.

But it also gives the difficulty of translating those french technical terms to english -of which I find personally hard. My father is french and so anything I have learn about diving so far has been in french.

Does anyone else here actually speak any french?

xx

 

[trux]

Does anyone else here actually speak any french?

Yes, there are couple of active French freedivers here on the forum, for example Rémi or OceanMan, but both of them are probably here because they lived for some time in the UK too. I did not hear from Rémi a lot since he moved back to France. There are many more French subscribed, of course, but rarely active. It does not mean there are not many freedivers in France or other countries. I'd tell freediving is very popular in France and you will find a freediving club in almost every bigger town even deep inland (there are three or four freediving clubs + others for UW hockey and fin-swimming in Lyon and near - and that is +300km from the sea). The problem is that French are extremely lazy to learn foreign languages, and even more lazy to use them. Hence most of them stay on French freediving forums, and do not visit here too often. And there are many of them: one of the most popular freediving forums is the Esprit Apnée, but there are also many others quite popular: A la chasse sous-marine, [ame="http://www.plongeur.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=70"]Plongeur.com[/ame], Apnea.fr, Apnée Sportive, ...

There are of course also people from other francophone countries like Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, diverse former and current French territories in the Caribbean, Africa, Indian Ocean and Pacific. Those people are usually much more flexible as for English goes and do not mind communicating in English.

Myself, I live in France but am Czech. Actively I am still more comfortable with English than with French, especially in written form.

 

[alix.leclerc]

I'm much more comfortable with writing and speaking english. Although i would love to be perfect in french.

Made me laugh about the laziness of the french, although, in my experience I've found that the english are MUCH lazier that the french when it comes to learning language!

Where abouts in france are you? I often visit the west coast and it is beautiful for freediving. Here... well, your lucky if you can see a meter in front of your face.

Thank you so much for the sites, I'll be sure to visit them to make sure I know all the french technical stuff and can comunicate with my dad!

x

 

[trux]

In fact it is a problem of many big nations. Most of the big nations feel so self-confident and proud, that they think they do not need to learn any foreign languages, and that's the foreigners who ought to do it

If you want to improve your French, you should definitely try being active in some of the francophone forums. I am afraid that here, the audience is much more limited.

As shown at the top of my posts, I am located in Lyon - so rather far from the sea.

 

[alix.leclerc]

Oh yes I see...

Very true, but I also think it is true that most people do not realise how much speaking another language is, not only useful, but enriching. It gives this whole other way of expressing yourself which feels great for someone who talks as much as I do! And it is very useful of course if you are trying to have a private conversation with someone in a crowded room.

Where do you practice free diving then? I suppose in a swimming pool?

x

 

[trux]

Yes, we train in a pool, and have an 18m deep quarry here - not much, but sufficient for technique training. And then, at long weekends and holidays, I usually spend my time at the Med, but unfortunately at a place with quite shallow waters (~10m), so I rather just explore / snorkel than really freedive in the competitive sense, there.

 

[alix.leclerc]

That sounds more like what I want to be doing really, but I reckon that as long as I train to hold my breathe I can do anything like that! I'd like to learn speak fishing aswell, but there's not much to fish around here.

That area of coast down the south is really lovely, I go once every two years if i'm lucky. Just love the way it's beautiful ocean and yet if you travel a little bit inland there's amazing mountains and rivers great for kayaking.

I have to go cycle home now, keeping the exercise up over then next eight weeks. By the way, what's your personal record?

Alix