Normally, German doesnÂ’t use accents, - PPC Posting Board

Subject: Normally, German doesnÂ’t use accents,
Author: Hieronymus Graubart
Posted on: 2014-06-17 15:42:00 UTC

but these loan words are borrowed from French, and my German teacher for the French language explained that accents are used to denote the "melody" of speech. If there is an accent aigu (bottom left to top right), your voice should go up, while it should go down if there is an accent grave (top left to bottom right), so if you know how to pronounce the word and that there is an accent, you should know which one to use. (But this is not exactly what Wikipedia tells me, using specialized linguistic terms, and it may be different in Italian anyway.)

Your teachers may have been so used to doing it right that they just never thought about what they are doing and why they do it this way. Try to ask a native English speaker for the rules for when to use "a" and when to use "an", or when to use which of the two pronunciations of "the".

Insert generic praise of a good story here. I still didn’t get better at positive feedback.

Oh, and since Nikki is female, she should have taken the other pistol out of her hammerspace.

HG

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Could it be? Yes it is! Blank Sprite Chapter 3 is up! by Sergio Turbo on 2014-06-12 19:35:00 UTC Reply

With more car chases! More firefights! More mysteries! And more running around in circles doing cool stuff but achieving absolutely nothing!

... Believe me, I know what I am doing... I think... I hope.

http://rc1587.wordpress.com/2014/06/12/blank-sprite-mission-record-03/

Re: Blank Sprite by doctorlit on 2014-06-15 05:56:00 UTC Reply

Sorry this won't be a very long review. I read this during work yesterday, and haven't had time to respond until now.

As with the other parts of this story, you're a great hand at giving us odd and clever little details that hint at what's going on, without giving away what that is. (I still haven't figured it out, anyway.) You're making good use of the concept of the Defectives, and tying their presence into the mystery. I also want to mention the driving chase scene as an excellent action scene; it was very realistic and believable, and I was easily able to follow the action.

One thing I think needed a bit of expansion was the presence of the canon characters who appear here, Madoka and Homura. They don't speak very much in the scenes they appear in. I know the agents are the main characters, and this is a PPC story, but I still think the canons would have a bit more to say, given the situation.

Something confused me about the police officers who appear here, too. Are they supposed to be the same ones who appeared in part 2? Because if they are just generic police, it seems weird they wouldn't question the agents more, and especially give them a lift anywhere.

That was still a good review. by Sergio Turbo on 2014-06-15 15:47:00 UTC Reply

I'll fix the policemen issue - I had shortened that scene a lot and I didn't realize that I cut away every explicit mention of Ben and Semir from there.

About Madoka and Homura... well, the latter isn't very talkative anyways and the first didn't speak much because spoilers.

A very good read! by son_of_heaven176 on 2014-06-13 02:31:00 UTC Reply

I could follow the action for the most part, and I have to say that I am really looking forward to Part 4.

However, there are quite a few issues still extant. Would you mind giving your e-mail address; I would not like to post a litany of errors here on the Board.

There is one error, though, that I do want to bring up here:

an unmarked dark gray Mercedes-Benz E-class coupè
The accent is the wrong way; the word is "coupé."

You make the same mistake later in the story: it's "cliché, not "clichè."

I'm guessing that I should chalk this up to the fact that Italian only uses the grave accent; am I right?

Corrections applied. Thank you! (nm) by Sergio Turbo on 2014-06-13 20:54:00 UTC Reply

You're welcome. (nm) by son_of_heaven176 on 2014-06-14 19:56:00 UTC Reply

Actually, Italian has both. by Sergio Turbo on 2014-06-13 09:37:00 UTC Reply

But since Italian school works extremely well, I'm never sure about where to use either already in Italian as teachers never bother to explain that properly.

(Apparently, they think we either have to memorize which accent goes on which word (and accents are used a lot in Italian, so that's unfeasible), or just divine it)

You can find my address on the PPC Beta Reader Directory anyway. I prefer to not post it too many times around, even "masked" - spam bots might get clever.

Normally, German doesnÂ’t use accents, by Hieronymus Graubart on 2014-06-17 15:42:00 UTC Reply

but these loan words are borrowed from French, and my German teacher for the French language explained that accents are used to denote the "melody" of speech. If there is an accent aigu (bottom left to top right), your voice should go up, while it should go down if there is an accent grave (top left to bottom right), so if you know how to pronounce the word and that there is an accent, you should know which one to use. (But this is not exactly what Wikipedia tells me, using specialized linguistic terms, and it may be different in Italian anyway.)

Your teachers may have been so used to doing it right that they just never thought about what they are doing and why they do it this way. Try to ask a native English speaker for the rules for when to use "a" and when to use "an", or when to use which of the two pronunciations of "the".

Insert generic praise of a good story here. I still didn’t get better at positive feedback.

Oh, and since Nikki is female, she should have taken the other pistol out of her hammerspace.

HG

That nitpicky? (nm) by zdimensia on 2014-06-13 02:42:00 UTC Reply

Definitely. by Desdendelle on 2014-06-13 12:31:00 UTC Reply

I think everybody will agree that everyone here is trying to become better and striving to become the best they could. Therefore, every mistake spotted is a mistake learned from.
Well, we are a community that focuses on good writing by son_of_heaven176 on 2014-06-13 03:08:00 UTC Reply

While we obviously do not want to be snobs about it, we do want to help each other grow as writers.

Besides, this is not the first time that we've critiqued the writing of one of our own here on this Board. You can see some examples for yourself here and here