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How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

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Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#51

Post by dukeyukey »

heywhatupboys wrote: post #23
dudul wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French people always get criticized for not understanding foreigners' broken French. It is not out of malice. It is because it actually is very hard to understand broken French. A lot of very different words sound similar. A very simple grammatical mistake can completely change the meaning of a sentence. And yeah, it's probably kind of the same in English, but French is not the linga franca English is today (see what…

French is the lingua franca of much of the world....

In West Africa and the western part of North Africa, sure. But outside of there, English is gonna be more useful. Even in Europe. Hell, even in some multilingual Francophone countries - https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/english-as-a-common-lan...

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#52

Post by prmoustache »

welder wrote: post #21
taimurkazmi wrote: post #5

You're find this out now? After four centuries of Spanish in the Americas, Spanish speakers there have developed an enormous culture and diversity and innovation in the language. I remind my Spanish friends that there are three times the number of Spanish speakers in Mexico than in Spain. In fact, there are more Spanish speakers in the United States there are more Spanish speakers than in Spain. Ditto for Portuguese,…

I love the carribean/cuban/dominican spanish where they leave off the ending of words to they can speak faster. https://www.tiktok.com/@msnewslady/video/7124117603425029422

It is similar to andalusian people.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#53

Post by forty »

dudul wrote: post #17
grecy wrote: post #11

Learning French while exploring West Africa was enormously good fun. For most people it's their 3rd or 4th or 5th language, and they were always so full of joy and happiness than I was trying my best. Nobody ever corrected my pronunciation or criticized me for my bad grammar and lack of vocabulary. (Cough, France, Cough). Thanks to all the encouragement and positivity I picked it up pretty quickly, and thoroughly enj…

French people always get criticized for not understanding foreigners' broken French. It is not out of malice. It is because it actually is very hard to understand broken French. A lot of very different words sound similar. A very simple grammatical mistake can completely change the meaning of a sentence. And yeah, it's probably kind of the same in English, but French is not the linga franca English is today (see what…

Yes, I'm French and I often have a hard time understanding French even correct, with a strong accent I'm not used to. I remember, when I was ~15 I met a guy from RDC (Congo) and it was very awkward for me as he was speaking French with a Belgian and African accent which even with all the best intent I could not understand, while he understood me just fine. We ended up speaking in English (it was in London so I pretended wanting to improve my English :))

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#54

Post by sesm »

csdvrx wrote: post #14
taimurkazmi wrote: post #5

You're find this out now? After four centuries of Spanish in the Americas, Spanish speakers there have developed an enormous culture and diversity and innovation in the language. I remind my Spanish friends that there are three times the number of Spanish speakers in Mexico than in Spain. In fact, there are more Spanish speakers in the United States there are more Spanish speakers than in Spain. Ditto for Portuguese,…

I love rap, and I've found many gems in Russian and French rap. These 2 scenes are extremely innovative! > I especially love the music coming out of Mali, Senegal and Algeria (Rai, anyone?). Yes please! Can I ask you for more suggestions, even besides Rai? In the old school, I love Magic System (Gaou), and for current hits, Aye Nakamura EDIT: I can't understand why this comment is downvoted, except maybe for politica…

Gems in Russian rap? As a native speaker I’m genuinely surprised

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#55

Post by [deleted] »

dudul wrote: post #32
yieldcrv wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sounds like people in west african countries have a superior understanding of the purpose of language, which is to convey shared concepts

No, it's just that they were themselves learning French, so used to speaking broken French. You would get the same experience by gathering a German, an Australian and a Venezuelan all learning French as 2nd or 3rd language. Additionally they most likely already knew English and were able to decipher "French broken by an English speaker". Edit: and since we're sharing anecdotes. I got the same "rude" treatment from Ru…

[deleted]

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#56

Post by prmoustache »

csdvrx wrote: post #14
taimurkazmi wrote: post #5

You're find this out now? After four centuries of Spanish in the Americas, Spanish speakers there have developed an enormous culture and diversity and innovation in the language. I remind my Spanish friends that there are three times the number of Spanish speakers in Mexico than in Spain. In fact, there are more Spanish speakers in the United States there are more Spanish speakers than in Spain. Ditto for Portuguese,…

I love rap, and I've found many gems in Russian and French rap. These 2 scenes are extremely innovative! > I especially love the music coming out of Mali, Senegal and Algeria (Rai, anyone?). Yes please! Can I ask you for more suggestions, even besides Rai? In the old school, I love Magic System (Gaou), and for current hits, Aye Nakamura EDIT: I can't understand why this comment is downvoted, except maybe for politica…

> Apparently, they're angry about that!

I think this is a gross generalization.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#57

Post by Koshkin »

dudul wrote: post #17
grecy wrote: post #11

Learning French while exploring West Africa was enormously good fun. For most people it's their 3rd or 4th or 5th language, and they were always so full of joy and happiness than I was trying my best. Nobody ever corrected my pronunciation or criticized me for my bad grammar and lack of vocabulary. (Cough, France, Cough). Thanks to all the encouragement and positivity I picked it up pretty quickly, and thoroughly enj…

French people always get criticized for not understanding foreigners' broken French. It is not out of malice. It is because it actually is very hard to understand broken French. A lot of very different words sound similar. A very simple grammatical mistake can completely change the meaning of a sentence. And yeah, it's probably kind of the same in English, but French is not the linga franca English is today (see what…

Interestingly, I could not help but notice that, being neighbors and all, both the English and the French are by far the worst offenders in terms of how broken one's pronunciation of the language of the other usually is.

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#58

Post by lm28469 »

Koshkin wrote: post #48
vlovich123 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What criteria are you using? ~320M French speakers globally (220M native, official language for 29 countries) ~559M Spanish speakers (~480M native, 20 countries) ~1.1B Mandarin speakers globally (a few countries, mother tongue in ~20 countries) ~1.5B English speakers globally (~400M native, official language for 67 countries) So for much of the world it seems pretty clearly English (& has been since WWII) and French…

Yet, somehow I have no problem calling French 'franca'...

You do realize that "franca" here has nothing to do with French or France ? Neither today nor originally

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#59

Post by triceratops »

dudul wrote: post #17
grecy wrote: post #11

Learning French while exploring West Africa was enormously good fun. For most people it's their 3rd or 4th or 5th language, and they were always so full of joy and happiness than I was trying my best. Nobody ever corrected my pronunciation or criticized me for my bad grammar and lack of vocabulary. (Cough, France, Cough). Thanks to all the encouragement and positivity I picked it up pretty quickly, and thoroughly enj…

French people always get criticized for not understanding foreigners' broken French. It is not out of malice. It is because it actually is very hard to understand broken French. A lot of very different words sound similar. A very simple grammatical mistake can completely change the meaning of a sentence. And yeah, it's probably kind of the same in English, but French is not the linga franca English is today (see what…

> It is because it actually is very hard to understand broken French. A lot of very different words sound similar.

They frivolously expend with the consonants at the ends of words. All that additional signal just thrown away! /s

Re: How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time

#60

Post by seszett »

Koshkin wrote: post #57
dudul wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French people always get criticized for not understanding foreigners' broken French. It is not out of malice. It is because it actually is very hard to understand broken French. A lot of very different words sound similar. A very simple grammatical mistake can completely change the meaning of a sentence. And yeah, it's probably kind of the same in English, but French is not the linga franca English is today (see what…

Interestingly, I could not help but notice that, being neighbors and all, both the English and the French are by far the worst offenders in terms of how broken one's pronunciation of the language of the other usually is.

We understand each other's broken accent really well though. So it doesn't really matter.
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