Bouteflika et les présidents français

A short transcription of the beginnig of a news article from Le Monde, about the (almost former) Algerian president. This time I have been more careful about using the proper brief forms. The question marks indicate the words I wasn’t sure about (re. my other post about the -ien endings, among othe doubts). Anyway I’ll add the longhand version below for ease of correction for you Carlos and Christine (and anyone else wishing to comment obviously). Thanks a lot.


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  1. C’était le 15 juin 2015 à Alger. Interrogé, au sortir d’un long entretien avec son homologue algérien, sur l’état de santé de ce dernier, François Hollande louait devant les journalistes « l’alacrité » de son hôte. Le mot a fait mouche. Alors que les Algériens se désespéraient de l’absence de leur président, très affaibli depuis son accident vasculaire cérébral de 2013, le chef de l’Etat français n’hésitait pas à longuement saluer la « grande maîtrise intellectuelle » et la « capacité de jugement » de son homologue qui l’aura reçu pendant près de deux heures.

    Pendant plus de 50 ans, Abdelaziz Bouteflika aura entretenu des liens étroits avec la France et ses dirigeants. Il est probablement le seul chef d’Etat encore en fonction qui a négocié avec tous les présidents de la Ve République. 

    1. Beaucoup de différences par rapport à la façon dont j'aurais écrit tout ça… Une première remarque : "algérien" est écrit une première fois d'une certaine façon puis d'une autre plus loin. La première me semble plus correcte.

      "Louait" me semble correcte.

      "Saluait"… le "s" me semble être dans l'autre sens…

      Les abréviations ont beaucoup d'intérêt ; elles permettent d'avoir des textes moins lourds et de servir de jalons entre des mots moins fréquents et donc moins reconnaissables. "Absence" a son abréviation en Sénécal…

      Voilà pour moi pour ce soir…

      🙂

      1. Merci Christine ! Oui pour moi la règle à suivre pour orienter un cercle placé entre un CH/J et un R/L n'est pas claire (vu que c'est à mi-chemin entre le cas de P/B-R/L où on met le cercle à l'intérieur, et le cas de F/V-R/L où on le place à l'extérieur)… alors je ne sais pas trop qu'est-ce qui est correct.

  2. Wow, this is a challenging text! I have some observations and recommendations:

    1. Circles before and after straight lines (or between two lines in the same direction) are always written clockwise when they are the only strokes. So if you know how to write a circle after a m, n, t, or d, you should also know how to write it after sh, ch, or j: clockwise (paragraph 33 of your book). Hence the circles in Alger and interrogé are wrong.

    2. The first r of sortir is omitted because -ort is written without the r (with the exception of the word sort, which is written right s – o hook – r).

    3. Circles are always placed inside curves on their own (paragraph 32): so the e in santé is written inside the curve (you also missed the a of santé, which is placed outside the angle between the right s and the nt blend).

    4. De ce should be phrased: d – left s.

    5. Devant is written with the blend: def blend – a – n.

    6. Journalistes neither has an a nor an r: j – oo hook – n – l – e – left s – t.

    7. The o-hook retains its normal position in mot, so you don't need to turn it on the side because there isn't a horizontal straight line coming after.

    8. The first e of Algériens is written inside the curve formed by the j and the r. So the first time you wrote it (as algérien) was correct.

    9. Désespéraient is a doozy: d – right ses blend – p – e – r – e. The right ses blend is the one that starts with the right s.

    10. de l'absence: d – l – a – b – right s – a – n – left s (always try to phrase de whenever you can).

    11. accident: a – k – right s – e – d – a – n (paragraph 87)

    12. vasculaire: v – a – right s – k – l – e – r (e is missing, and there is no oo hook)

    13. The words cérébral and saluer are written with the left s (paragraph 86).

    14. longement is written with the men blend, not the m (l – o hook – ng – men blend).

    15. de son should be phrased: d – right s – n

    16. The first o hook of homologue should be turned to the side, because it occurs before an n or an m (paragraph 12).

    17. The word liens is correct.

    18. dirigeants: d – r – e – j – a – n (the first e is omitted).

    19. encore: a – nk – o hook – r (we use the nk stroke, instead of writing n and k separately)

    20. I would phrase en fonction.

    21. cinquième: 5 – over e circle (as if you were writing 5 degrees in longhand)

    22. Since public is a brief form (p – b), then République is just r – p – b.

    The majority of the mistakes I'm seeing is in how to connect the different strokes (in particular, consonants to circle vowels). To correct this, you should be writing the words and the practice material of each lesson in a notebook, sounding out each character as you write it, so that your brain gets used to the way the Gregg Shorthand characters are supposed to be joined. After you write, you should read it back so that you know that you learned the lesson. I know that the material of the book is awfully boring and that this can be a tedious exercise, but you will not be able to write any text whatsoever if you're second guessing how characters should be joined, as that's an integral part of the system. Your overall goal now, in addition to learning the theory, is to recognize how the different characters of the Gregg Shorthand alphabet are supposed to be connected to each other. If you do copy the lesson and read it back and do it steadily, you'll improve, trust me.

  3. Wow!  So many polyglots here.  I speak and read Spanish, French, and Portuguese, and work in an international company.  I only read the other languages in "regular" writing, not in their respective types of Gregg s/h.

    I tried to learn Spanish Gregg Series 90, but I find it easier to just write my notes in English Gregg according to the sounds I hear.  I think that's because I am not young!  That, and I have no time!

  4. Thank you very much Carlos for your detailed feedback. I should definitely first try and copy a lot of well-written texts, but as you guessed, for me the material in my DJS book is beyond boring, and this is why I thought I would improve faster if I went through my own trial and errors, learning from them, rather than finding the willpower once in a while to copy the stuff in my book… I guess things would be a lot more fun and simple if I was learning English Gregg! At any rate I'll do my best to follow your advice before trying to post again, and thanks again for your really useful comments that help me understand even the theory better. For example, I had read how circles should be written clockwise after straight lines, but didn't quite register what it truly meant until you corrected me on that. So, thank you!

  5. What would be immensely useful would be to have the translations where necessary and the English text.

    I have been learning Gregg on and off since 1940 and have many gaps in my understanding.

    1. The vocabulary level in the English selections in the blog is for the most part common enough to not require a key. (Incidentally, the Gregg Writer magazine stopped publishing keys in the 1920s. Today’s Secretary did not publish keys either.) If you're having problems reading those selections, I think it would really benefit you, more than posting keys, to review your shorthand in earnest. If you want to improve your shorthand skills, I would definitely recommend any of these books for Anniversary Gregg (which is what you write), preferably in this order:

      1. The 2-volume set of Gregg Shorthand Manual for the Functional Method by Louis Leslie.

      2. The third edition of Gregg Speed Studies.

      3. Shorthand Dictation Studies, Second Edition, by Wallace Bowman

      4. Functional Method Dictation, by Louis Leslie

      Those books supply ample review material, and the reading selections are varied enough to provide vocabulary from various fields. A careful study of those books should greatly benefit you in being able to read, not only the selections of the blog, but any other shorthand written in the Anniversary series, and more than likely any Gregg Shorthand text.

      Lastly, choosing and writing the selections takes time. If someone else has the time and wants to write a key, I'll welcome it.

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