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Profile
I'm obsessed with high culture. I learned French through italki (and novels) because of my love for French cinema and philosophy. I still can't watch French films sans sous-titres but it's a work in progress. I love finding tutors who can talk about anything, or are at least interested in everything: art, cinema, politics, literature, wine, mixology, technology, science, philosophy, finance, even mathematics. I studied Philosophy and Classics at FSU and USF, dabbling in Ancient Greek (medium level) and Latin (low level). I picked up some conversational Spanish because I live in Florida. I now speak French. I'm a software engineer in the semiconductor industry for my dayjob.
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Lesson history
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Completed lessons00141
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Teacher reviews
Fadia
French
Sep 27, 2021
Ravie d'échanger avec toi Michael, merci pour la qualité des sujets abordés, pour ton partage et ta bonne humeur. Je te félicite également pour ta maîtrise du français ! à la prochaine,
alex.perr
French
Jul 20, 2020
Discussion passionnante en charmante compagnie ! Michael est une personne très cultivé et qui possède un excellent français !!!
Ghislain Hounwanou
French
Jul 11, 2020
j'ai beaucoup aimé ma conversation avec Michael. C'est une personne Sympathique!!
Zineb Cha
French
Mar 8, 2020
J'aime mes conversation avec Michael, c'est une personne très intelligente avec qui tu t'ennuieras jamais !!
Activities
  • Answered
    1. is a little awkward but not in anyway ungrammatical in the least. 2. is cheesy. It is a cliché pattern in English with ready made sentences like "With friends like these, who needs enemies?" 3. Perfect 4. Perfect To elucidate on what Zack has said: there is some controversy over whether "alright" is a word. One quibble is in the sentences "The answers were all right" and "The answers were alright." To many, the latter case would mean "The answers were okay" where the former would mean "The answers were all correct." But this is by no means actually formalized. It is similar to the meaning differences between "can not" and "cannot." If you want to read more about it see these links: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/all-right-or-alright-which-is-correct https://www.lexico.com/en/grammar/all-right-or-alright
    0 voted
    September 13, 2019
    0
  • Answered
    I would definitely expect to hear "The indigenous Brazilian Kayapo people" and "the indigenous American people" but I want to clarify a few things for your sake: 1.) in America we usually don't use the word "indigenous" to refer to our indigenous people (this is purely out of historical development) but how we refer to them is still somewhat controversial. I say Native American specifically because I think it is more accurate than American Indian. But there are plenty of Native Americans who do not like to be called Native American and prefer American Indian. I rarely hear someone refer to them as Indians without a modifier. And under no circumstance should you say "injun." That is offensive these days. For more information, see [this wikipedia][1] 2. Adjective order in English is not only complex, but almost impossible to memorize outright. First, it's not an absolutely known thing: there are varying lists. Second, it may sound slightly off to an English ear, but you will never ever ever be faulted for it. It is much more useful to work on your English in general and not try to hone in on adjective order. That said, if you're a masochist, [here you go][2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_name_controversy. [2]: https://english.stackexchange.com/a/56874
    0 voted
    September 13, 2019
    1
  • Answered
    You sound fantastic and I'm sure a lot of Americans would love your accent so don't worry about improving it further. It sounds almost like Continental Spanish (though I see in your profile you're Argentine), for which there is very little prejudice in the states (it's unfortunate that Central American and Mexican accents get some prejudice in the states, but at least you shouldn't have to worry about that). "There are very important points to take into account" we wouldn't quite say it like this. "There are some very important things you have to take into account" might be more apropos. "If you run away and later on the police finds out" isn't quite grammatically correct. It should be "and later on the police find out" without the s. This is a tricky thing with the third person singular in English and actually varies somewhat from region to region and so you might want to take this into account depending on who you want to sound like: > Aside from spelling and vocabulary, there are certain grammar differences between British and American English. For instance, in American English, collective nouns are considered singular (e.g. The band is playing). In contrast, collective nouns can be either singular or plural in British English, although the plural form is most often used (e.g. The band are playing). So I can say definitively that in AmEng we do not say "The police finds out" because police is a compound noun. I am unsure in British English how they would say it but I suspect they would say it like an American in this situation. A Brit can clarify this for you. You split "useful" into "use full" which sounds like a speech error. Could be because you're reading. "You keep thinking about that" we would say "You keep thinking about it" here. I'm nitpicking for the sake of your future improvement. You sound fully fluent. Keep up the good work!
    0 voted
    September 13, 2019
    0
  • Answered
    We would say "I get really sad for it" if we're talking about a person or animal. In other words, we sympathize with the person or animal. We would say "I get really sad about it" if we're talking about a situation that makes us sad. But also, we put sometimes at the end, like Rob did: "I get really sad for it sometimes." "I get really sad about it sometimes."
    0 voted
    September 13, 2019
    0
  • Posted
    Quand on utilise de + nom sans le ou la ? Je lis quelquefois phrases qui utilise de + un nom sans l'article et je ne comprends pas comment il est décidé. Comme cette : "J’espère qu’il y a quelque chose de bon à manger à midi, je meurs de faim" Et aussi cette : "bavarder de choses et d’autres" Il y a deux usages dans la première phrase, et deux dans la deuxième. Pourquoi ici et pas ailleurs ?
    September 4, 2019
    2
    0
  • Posted
    Comment traduiriez-vous cette phrase ? Je l'ai trouvé dans "Harry Potter Tome 2", et je le comprends, mais je ne sais pas le sens: "Je l'ai trouvé dans un des livres que m'a donnés Maman." Je traduirais: "I found it in one of the books that were given to me, Mom" mais les verbes ne me paraissent pas être comme ça. Je crois qu'il n'y a pas un sujet à "m'a donné" et ce me semble étrange. Ce ne me semble pas comme une construction passive. Est-ce que je suis fou ? Je ne vois pas l'imparfait d'être ici. OOoooh, peut-être je le vois maintenant. Est-ce que le sujet est "maman" ?
    August 28, 2019
    8
    1
  • Posted
    La différence entre pour et à avant un verbe "Trop consterné pour parler..." "Trop consterné à parler..." Est-ce que la première phrase est correcte et la dernière pas? Si non, est-ce qu'il y a un différence dans la contexte ? Je comprends bien que la différence entre les deux en général est "in order to" pour la première et "to" pour la deuxième, mais en ce cas-ci je ne sais pas s'il y a une différence.
    August 26, 2019
    6
    0
  • Answered
    "Roads? We're we're going, we don't need roads." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3AfIvJBcGo
    0 voted
    August 17, 2019
    0
  • Answered
    There are three uses of "How" in the way you're thinking: 1.) "How" + adjective (question of intensity) 2.) "How much" + uncountable noun (question of quantity) 3.) "How many" + countable noun (question of number) They work differently.
    0 voted
    August 16, 2019
    1
  • Commented
    This is reminding me of something I'm experiencing as I learn French. I've studied the present, imperfect, passé composé, and the simple past. With just those, I can puzzle out the combinations of imperfect + past participle, simple past + past participle, etc. But this is thanks to the similarity to English. It makes me wonder, how much more difficult this would be for someone who speaks a language entirely foreign to English, French, etc., for whom auxiliary verbs are not as common. Ancient Greek uses distinct conjugations for every combination, from voice (active, middle, passive), to aspect (habitual, simple, completed), to mood (indicative, subjunctive, optative). If I were an Ancient Greek speaker, French would be a nightmare!
    0 voted
    August 15, 2019
    0