#french

Huge Beluga Whale Stranded In French River Rescued: Report
After nearly six hours of work, the 800-kilogram (1,800 pounds) cetacean was lifted from the river by a net and crane at around 4:00 am (0200 GMT).
WorldAgence France-PresseUpdated: August 10, 2022 8:48 am IST
Huge Beluga Whale Stranded In French River Rescued: Report
The whale placed on a barge under the immediate care of a dozen veterinarians.

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Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne: The beluga whale stranded in the river Seine in northern France was removed from the water early Wednesday in the first stage of an ambitious rescue operation, an AFP journalist said.
After nearly six hours of work, the 800-kilogram (1,800-pound) cetacean was lifted from the river by a net and crane at around 4:00 am (0200 GMT) and placed on a barge under the immediate care of a dozen veterinarians.
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The beluga, a protected species usually found in cold Arctic waters, will next be placed in a refrigerated truck and transported to the coast, Isabelle Dorliat-Pouzet, secretary general of the Eure prefecture, said ahead of the rescue operation.

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The four-metre (13-foot) whale was spotted more than a week ago heading towards Paris and was stranded some 130 kilometres (80 miles) inland from the Channel at Saint-Pierre-La-Garenne in Normandy.

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Since Friday, the animal's movement inland has been blocked by a lock at Saint-Pierre-La-Garenne, 70 kilometres northwest of Paris, and its health had deteriorated after it refused to eat.

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But its condition was "satisfactory", Isabelle Brasseur of the Marineland sea animal park in southern France, Europe's biggest, told AFP earlier on Tuesday.

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A seawater basin at a lock in the Channel port of Ouistreham has been readied for the animal, which will spend three days there under observation in preparation for its release.

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The "exceptional" operation to return it to the sea is not without risk for the whale, which is already weakened and stressed, said Brasseur, part of a Marineland team sent to assist with the rescue, alongside the NGO Sea Shepherd France.
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"It could be that he dies now, during the handling, during the journey or at point B," in Ouistreham, she said.

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The 24 divers involved in the operation and the rescuers handling the ropes had to try several times between 10:00 pm and 4:00 am to lure the animal into the nets to be lifted out of the water.

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Thank you so much for posting this! I visited India a few years ago and I got a cold while I was there and some awesome and sweet little old Gujarati ladies found out I was sick and fed this stuff to me. They tried to tell me the recipe at the time, but I couldn't remember it later and didn't know what it was called to look it up again!
Meatball sandwich. I'm not very good at cooking and I don't eat very many different things. I mix 97% lean ground beef with bread crumbs, cook those on medium heat. Add prego meat sauce, cook on high for 5-10 mins, put 2 slices of provolone cheese on a french roll, add meatballs and bake on broil until cheese melts. It's quick, easy, and taste delicious
Enchiladas. I make spicy red sauce, then put that in the fridge. When hungry I heat up three corn tortillas, put in mozzarella and any veggies or leftover meat, roll them, put sauce on them, then microwave for two minutes.
Tourtière. It's a québécois meat pie. I use a lard crust (recipe from the Tenderflake package), ground pork, mashed potato, and spices. Do the google, most of the recipes are pretty good. There are regional variations that don't use ground pork, but I prefer it.
My favorite dish to cook is Bolognese. My favorite recipe here . I just love taking my time in the kitchen sometimes and this is a great recipe to spend an afternoon on. In the past I've used different meat blends (can't always find ground veal, I've used just beef/pork, beef/turkey, I've even made a version with only minced chicken) and typically use bacon in place of pancetta. I've had it with a lot of different pastas, but my favorite so far has been shells (like velveeta mac). Although it's one of those really traditional Italian pasta sauces, I've put a handful of spins on it and it comes out great every time.
I kind of just wing it when it comes to food measurements and it always turns out fine for me somehow. The lasagna is basically layers of the noodle, spicy tomato pesto sauce, bell peppers, mushrooms, chicken, spicy italian sausage, a ricotta/mascarpone/parmesan cheese mix and then topped with a mozz/parm/asiago cheese mix, parsley and chili pepper flakes. Woo boy.

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Postmodernism: Understanding the Roots of Wokeness - By Adam Vicari

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You may have noticed that, especially in the last few years, western civilization, and American society generally, seems to have plunged into an abyss of insanity, depravity, and general confusion. With the introduction to concepts like “Critical Race Theory” or “Gender Theory” to the national discourse, and with words being created seemingly out of thin air, like “heteronormative,” “pan-sexual,” “non-binary,” and the prefix, ”cis-,” society has been pushed closer and closer to the edge of national disunity and societal insanity.

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The fact that men and women are now being referred to not as “male” or “female,” but “cis-male” and “cis-female” by not only professional idiots who happen to be gender studies majors or bitter middle-aged lesbian feminist college professors, but by major corporations who make the sodas you drink at barbecues or who manufactured the car you drive or even by a legendary company beloved by children for decades that was, until recently, an institution in and of itself, is an indication of just how far our society has fallen. And, indeed, “Doctor” Jill Biden’s latest speech at the “Latinx Incluxion” luncheon, in which she made a gaffe that would cause any average peon to be completely demolished and ostracized, blackballed, and character assassinated by American Pravda (CNN, MSNBC), is just the latest example of America’s collective mental breakdown.

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While all this woke nonsense and linguistic gibberish may make it sound like the people uttering these ridiculous words had a stroke, rest assured, these words are being used not by accident, or not just to be sensitive to the “feelings” of others, but to, quite literally, erase reality itself. This absurd babel did not just spontaneously emerge within the last few years, but is deeply rooted in an academic theory that has been applied to multiple disciplines since at least the 1960s, known as “postmodernism.”

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In essence, the theory of postmodernism literally rejects the ideas of objective reality and truth itself. Postmodernism was born out of the psychotic mind of radical French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who was the primary and original advocate for a line of thinking known as “deconstruction.” The goal of the Deconstructionists was to essentially blur or erase the lines between fact and fiction, reality and fantasy, and, from their perspective, there was no such thing as absolute truth, objective reality, or fundamental morality, it was all relative, subject to the interpretation of the individual and/or his social group or community. In a phrase, these lunatics spawned the idea of “living your truth.”

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(To read more select the link below)

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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/07/postmodernism_understanding_the_roots_of_wokeness.html

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I love my teenage haircut, I still cut my hair this way) But before that, I went for a long time with two striсt french braids to my knees, which were braided so tightly every morning that the skin stretchеd and I'm generally surprised how after that I had at least some hair left. As you can guess, it didn't look good. Nothing like Ahsoka Tano (I wish), it looked more like a bald head with mouse tails, like a snoopdogg hairstyle. I destrоyed all the photos, there were only on the pass (I shаrpie'd this hоrrоr) and on the first version of the yearbook - however, then I ran to the photographer to replace it with a photo with hair down.

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Therefore, one day I learned to braid a looser braid myself, and once I cut bangs myself - I was almost kickеd out of the house, but It was the first day I was satisfiеd with my hair.

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- I managed to get to a better place mentally, and started feeling that there's some hope for me, and managed to get out of the infinite darkness, pain, and emptiness which had been surrounding me for several years, to the extent which was actually debilitating (my younger self would've never thought that this was possible for me)
- I successfully finished secondary school, passed a language exam, and got into a UK-based university
- I moved to London (I always knew that I needed to get out of my home country but of course, it seemed very difficult, and I wasn't sure I was capable of it...well, turns out I was!)
- I've got a job, and I'm about to get promoted
- I experienced what it feels like to genuinely love someone and feel very close to someone. A “normal” person may not think about this as an accomplishment, but given how isolated I normally am, my younger self would defo be happy for me and proud of me
- I published quite a few articles
- I'm actively working on myself
- I started learning French in 2020, and this year, I began to learn Arabic too.
My younger self would think I'm super cool the way I am now :))

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I spent my 3rd year of uni in Spain. I was sent to a little Andalusian village where nobody spoke English, and I very quickly realised I wasn't as proficient as I had thought I was. The first couple of months were really hard but by the end of the year I was thinking and dreaming in Spanish, and when I would call my parents (once a week from a pay phone at the time - I'm old!), I would sometimes struggle to find the English words.
It could depend on which language you're using more at that time. For example, I am trilingual. Back in my home country, I would think more in my native language. When I moved (to the US), I used the two other languages more so I would think in them more than my native language. I think the past few years though I think more in English. I'll think in my native language still from time to time, but I codeswitch a lot more often.
A lot of active listening really helped. Even tho at some point I understood like 60% of what was said it eventually let to me understanding most of the language and being able to use it with no problem. Took me about 4 years to get from a2/b1 to c2. I didn't deliberately try and listen to as much as possible but rather there was a lot on English speaking YouTube that I was into. I hope some of that comes in handy
I started thinking in Spanish as soon as I finished the beginning level (AKA year 1 of college). This didn't happen after I took a year of Mandarin, although I sometimes think of Chinese numbers first because somehow they became very solidified in my brain. Being fluent in 3 languages means I think in that language when I am surrounded by it or I think about things linked to that language (for example I think in my ML when thinking about my family, mostly french when thinking about work and almost completely in English when I'm on ASK). Personally with my Spanish, while nowhere near fluent, have been able to produce and carry very short conversations by linking my Spanish words to English words. I can connect a Spanish word to an object just as quickly as I can connect the Spanish word to the english word to the object, and i've not been able to just connect a Spanish word directly to an object. Not sure how that works but if it works it works.

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If you really want to learn, you have to stop using English. I was basically forced to abandon it; taking classes à la fac meant I couldn't take notes fast enough in English, so I had to use French and my listening and writing skills exploded. My host mother had folks over for dinner, and they'd practice their English while I practiced my French.
Maybe it's my self-esteem, but I'm not comfortable with saying I'm fluent. However, a few weeks ago, one of my exchange partners and I had a 30-40min discussion about political ideologies and philosophy. It was mostly in French. I stumbled here and there but I was amazed that I was able to participate in such an abstract conversation at all. Now I'm ok with saying that I "speak some French." :P
I found myself accidentally eaves dropping on people in a restaurant. They were t talking about anything particularly interesting, but I remember thinking how cool it was that I knew that this couple was going to a different town tomorrow and they had said it all in French.
If you really want to learn, you have to stop using English. I was basically forced to abandon it; taking classes à la fac meant I couldn't take notes fast enough in English, so I had to use French and my listening and writing skills exploded. My host mother had folks over for dinner, and they'd practice their English while I practiced my French. Interesting point. Yeah, I can definitely see myself faltering in that area, except for the most simple of jokes. It's a good way to look at it. I'm sure you don't need to hear it from me, but your English is really good by the way. I certainly wouldn't have guessed you weren't native.
As things are starting to click for me too, I see it, fluency, as my native language when I was like 10. I didn't know what so many ancillary words or specialized words were. I had to ask or look it up in a dictionary. Nor could i write an essay and sound educated. There is just so much polish we are able to put on our native language as we get older through education, reading, media, and just plain immersion around others. But being that way at that age didn't break my flow of conversation. And that to me is what fluency is...being fluid in being able to converse. Sometimes you hear something that makes you say "hmmm...what does that mean?" but you will get the context from the rest or just ignore it and move on. Instead of thinking, you are just doing.
A turning point for me is when I realized I could listen to the radio or watch some videos without missing (almost) anything. Also being able to speak naturally and understand others, as if it were your native language. When you can talk about the weather or have a great philosophical debate in the same conversation naturally!

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I mean, even in our native languages, there are tons of things we don't know. You start reading a book in an entirely new domain and there will be new ideas and concepts, but it doesn't challenge our notion of fluency. I feel like there is a point in learning a new language where the things you don't know or can't say stop feeling like they undermine your ability in the language, and just become "oh, yeah, this is something some people don't know, now I know it."
For me it starts when I can confidently talk around a word I don't know without using hand gestures and helplessly repeating the word in the language I know (ie explaining a German word without switching to English or Russian), and still be understood. Native speakers use filler words a lot, btw, it's not something to feel bad about.
I don't worry about it. You're probably always going to need to improve a language that's not native/one you use every day. Focus more on what you can do in the language and what you still need to learn (can you read the news? watch a movie? travel to a country where it's spoken and get around without trouble? debate politics?)
I started considering myself fluent in english when I tried to remember a conversation with someone and couldn't remember if the conversation was in french or english, not sure if it make sense but I felt like I didn't need to make that extra mental effort to speak/understand english, it was almost completely natural.

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Not really. We have to make passport for my son so that we can visit my family in slovenia after the summer but no specific plans until then.

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I am just trying to handle single parenting and housekeeping best i can, trying to keep daily contact with both families and to support my husband as he has goes through a big project in his career. Any time left i plan on spending learning chinese and french + i am deeply invested into psychology atm and i am learning a lot about specificaly personality disorders. Mainly BPD to be precise.

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I am also eventually gonna continue my weightloss during summer but for the time being i am so preocupied with everything that i am just working on maintaining until i have time for exercise again. We used to go on walks a lot during winter but summer here is sooo hot that leaving the house is something we try to avoid :'D

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I'm complex as hell. No one ever sees the full me because of that. My family sees one piece. People I work with see a totally different piece. People I like/friends see something else. And you people on Reddit see mostly a different piece from everyone else. When people from any of these four elements see me in one of the other elements, they get really confused. Some people think I'm intimidating as hell while other people think the idea that I'm intimidating is completely laughable. I'm old, but I look significantly younger than I am, i.e. at least a decade younger. So, I get a lot of amusement from people because of all of these things. I like dark blue and black and wear those colors almost all the time. I actually love sports, but I treat it like an academic subject. I'm into politics, psychology, reading, research, learning, social issues, pretty much all kinds of music (no "I have eclectic taste" followed by "I hate pop music," though, admittedly, I'm less familiar with modern music--but I just like anything that sounds good to me), old sitcoms. I like philosophical discussions. Great career, but always thinking about what the next step is and positioning for it. "Forever alone"--too weird and different to find someone who is compatible with me and actually wants me. Not "girly." Very calculating and always staying a step ahead of others. Usually have a plan B or a contingency plan. Very unemotional on the outside, more emotional and romantic on the inside. I'm on my early 20s. Very introverted. I find it hard to connect with people. I am picky with my relationships (platonic and romantic). Quite elitistic and arrogant. Loves fine art and the violin. Adores dogs. Pragmatic. Loves money money money! 🤑
I am kind of motivated but unmotivated most of the time. I am a highschool student and I used to go to a boarding school. It taught me a lot about people. And I dream of becoming an engineer and make stuff. I made friends when I used to attend the school, but only talk to one after leaving the school. And I don't really have a person to talk to a lot, but that dosent mean I am alone, have family and friends (2), but just lonely. Closest thing to a friend I have is a random french girl I found on omegle. I rarely talk, to a fistfull of people. I am just shy. Oh and the compliment I get the most by few people I talk to is "weird in an interesting way"
I am also interested in philosophy and psychology, especially applying it to my personal life or analysing the behaviour of others around me. I have grown more confident over time but I still feel very awkward or out of place. I am a very reserved person but I enjoy talking with my friends about meaningful topics. I usually mind my own business but I enjoy giving insightful advice to my friends because I know it will be useful for them. I have two cats. I like iced coffee. I am a good leader.

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The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815, near Waterloo in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium. A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition. One was a British-led coalition consisting of units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of the Duke of Wellington. The other was a larger Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal von Blücher.

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Here is what Nathan Rothschild, who financed both the French Army and the British Army had to say about the war:

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"I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the empire. The man who controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire and I control the money supply..." - Nathan Rothschild

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