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The transcript

Here is my transcript. First, the video it’s associated to, an interview of Hugh Laurie by Charles Ferguson.

Okay, so the exercise was supposed to be about 30 seconds to 1 minute, but there were moments when there was only music, so the part I transcripted was from the start to 2:00 into the video. Some wors are between parenthesis, because Hugh Laurie, when playing Dr.House, eats his words, speaks fast, and is hence difficult to understand

Here it is (below :)

Continue reading ‘The transcript’

Recording : an introduction

Here’s my one-minute audio file, sorry about the quality but I only have a crappy Bluetooth microphone, and my motherboard generates much electronic noise, which I attempted to filter, but it didn’t go that well.
It’s about the SoundForge software, by Sony.

Listen to the recording

The 35 phrases

Well, I’ve nothing special to say about them, so let’s just put them here, will we ? I found them reading various sites on the Internet, like the (in)famous BOFH (Bastard Operator From Hell) and many others funny, tech-related and other stuff.

  • To end up (doing something) : finir par (faire quelque chose)<
  • A touch of … : un rien de …
  • There’s blood in the water : il y’a quelque chose qui ne va pas
  • In one’s mind eye : (dans la vue de l’esprit) à travers les souvenirs / l’imagination
  • What if / What about if … : et si …
  • To snap : s’énerver (péter un plomb) | lancer une répartie rapide/agaçée
  • How do you come to… : comment se fait il que vous… ?
  • Little did we know (how/what/etc.) : On était en dessous de la réalité au sujet de… / Oh comme on ne savait pas à quel point….
  • In the early (1990s , 2000s, etc) : Au début des années (90,2000…)
  • In-house : « maison » (se référant souvent à l’intérieur d’une entreprise, ex. an in-house piece of software, un logiciel fait maison)
  • To give someone a heads-up : Prévenir/informer quelqu’un (au sujet d’un évenement futur)
  • To sparkle an investigation : déclencher une enquête
  • In layman’s terms : dans le langage courant (basique) à opposer au jargon
  • Brand new : tout neuf
  • The crux of the matter : le centre, l’épine du problème
  • Better safe than sorry : « mieux vaute prevenir que guérir” (traduction non littérale)
  • In the wild : dans la nature /en liberté
  • <To file in for bankruptancy : faire banqueroute / mettre la clé sous la porte (entreprise)
  • Getting a pink slip = getting fired : etre renvoyé
  • <To turn someone in (to the police) : dénoncer quelqu’un
  • To outsource (something) to (somewhere) : délocaliser (quelquechose)(quelquepart)
  • To bear a resemblance to :ressembler à, arborer une similitude à
  • Here is …. : Voici ….
  • To do/make impressions of someone/some people : faire des imitations de personnages
  • Try and do something +- = try to do something : tenter de faire qqch
  • To sound like … : avoir l’air de …
  • To entice someone into doing something : leurrer, amener quelqu’un à faire qqch
  • At any rate : (+-) de toute manière, quoi qu’il en soit
  • To overcome (one’s / something’s) downsides : surmonter les inconvenient de qqn/qqch
  • Conspicuous : strange(suspicious) : bizarre, curieux
  • No matter what… : peu importe ce que
  • Built-in : intégré
  • To be nagged about something : etre harcelé/constamment rappelé à l’ordre a propos de qqch (repetition constante) ex. About wearing a coat when it rains, as childs.
  • The sure-fire way to (do something) : La methode la plus sure (qui “tire”/march a tt les coups) de faire qqch
  • To wreak havoc : semer le chaos

Assignment 6 : A paragraph to pronounce

Hmm… Let’s search for something funny… It wouldn’t be fun having to reading a boring text, especially if I’ve go to repeat myself because I pronounce it badly…

[ten minutes later] Oh screw it ! I can’t seem to find any funny text today on the Internet, let’s find something neutral, on cats for instance, because I like ‘em.

The tiger (Panthera tigris) is a mammal of the Felidae family, the largest of four “big cats” in the Panthera genus. Native to much of eastern and southern Asia, the tiger is an apex predatorobligate carnivore. Reaching up to 4 metres (13 feet) in total length and weighing up to 300 kilograms (660 pounds), tigers are comparable in size to the biggest extinct felids. Aside from their great bulk and power, their most recognizable feature is the pattern of dark vertical stripes that overlays near-white to reddish-orange fur, with lighter underparts.

(from this wikipedia article)

Assignment 5 - comment on blogs

Assignment 4 : The rotating five

The rotating five…

What the hell is that ? It makes me think of a “five” plate put onto a motor spinner, and the motor starts, the “five” plate starts to rotate faster and faster, becomes a full circle when the speed gets critical and finally end up breaking the screws or whatever attaches it to the motor and goes up in the air swirling like a boomerang, olny to fall back on my head with a big “ouch” (from me, not the plate !)

Oh, well, let’s get more serious, will we…

  • Pronunciation - I’d like to become more fluent and pronounce things the right way.
  • Oral comprehension - Often films and series are very clear and understandable, but sometimes people with heavy accents can’t be made sense of (at least by me) when they talk super-duper-fast. So I may have to work on that, too.
  • Vocabulary - I don’t know if mine’s good or poor, but it’s always nice to learn new words, expressions, phrases… especially everyday phrases one will be able to use when he/she goes to english-speaking countries
  • Colloquial english - is that even the correct word ? I mean, english that’s precisely NOT used everyday, but can be found in books, articles, whatever. The goal is still to enlarge/broaden my english culture.
  • Humor / culture - I have that feeling that humor’s very important as it depicts different ways of thinking. I know for sure French and British, for instance, don’t share much of the same humor. It doesn’t prevent me from getting good laughs from Monthy Pyhtons’ movies, but hell, I want to know more.

Assignment 3 - Start a Blog

Done at last ;)

Assignment 2 : Collect material

Oh, how a long post it will be…

Brave soul, if you don’t feel like reading such a long and media-rich post, I suggest you pass your way and head for greener pastures…

Okay, still here ? Let’s start then…

Continue reading ‘Assignment 2 : Collect material’

Assignment 1 : Self-introduction

Well…

THis was the first assignment we were given during the semester, however I still, to this day, don’t have the audio file that was recorded during class. :(

Anyway, when I get it, I’ll post it here.