Pads Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 When you are met at the desk in a resurant the serveuse says... Bonjour Messieurs- dames . I notice this is plural even through there is only one man and woman . Why is this ?Also:J'ai réservée une table pour deux personnes, par téléphone , ce matinDo I put the extra e on the end of réservée because Im a woman or because table is fem ? Many thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clair Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Although it would be more correct to greet the woman before the man, Messieurs-dames has been used as a form of greeting for decades.It is used when one or several mixed couples are being greeted together, as a shortened version messieurs-mesdames.J'ai réservé une table...No extra e necessary at the end of réservé in this instance, as you are using the auxiliary verbe avoir.You do need one if you were to say "Une table est réservée", as the sentence used the auxiliary verb être.http://www.synapse-fr.com/manuels/ACCO_PP_1.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pads Posted June 15, 2008 Author Share Posted June 15, 2008 Many thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert the InfoGipsy Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 [quote user="Pads"] When you are met at the desk in a resurant the serveuse says... Bonjour Messieurs- dames . I notice this is plural even through there is only one man and woman . Why is this ?Also:J'ai réservée une table pour deux personnes, par téléphone , ce matinDo I put the extra e on the end of réservée because Im a woman or because table is fem ? Many thanks [/quote]PadsI'd have to listen quite carefully to be sure if she says Messieurs on Monsieur. In a lot of cases it comes over to me as "m'sieur" and the final "s" would be silent anyway.For the "J'ai réservée ..." question I can't see a need for the unaccented "e" at the end. This is because (a) "Je" is the subject, and you don't agree a verb with its subject (reflexive & passive verbs being special cases).(b) You only agree a verb with its object ("table" in this case) if it precedes the verb. This would normally only happen with pronouns ("Je l'ai reservée.")Anyway, as you are saying it the final "e" is also silent, so it's only a problem if you're writing a homework answer, and I'm sure you wouldn't ask us for help with your homework. [Www]Edit -- Thought I'd got in first but Clair wins again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pads Posted June 15, 2008 Author Share Posted June 15, 2008 Thanks Albert ..... sorry to take so long to answer but I was doing my home work [;-)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frenchie Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 _ Bonsoir messieurs dames. - Bonsoir, nous avons réservé au nom de ...... ( Smith let's say)_ Bien, veuillez me suivre. [:D] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jill<br><br>Jill (99) Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 Do you get those accents because you are using a French computer? I know I can do something (I forget what) plus 130 and various other things on my desktop to get accents but can't find a way to do it on the laptop. Anyone know? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frenchie Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 Yes, that is because I'm using a French computer.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catalpa Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 This piece of freeware is very useful and easy to use:http://www.avisoft.co.uk/FrenchChars/TypeFrenchCharacters.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert the InfoGipsy Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 And if you're using a Windows machine é is dead easy because you just type <Alt Gr> (to the right of the space bar) and e.In theory you can use the numeric keypad method on a laptop because they usually have a way of switching part of the main keyboard into number mode. Look at your J, K & L keys and you may find extra symbols on them; my J has <END> and <1>, for example. n my laptop you switch to keypad mode by pressing <Fn> & F11. It's a bit cumbersome but it means you can do it even on machines without extra character map programs. Speaking of character mapping you could always use the Windows Character Map applet. On my Vista machine it lives at Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map. Apart from accented letters you can also get things like the Yen symbol ( ¥ ), "care of" ( ℅ ) and sundry fractions (⅓, ⅔, ⅛, ⅜, ⅝, ⅞ ), let alone Greek, Cyrillic and other alphabets. It also tells you the keypad code for each character. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
allanb Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 A fairly cheap and very easy solution is to buy a Spanish keyboard. QWERTY alphabet, but with all the accents. I've used one for a long time and I think the only thing that's missing compared with a UK keyboard is the '£' sign - but there's a way of producing that, as you can see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 [quote user="Albert the InfoGipsy"]Speaking of character mapping you could always use the Windows Character Map applet. On my Vista machine it lives at Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Character Map. Apart from accented letters you can also get things like the Yen symbol ( ¥ ), "care of" ( ℅ ) and sundry fractions (⅓, ⅔, ⅛, ⅜, ⅝, ⅞ ), let alone Greek, Cyrillic and other alphabets. It also tells you the keypad code for each character. [/quote]Keeping this thread totally off topic, I've been looking for symbols for email, fixed telephone and mobile phone for a new letter head and followed the above hoping to find them in the Character Map but all to no avail. Any suggestions where I might find them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clair Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 They should live in Wingdings in the character map as described by Albert above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjamin Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 So that's what Wingdings are. [:D]Thank you kind lady, many happy hours will now be spent trawling through those. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert the InfoGipsy Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 You could look around some other fonts, which sometimes have interesting bits & bobs. Unfortunately I can't make them display here.Try Webdings and OldDreadfulNo7 BT for some oddities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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