# New grammaire française forum



## mkellogg

I'm very pleased to announce that we now have a new French grammar forum.  

The French moderator team has been working hard to set up this forum, as you can see with 1400 grammar threads moved from the French-English forum (now called FR-EN vocabulary).

Last week somebody asked if there was a black hole that was gobbling up many French-English threads.  I think this was it. 

Congratulations!


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## The Scrivener

mkellogg said:


> I'm very pleased to announce that we now have a new French grammar forum.
> 
> The French moderator team has been working hard to set up this forum, as you can see with 1400 grammar threads moved from the French-English forum (now called FR-EN vocabulary).
> 
> Last week somebody asked if there was a black hole that was gobbling up many French-English threads. I think this was it.
> 
> Congratulations!


 
That's great news! Thank you - I'm sure it will be extremely useful.


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## DearPrudence

mkellogg said:


> Last week somebody asked if there was a black hole that was gobbling up many French-English threads.  I think this was it.


Yeah, & always the same poor victim ... who must now feel much better  (the poor forer@ began to be paranoid. No, no 5th dimension here, just the shadow French-grammar forum )
*Long live the French grammar forum*, which now counts 6 viewers I'm happy to say 
Good job  & good luck to the mods


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## Outsider

Mes félicitations. 

However, perhaps the name of the forum should be changed. As it is now, it can give the impression that it's also about English grammar...


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## DearPrudence

He he, because it's both  (I think, as the "EN" in the titles indicates)
Hopefully we little French people can ask questions about English grammar even if we're not good enough to ask on the English only forum


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## ILT

Congratulations French team! I'm sure having separate forums for vocabulary and grammar will make things flow in a more organized way while helping foreros with their questions.

And yes, we have English Only and French Only forums, but if you are not confident enough to ask in one of them, you may use French/English Grammar to ask about grammar in English or in French, with the possibility of asking and receiving replies in any of the authorized languages. Just the same way we do in Spanish/English


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## jann

> However, perhaps the name of the forum should be changed. As it is now, it can give the impression that it's also about English grammar...


The French-English grammar forum IS about BOTH French AND English Grammar.  

Most specifically, it's about confusions that come up when French-speakers learn English, and when English-speakers learn French.  It's a place to post questions of Fr<->En translation that are difficult for grammatical reasons.  And it's a place where grammar discussions about these two languages can be conducted in French, in English, or in any mix of the two languages.

Of course, if you have a question about English grammar, and you want all the answers to your question to be in English, then you should post in English Only.  And if you don't understand French, but you do understand Spanish, then you could always post your question in Grammar/Gramática, etc. In short, there is some redundancy in our forums, and there are several places that you could possibly post questions about English grammar... including the new French-English Grammar forum. 

I hope that makes sense! 

Jann
French-English moderator


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## Outsider

Very well, but in that case perhaps the Grammar forum in the Spanish-English section should also be renamed Spanish-English Grammar, for consistency. Just a suggestion.


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## Lello4ever

Just a question, couldn't you avoid all that text under the titles? They make the forum longer unnecessarily...You could write only a couple of lines. I mean
"Questions about French or English verb tenses, conjugation, agreement, prepositions, articles, pronouns, etc. Discussion is in both French and English." 
could be said simply
"Verb tenses, conjugation, agreement, prepositions, articles, pronouns, etc"
that "french and english" is useless since it's obvious from the forum itself.


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## KaRiNe_Fr

Ok, that explains some « disappearances » this month. 
May it help foreros to ask and answer questions.


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## geve

Great! Let's see how things go on this forum. Thanks to the team for all the work on this project!

A few questions to be sure I do things right:

Does the Fr-En dictionary link to threads that are in the grammar part?
Should all grammar questions in French be posted in this forum now, or can the Français seulement forum still be used for it too?
Should we use the report-a-post feature when we feel that a thread in Grammar should rather be in Vocabulary, and vice versa? (as a matter of fact I just spotted one such thread!)
I hope you will be forbearing if we have trouble finding our way around at first.


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## TrentinaNE

Lello4ever said:


> Just a question, couldn't you avoid all that text under the titles? They make the forum longer unnecessarily.


Ciao, lello.  Are you referring to the text that appears on the main index page?  I think that in order for the text to show up atop the individual forum page (which the mods of that forum deem necessary) it has to be on the main forum page as well.  However, if you don't visit those forums, you can suppress the detailed titles on the main index page by clicking on the circle with the little arrows at the end of the blue bar for, e.g., French, Spanish-English, etc.  

Elisabetta


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## DearPrudence

Actually it's the first thing I've noticed before even seeing the new forum while answering a question. I thought: "Hey, what's wrong??!! While is the title so *** long?!!" But I suppose we'll have to get used to it, won't we?
ps: maybe it's the title of this thread that is wrong


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## Vanda

Uauuuuu!!!!! So it means I can make question like that: How do you translate "comment-allez vous" in this new forum?! And also, does that mean I can make questions in português no fórum de gramática? Oba, gostei muito!

Jokes aside, have a nice time 'playing" with grammar FR mods! And what a gain to FR learners!


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## jester.

_ Félicitations et bonne chance. 
_​


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## Crescent

Yay! I was so happy when I woke up this morning, with a French grammar question already ready in my mind (and I had slept on it ) and saw that we have a new ''nest'' to put it in!! 

!!!!Vive Le Nouvel Forum!!!!


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## Punky Zoé

Well, in spite of the amount of work needed to such a change and the time spent by the all the mods, both the builders of the new forums and the keepers of the old French-English forum, I am ... really puzzled  .

I won't say, right now, if it's great or it's lousy, it would be too early and absurd, considering the consequence of that event.

  I’ve already a practical question in addition to the ones geve asked before :

   I think, and apparently, I’m not the single one who do, that the display need to be fitted to the screen size in order to display more useful information rather than wordings or descriptions (everywhere : Forum Index, New Posts - two extra lines needed for each post only to put the forum name …)

  But the remaining and most important question : “is that new feature useful, helpful for learners (all of us) ?”

  Sorry for not being enthusiastic, let us see.  

Punky Zoé  

  P.S. the black hole is still a black hole.  (at least concerning some Charlie's thread)


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## DearPrudence

PZ, how dare you?!!  
I've just noticed that's what a bit annoying is that when you're on a forum, you have to click twice to pass to the other forum. Maybe there could be a shortcut from the French voc forum to the grammar forum & vice versa.
But I guess we'll have to get used to it as well & not worry too much about the grammar forum   (9 viewings at the moment!! )
As you say, let's see ...


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## OlivierG

Hello! 

We, too, are very confident that splitting the old French-English forum will enable the members to receive better assistance on grammar issues.

The titles and comments of the Vocabulary and Grammar forums are worded this way on purpose, until more members are used to this reorganisation.
Descriptive titles and comments will help them to understand precisely the sort of discussion each forum is about.

Once we consider that enough regular members have assimilated the concept, we will probably modify these titles and descriptions, hopefully sooner than we think.

Thank you very much to all of you for your warm welcome and support!

Olivier


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## KaRiNe_Fr

Hello again! 

I know I'm often grumpy or even a pain (!) in the C&S , but I must say this change doesn't go on the right direction to my point of view...
It goes on the direction of learners who always want to split things, grammar in one hand and vocabulary on the other hand... It was the way languages were taught in the XIX century. But it's not the way we teach a language as a whole nowadays. You can't really separate those two matters since a vocabulary question often leads to a grammar one, the change of a word often implies a change into the sentence structure...

Let me take an example to illustrate my words.
What does mean "to expect" ? *Expecter? No. « s'attendre à ». How do you use this verb into a sentence? *s'attendre à quelqu'un ? No. s'attendre à quelque chose ? s'attendre à quelque chose, yes, but s'attendre A CE QUE quelqu'un fasse quelque chose. Subjonctive! Why? Grammar? Vocabulary?

As one of my beloved relatives (a teacher of French for foreigners) says: « la langue n'est pas un saucisson ! » 

P.S.: see some threads into the vocab forum, for instance here and there.


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## geve

I concur that this new organization looks a bit puzzling at first... which is why I asked questions above (I read the stickies and am still not sure). This is no small change and we need all the information we can get to do things right!


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## jann

DearPrudence said:
			
		

> I've just noticed that's what a bit annoying is that when you're on a forum, you have to click twice to pass to the other forum. Maybe there could be a shortcut from the French voc forum to the grammar forum & vice versa.


This one, at least, we already have covered!   Scroll down to the very bottom of any forum page and there is a "Forum Jump."  In the list, select the forum you wish to visit.  One click.


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## geve

geve said:


> Does the Fr-En dictionary link to threads that are in the grammar part? I am asking this because in case I have a question that borders on Vocabulary and Grammar (for example the verb "expect"), and if a dictionary search doesn't link to any relevant thread, I would like to know if a complementary search in the Grammar forum could give additional results
> Should all grammar questions in French be posted in this forum now, or can the Français seulement forum still be used for it too? I guess that since you said we can post questions about English grammar in EO, the reverse is also true for French only... but a confirmation wouldn't hurt.
> Should we use the report-a-post feature when we feel that a thread in Grammar should rather be in Vocabulary, and vice versa? (as a matter of fact I just spotted one such thread!) I do use the report-a-post for threads that are in the wrong forum because they are in the wrong language. It seems to me that a thread inadvertently located in French Grammar when it should be in French Vocabulary is a less "urgent" matter, but it really is your choice on this one: would you like to be warned about it, or do you not care?


Bump... I've clarified my questions in case they were not clear.


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## jann

Hello Geve,

To reply to your questions:
 Yes, the thread list returned with the dictionary results includes both Grammar and Vocabulary threads. If you had an impression to the contrary, perhaps that was because the dictionary server was not auto-updating properly, so a number of new threads (Vocab and Grammar alike) were missing from the dictionary list. Mike has fixed the problem.  Now that the dictionary thread results are current, you will often be able to distinguish which forum a given thread is in simply by looking at the title: many (but not all) of the Grammar thread titles begin with FR: or EN:, and those that do not are often unmistakably grammatical (e.g., _vouloir que + subjonctif_).
 You should only post a French grammar question in the new French-English grammar forum if you are willing to read responses written in English. Many French language students who do not speak English will prefer to continue posting their grammar questions in Français Seulement. I confirm, this is perfectly acceptable.
 Regarding the red triangle, let me refer you to our announcement:



> *Please help us.*​In these first few weeks, we will continue to move the remaining recent threads, as well as select older threads. Please help us! If you see a *newly active *thread in French-English Vocabulary that you think was posted in the wrong forum, click the red triangle in the upper right corner of the post to remind us to move it! If you see an *old* thread that contains a *particularly useful* explanation of a grammar topic, please click the red triangle to let us know! It is possible that we missed a few threads in our selection so far, so if you see one that you think we forgot to move, please click the red triangle to point it out to us! We promise to examine all of these threads and address them as we see fit, but we will not be able to respond to your suggestions individually.​


I hope that clarifies things!


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## Nil-the-Frogg

I tend to agree with KaRiNe_Fr's position. I have another (very selfish) problem with the new organization. Simply put: my connection is often so bad that even roaming a single forum is a real pain. Now, I will have to monitor two of them! 

Still, I wait to see how it fares before judging. Let's hope it will work as intended.


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## englishman

KaRiNe_Fr said:


> Hello again!
> 
> I know I'm often grumpy or even a pain (!) in the C&S , but I must say this change doesn't go on the right direction to my point of view...
> It goes on the direction of learners who always want to split things, grammar in one hand and vocabulary on the other hand... It was the way languages were taught in the XIX century. But it's not the way we teach a language as a whole nowadays. You can't really separate those two matters since a vocabulary question often leads to a grammar one, the change of a word often implies a change into the sentence structure...



This is indeed true. What happens if a thread that started out looking like a simple question of vocab. ends up discussing grammar ? 

I assume that there's not a new rule that prevents any discussion of grammar in the vocab. forum ? 

But if not, what is the point of splitting the fora, since the vocab. forum may still end up full of threads discussing grammar.


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## geve

englishman said:


> ...what is the point of splitting the fora...


To regulate traffic maybe?


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## englishman

geve said:


> To regulate traffic maybe?



How does it do that ?


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