How good is autocorrect?

... not very by the looks of things. Check this out.

It compares Cordial, Antidote, Pro Lexis and Word which are apparently all software which correct grammar and spelling. I haven't heard of any of them except Word, must be some French thing. But there is even a mistake in the last column (Word one) that the writers of the article did not pick up and highlight ;)

... just goes to show you that noone's perfect! :P

Also goes to show you that my French must not be good enough as I don't know what "entraider mutuellement" even means. I find the spelling mistakes very easy to pick up, the grammar less so.


(Image from ladictee.fr Facebook page)

A home of my own...

I do apologise for the lack of posts recently. I've been going through a lot these past couple of months.. both good and bad things... and haven't really been motivated to blog at all. However, I'm glad you're still reading which keeps me going and I will hopefully come up with more new posts on language learning in the next few weeks/months... :)

So...I grew up in a 3 bedroom house with huge front and backyards. As we grew up my parents renovated/extended it and added 2 more bedrooms. I don't know how big it was but it felt like a normal size to me, not big (because I didn't know any different).

Just before I moved to France, I was living in a 2 bedroom apartment in Sydney. I don't know how big it was but I would say probably around 80sqm. Compared to the house I grew up in, this felt tiny but it was nice having my own place. It also had a big balcony.

Then I moved to France into a tiny little room (room, not apartment) that was about 18sqm. It was painful living in such a small space... but as it was only for a short period of time I put up with it.

Then I moved to Geneva where I was overjoyed to have my own place again. At about 30sqm it felt huge compared to my tiny little dorm room. I also have a kitchen and bathroom. I was sure that it would be enough space for l'il ol' me.

However... now I am feeling it is too small again. When I visit friend's places I look enviously over all the space that they have... over how many walls they have to put bookshelves against (I don't even have one single bookshelf). In nearly everyone's bathroom there is a rack or shelf of some sort to put towels and extra toilet paper rolls. However I don't have any space at all to put any sort of shelf. I have to store my towels in my already cramped wardrobe.

What I'd give to have 80sqm again. Sigh...  I look at pictures online of so-called small apartments or studio apartments for furnishing ideas... and they are all bigger than mine.

I hope to be able to move into a bigger place someday. I dream about it all the time. Even more than that, I dream about owning my own place so I can do whatever I want to it. It's already hard enough to furnish a tiny place but when you can't put holes in the walls, or paint, or do anything (without a costly aftermath to get it back the way it was when you move out)... it just makes it never really feel like home.

(image from here)