DerekJ

I was under the impression that "car" was  more formal than "parce que" and used mainly in written french. I'm not sure that "car" would be used very much in spoken french. I also understand that you can't start a sentence with "car". Now this is dangerous coming from me with my limited knowledge so treat it with some scepticism.[8-)]

We are coming over for another house hunting trip in early March. We debated whether to bother given the slide of the pound but having tracked a couple of houses we might be interested in we've seen a reduction of the sticker price by around 15% already and our view is that if we do find anything we want to buy  it's unlikely we'd offer the asking price. This might backfire of course but if we don't buy, we don't buy... they'll always be other houses.

If you have access to BBC2 you may be interested to watch the new series of the wonderful world of Albert Kahn. This starts at 7:00 on Monday evening. You may have already seen the previous series (which has just finished) that which covered the Great War and had some terrific images.

My two penneth for what it's worth..... I wouldn't bother using the in-camera B&W setting unless you do want to (or don't have access to) image editing software. You'll always produce a better result that way. If you have access to image editing software you don't (ideally) want to just desaturate. Whilst this will give you a B&W image it won't be optimal. Which conversion method you use will depend on what software you have available to you. The additional benefit of shooting in colour and converting afterwards is that you retain the option to have a colour version. Christine, I see you have put the link to Bob Johnson's excellent Earthbound Light site... I sort of "know" Bob through participation in the equally excellent (for Nikon users) Nikonians site. I personally tend to use a B&W conversion method know as the Gorman/Holbert Conversion method which works with photoshop CS2 and also I would think CS3. I have this recorded as a Photoshop Action and I can send this to anyone interested. Here's an example below. [img]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e170/DerekJordan/ID9_7_8.jpg?t=1202500052[/img]

What's the archbishop of Canterbury got to do with anything... a total irrelevance as are all religous leaders.

Clair.  Yes, as you probably guessed, I use gmail (new accounts are now under the googlemail banner though I believe... same thing though).  I have my system configured so I can access through Outlook Express or directly through my web browser into my gmail account. So for normal home use I continue to access through Outlook Express and when I'm away from home via my web browser. btw, if you read the links that you and I put on this thread you will see reference to " You can get a Google Mail account if you are invited by someone who already has one." I've got loads of spare invites I'd be happy to pass on if wanted.

A nice easy way around  is to use googlemail which allows you access to your email through your web browser. Very easy to use from any machine, anywhere.

The imperfect is the      was/were ..... ing tense. So, I was = j'étais

[quote user="Clair"] Post icon will add an icon to your post title. To add an icon to your text, click on the arrow at the right of Insert Smiley, on the toolbar just above the text box. Choose your smiley from the description and it will appear in the text. [/quote] Thanks Clair. That's the danger of being familiar with the way it happens with one set of BB software and presuming it's the same on everywhere else.  Thanks for sorting me out.[:)][:D][B]

[quote user="ErnieY"]In that right click menu did you see Back ? Try it, much quicker than going up to the back arrow in the toolbar [;-)] [/quote] Now this has been a productive day.  No, I hadn't spotted that... that will be very useful as well.... good one Ernie.[B] Now one further question, why can't I add smilies to my posts?  I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.11 I click on the relevant "Post Icon" smile but nothing gets posted! [:@] Except by doing what I just did above and copying from the "Properties Alternate Text" Thanks again Ernie.

[quote user="ErnieY"]Try right click / open in new window [;-)][/quote]   Thanks Ernie. I never knew that. it's just that most of the sites I visit open in a new window/tab automatically... but thanks again, I've learnt something new.

[quote user="Cathy"]Presumably the message take home from Oradour is not in the detail of the buildings but the symbolism of the village?   [/quote] I would have thought that very true. If you go to somewhere like Dachau you will find that many of the building no longer exist (just the foundations) but the sense of desolation and pain is still all consuming.

I'd like to see any clickable links in the postings opening in a new window. I've had a look at my setting and can't see anything that I can do to make that happen but perhaps I've missed something.

I came across this  which seems to indicate that it might form part of a clause suspensive. I'm glad you raised this as one of the house we plan to go inspect in March has around 3 hectares.

Another quick test is to do the following... In your mail reader (and I'm using Outlook Express as an example) go to the top toolbar and select  EDIT and then SELECT ALL. You will usually find you can now see lots of gooblygook text that has been typed in the same colour as the background to make it invisible. Typically white text on a white background.

[quote user="londoneye"]Exactly - and he is not a he !!   Could you not pick up the girlie terminology??? [/quote] Actually, no!  But my apologies to you londoneye for getting it wrong.

[quote user="dwmcn"]Asterix is a Frenxch comic book character.[/quote] You're right of course.... I've been reading too much French

[quote user="powerdesal"]Transformers transform ac not dc. [/quote] That's what he is trying to do isn't it?  Take a mains (ac) voltage and convert/step down to 12v dc.

Just wrap the url with [*img]the web address[/img] but remove the asterix. [img]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c106/rbibo227/oldies-1.jpg[/img]

est-ce que is pronounced like esker. Is that what you heard?

[quote user="ErnieY"][quote user="bodie"]Of course i wont be able to buy a house unless i can provide the notaire with evidence of either E121 or private medical insurance  ( or so i understand) and so back to the drawing board[/quote] Are Notaires actually asking for this now. Where is your source I wonder ?   [/quote] So how would this effect me as a potential second home purchaser with no intent of taking out French residency and planning to be in France less than  6 months/year?  My plan has been to cover health requirements via EHIC and normal holiday insurance cover. Am I missing something?

Katie.  I'm still hoping I can fix the "live there" (at least part time) this year.  As to my accent, my wife who speaks reasonable french tries to (subtlely) correct my prononciation. I'm at the stage where I can probably express quite a bit of what I want to say, and read and comprehend a lot of written material (with dashes off to the dictionary) but I'm still really struggling to understand spoken french. I have my car radio permanently tuned to France Inter (LW 162). Sometimes I can understand a reasonable amount but if it's a studio discussion with several excited speakers then after the first sentence I'm lost.

[quote user="Just Katie"]As said, with Michel Thomas, I think you need something to plug the gaps.  I have found the Hugo Method excellent for this.  There is a beginners, intermediate and advanced packs with book and cds.  I think they are about £25 per pack and, it goes right into the fundamentals.[/quote] Katie. I agree. I started off using the Hugo in 3 months followed by Hugo Advanced. I made some progress but still struggled in some areas. Then I got the Michel Thomas courses I posted about previously and that has helped tremendously. Now I find myself going back to the Hugo material for more in depth written explanations whilst still replaying the MT CDs. The combo of MT and Hugo seems pretty good.

I've been using the Michel Thomas courses. I started with the 8 CD Foundation course, then went on to the Advanced course and then the Language Builder. I've really enjoyed using all of these and I seem to be making decent progress. To get the flavour of how he teaches it's worth going onto his site and getting the free download of the first of the Foundation class CDs. It is a different approach to anything I've previously heard. However, I also have the MT vocabulary course. I'm very disappointed with this. It isn't Michel Thomas who is teaching it and the method used is not the same. The approach used seems very patronising and certainly gets me annoyed very quickly. If you go on to the forum section of the MT site you will find that this seems to be the general view of the Vocabulary course.

Is it the case that the Notaire will search these types of things out if specifically requested t by you, the buyer, but if you don't specifically ask then it's hit and miss. If that is the case then it becomes a problem knowing what you do need to ask... typically, you don't know to ask what you don't know, if that makes sense!