So, I decided I sould revive my m4d french sk1llz. I've (lightly) studied French in school for approximately 7 years, but - unfortunately - I didn't put that knowledge to good use. The result is that I can now read and understand French if it's not heavy on the vocabulary, but I'm totally unable to write or compose anything in French. And of course, I can't decipher what native French speakers babble at all. Talk about speaking at light speed.

I'm using this WikiBook as a starting refresher. I still haven't set up a schedule for myself, but I'm aiming at writing at least two French journal entries per month. And by French journal entry, I mean something like "Je suis Egyptien". Yeah, I'm taking it easy in the beginning.

And I'm not only writing French journal entries, but I've hunted for some technology oriented French forums and am going to lurk there for a while. My initial attempts at finding such websites were rather unsuccessful. However, once I found the correct keywords, I stumbled upon this. C'est tres formidable!

Unfortunately, not all is well. I'm currently facing 2 issues:

First, being armed with not-so-powerful dictionaries might prove to be troublesome. For example, I wanted to know what the French equivalent of "Fantastic" was, expecting it to be Fantastique (The English word sounds way too French that it must've been borrowed). The dictionary suggested "endiable".

Suspicious.

Consulting a printed French-Arabic dictionary I have, "endiable" is supposed to mean "Satanic", "Diabolic" or "Very fast" (Wha?). Consulting a high-school level French-French dictionary I have (the ultimate source!), it says "Tres rapide". [dead]

If any kind french readers can drop me a link to a good online French-French or French-English dictionary, I'd be very grateful. So grateful, in fact, that I'd dedicate my next French entry entirely to praising you. Think How Washu Is Better style, except in French. And a bit short. As in a couple of lines or something. C'est une offre que tu ne peux pas refuser! (OMG, did I get that right? It took me ages to remember verb pouvoir)

Second, the French keyboard layout is rather weird. At least it is on Ubuntu linux. The 'q' and 'a' are swapped, for some reason. Numbers are now entered via Shift+Key, whereas Key inserts a character or symbol. Is this the way you guys do things normally, or am I missing something?

Anyway, issues aside, let me share with you the astounding knowledge I have gathered so far. Some essential C-related terminolgy:

& -> Esperluette. Frankly, this is way cooler than "ampersand"
* -> Asterisque. I cannot help but adore the cuteness of the way this is pronounced
\ -> Barre oblique inverse. Not cool
[ ] -> Crochets. Easy to remember. Similar to "Crotch", isn't it? Thankfully, it has different pronunciation
: -> Deux points.
; -> Point virgule.
, -> Virgule.
= -> egal. Umm..how do you write an uppercase 'e' with an accent? Is there even such a thing?
! -> Point d'exclamation.
> -> Superieur a.
< -> Inferieur a.
( ) -> Parentheses.
{ } -> Accolades.
% -> Pourcent. modulo?
# -> Diese. Je programme en C diese. Yay!
_ -> Soulignement.

That's it.

PS: What do you know, it looks like the French brain cells in me are waking up. I remembered a part of the following childish song:
Savez-vouz plantez les choux
a la mode a la mode
Savez-vous plantez les choux
a la mode de chez nous
[Don't remember the rest - but it had things to do with arms, elbows and feet I think. A search came up with it, though: here]

French word of the day
Pipi: Guess what this one means.
Example usage: J'ai envie de faire pipi.

Hint: Memorize the above statement, and you know you won't wet your pants if you ever get lost in France.

Exercise: Learn how to secure yourself against soiling your pants.

PS2: Just for Jack's sake. Du lait est superieur a du Cafe.