Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
13 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

In the late-90s, several UT French professors and a scad of grad students (including moi) put together an interactive French language course with cartoon armadillos, meant for local use:

 

ha-gay-9.gif

  • Haha 2
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted
56 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Like a full-grown man.

With the strength of the language departments at UT, what about Spanish? Portuguese? I mean we are known for our Latin American studies. Shit, add Creole. I have the first dictionary written on it. Happen to send to you. 

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)
31 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

With the strength of the language departments at UT, what about Spanish? Portuguese? I mean we are known for our Latin American studies. Shit, add Creole. I have the first dictionary written on it. Happen to send to you. 

It was a miracle we got to do it in French. There were some way-too-serious people who had to be convinced. Way back when, we tried to get a similar project going with Spanish, but got the cold shoulder.

[A few years later, we did a website for German: https://coerll.utexas.edu/gg/ ]

There's probably been a complete turnover in both departments since then, but I am a mere hired gun.

Or am I.

Edited by RDCanecutter
  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
With the strength of the language departments at UT, what about Spanish? Portuguese? I mean we are known for our Latin American studies. Shit, add Creole. I have the first dictionary written on it. Happen to send to you. 

Second best Spanish department in the country when I was there. Can’t recall who was first. Doesn’t matter.
  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
2 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

It was a miracle we got to do it in French. There were some way-too-serious people who had to be convinced. Way back when, we tried to get a similar project going with Spanish, but got the cold shoulder.

[A few years later, we did a website for German: https://coerll.utexas.edu/gg/ ]

There's probably been a complete turnover in both departments since then, but I am a mere hired gun.

Or am I.

You are an armadillo. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Chad Fuck said:


Second best Spanish department in the country when I was there. Can’t recall who was first. Doesn’t matter.

North South Center at Miami. They understood not all Spanish involved Mexico. Also had a great program at Cal. At ILAS we had a focus area not great for modern research. Wanna study the Olmecs? No prob. Want to study Peru, yeah, we might have to discuss. 

Dr. Burnett tried her ass off and ended up in the History Department. 

  • Like 1
Posted
58 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:


No shame. Bring em all on.

This video reminds me of when I fetched up in LeHavre with three months cash pay in my pocket and went in an internet cafe that turned out to be a ho house.

 

6 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Now do it in Bengali. And don't use AI. 

Behen chot.

Posted
2 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

This video reminds me of when I fetched up in LeHavre with three months cash pay in my pocket and went in an internet cafe that turned out to be a ho house.

 

Behen chot.

I call bullshit puxa saco. :)

 

Posted

So, RD, I gather that you are quite the language savant.  

Why French (assuming here you were taking courses in French at the time)?

Is it more of a "key" to "Romance languages"?

Love the armadillo character, too.

 

  • Drool 1
Posted
10 hours ago, InkaUtexas said:

No me jodas pendejito. Shall we go Bosnian? :) 

BTW, put your group out a few linguist groups. 

Put down that knife. The gun doesn't even fire. click click BLAM oh shit

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

So, RD, I gather that you are quite the language savant.  

Why French (assuming here you were taking courses in French at the time)?

Is it more of a "key" to "Romance languages"?

Love the armadillo character, too.

 

Very well. Where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving electrician from Montgomery with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for truck-stop waitresses. 

(skips 20 years)

...so of course after the divorce and shacking up with the cray-cray girl, I got a Spanish-teaching gig on a handshake at an undesired high school. Life was a ticking time bomb back then, and I was trying to claw my way back into employability as the one-man Romance Language Department of a small college.. I figured with the high school Spanish I had that covered, so next was French.

Took a GRE and laid waste to it like Legolas shooting orcs, got invited to come be a slacker at UT and study French + all the Linguistics and Spanish that I could pack in. Was in the room when they were talking about making a website, drew an armadillo on a napkin and got the job.

A couple of gigs later, achieved Dream Job teaching French and Spanish at small college. New Dean was a tyrannical bully and I told him so, then my services were not required.

I'd been going to Mexico, buying craft items, then selling them for multiples on eBay, so I figured I'd just take a few thousand dollars, cash, y'know, to Tlaxcala where they make most of the Drug Rugs, Baja Hoodies, Chamarras de Jerga sabes weyyy, sell them for 3xwholesale, repeat, with wads of cash as one does at no peril because it's nice tame Mexico.

My wife told me I was fucking insane and to just sit down and draw cartoons, which I did, and do.

But yeah I like languages.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted

Donated! Can I ask a basic question? This is coming from someone who barely passed two years of high school Latin and somehow UT let that satisfy the foreign language requirement. Needless to say I'm clueless about this stuff...

How important really is the gender of a noun? If I accidently flip-flop a masculine determiner with a feminine noun or otherwise construct a sentence as feminine even though the noun is masculine, etc. Aside from getting scolded for poor grammar and sounding like an idiot, the point of the sentence would still be communicated, right? So in the list of priorities one should have in learning a language, using nouns with 100% correct gender isn't really at the top of the list?

Just curious after reading through your grammar website (which btw is really well done, thanks for sharing).

  • Drool 1
Posted
14 minutes ago, Exposition said:

Donated! ...

How important really is the gender of a noun? If I accidently flip-flop a masculine determiner with a feminine noun or otherwise construct a sentence as feminine even though the noun is masculine,

Vous êtes bad-ass.

Gender: If you mess it up, you'll sound a lot like me. Can't think of any situation where it would turn a sentence into a fiasco. My trick was to think about what gender the Spanish word was, 99% of the time that would work.

  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted
20 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

In the late-90s, several UT French professors and a scad of grad students (including moi) put together an interactive French language course with cartoon armadillos, meant for local use:

https://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/

It won awards and got added to the curriculum of many schools. It's still used today, though as you can see it's long in the tooth now.

We are redoing it and updating it. I am the artist again.

They are running a fund-raiser. I figured the Surly 1% would want to know:

https://give.utexas.edu/a-new-francais-interactif

IMG_5425.jpeg.434b1baf58600c9b5b75f3026634e679.jpeg

  • Haha 1
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted (edited)
46 minutes ago, Exposition said:

Donated! Can I ask a basic question? This is coming from someone who barely passed two years of high school Latin and somehow UT let that satisfy the foreign language requirement. Needless to say I'm clueless about this stuff...

How important really is the gender of a noun? If I accidently flip-flop a masculine determiner with a feminine noun or otherwise construct a sentence as feminine even though the noun is masculine, etc. Aside from getting scolded for poor grammar and sounding like an idiot, the point of the sentence would still be communicated, right? So in the list of priorities one should have in learning a language, using nouns with 100% correct gender isn't really at the top of the list?

Just curious after reading through your grammar website (which btw is really well done, thanks for sharing).

YMMV. In highly inflected languages (Slavic and I assume Latin to some degree), correctly gendering nouns will impact not only the noun, but also possible the conjugation of the verb, AND the correct declension of the nouns including direct and indirect objects. Messing it up means your speech might range from “mildly confusing” to “complete gibberish” to “different meaning.” Fluent speakers will also use gender to stand in for pronouns and even nouns— you can construct a sentence where there are no nouns or pronouns as a subject, the gendered verbs imply them. So comprehension will suffer. 

Not a direct comparison but the structure of gender/declension/conjugation in inflected languages does the work of word order in English. Imagine completely mixing up the order of subject, verb, direct object, indirect object and producing an understandable thought. 

Edited by 956 Worldwide
  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Drool 1
Posted
20 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

In the late-90s, several UT French professors and a scad of grad students (including moi) put together an interactive French language course with cartoon armadillos, meant for local use:

https://www.laits.utexas.edu/tex/

It won awards and got added to the curriculum of many schools. It's still used today, though as you can see it's long in the tooth now.

We are redoing it and updating it. I am the artist again.

They are running a fund-raiser. I figured the Surly 1% would want to know:

https://give.utexas.edu/a-new-francais-interactif

Updates for 2025:

Tex convinced Tammy to form a polycule with Bette after intense discussions of the power dynamics at play. Tammy wants to bring in Corey formally, previously they have only played after meeting him at the medicinal insecticide dispenser. Fiona is trying to pay tuition via OnlyAnts. Paw-Paw is a subscriber, and also sends SS money to AI enabled sex chatbots.  Édouard runs a Michelen-starred haute fusion barbecue food truck. Joe Bob is lieutenant governor and working to ban the teaching of non-American languages. 

 

  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

Put down that knife. The gun doesn't even fire. click click BLAM oh shit

That is why you always carry two. 

Hombre, tu sabes que amo idiomas. We might be cousins. 

  • Drool 1

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.



×
×
  • Create New...