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

nytimes.com

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

#81

Post by csdvrx »

saiya-jin wrote: post #71
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…

I interact with french in France for some 13 years, spending most weekends there (Chamonix! but all over the place from east to west to south, not much north yet). First of all, french is not some beautiful language once you grok the grammar, rather pretty weird and old layered 'spaghetti code' with tons of exceptions to tons of obscure rules (nothing, absolutely nothing elegant there). Its needlessly complex especia…

> nor my wife (who studied in Lyon for quite some time)

Can you please ask her some recommendations for contemporary music?

I find french rap wonderful!

My new favorite artist is Aye Nakamura ; before I really loved Eva Queen.

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

#82

Post by cassepipe »

h1fra wrote: post #31

It's always fun to see foreigners coming to paris discovering that the french they learned at school is basically useless. Not only we use africans or arabic words, but we also speak in reverse, with noises, everything is shortened, etc.

I'd say that's one of the worst thing in French : The gap between written and spoken is so much bigger than say spanish which I think makes it hard for foreigners.

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

#83

Post by Mizza »

sesm wrote: post #54
csdvrx wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I always liked this version of Hustlin.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzuM-uZtfYQ

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

#84

Post by gumby »

saiya-jin wrote: post #71
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…

I interact with french in France for some 13 years, spending most weekends there (Chamonix! but all over the place from east to west to south, not much north yet). First of all, french is not some beautiful language once you grok the grammar, rather pretty weird and old layered 'spaghetti code' with tons of exceptions to tons of obscure rules (nothing, absolutely nothing elegant there). Its needlessly complex especia…

> First of all, french is not some beautiful language once you grok the grammar, rather pretty weird and old layered 'spaghetti code' with tons of exceptions to tons of obscure rules (nothing, absolutely nothing elegant there). Its needlessly complex especially when you know other languages solved it much better,

Though I can’t disagree with the “ancient spaghetti code” characterisation, “needlessly complex” is linguistically meaningless. People continuously use language and infelicities are typically rapidly eliminated.

My wife and I would between us resort to French express things that couldn’t be conveniently expressed in our respective native languages. I think it’s pretty common — probably universal — to inject foreign loan words or phrases in multilingual families or other groups. In the case of resorting to French, it’s usually for a word that has a lot of implications, ambiguity or other ramifications, which can be expressed compactly in French. A consequence of the spaghetti code you decry.

Written Arabic is really great for this.

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

#85

Post by frosting1337 »

sesuximo wrote: post #41

This seems completely unsurprising? Subcultures have their own slang, and some of it is spreading? That’s true in French/English/anything

I don't think anyone is surprised half a continent speaking French has its own twist on the language. But it is interesting to read about, especially the impact that hip-hop and rap in these countries have had on the dialects, such as calling your boyfriend bread.

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

#86

Post by OnlyMortal »

passwordoops wrote: post #64
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…

> People weren't correcting you to mock you. They wanted to understand and probably help you I'm (an anglophone) from Quebec and worked in Europe for a while. Parisians totally mock people not speaking Parisian French. They're even open and extraordinarily condescending about it. The rest of the country is cool and generally helpful

I met French speaking Quebecois in Paris. They were complaining the Parisians didn’t understand them.

They weren’t enamoured to France.

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

#88

Post by Swizec »

dataflow wrote: post #61
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 people always get criticized for not understanding foreigners' broken French The main criticism I've heard is kind of the opposite - that they dislike foreigners not trying to speak French, and just starting communication in English. If both of these are true then I guess that puts foreigners in a tough place where they're damned if they try and damned if they don't?

I’ve had extraordinary luck with broken French in France. If you start in French and do your best, a lot of people suddenly speak fluent English. Especially in metro areas.

But the experience does not compare to traveling with my partner who speaks fluent zero-accent French. Paris turns into a different much nicer city when you pair with a native speaker.

That said, you’ll never get the level of service you see in USA. The French (Europe in general) just don’t care that much about customer UX. You either do it their way or you can leave.

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

#89

Post by ekianjo »

yawboakye wrote: post #78
BurningFrog wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably doesn't help that 1/3 of English is imported and mangled French words.

while 1/2 of french is imported and mangled latin. so where did english borrow from really? given that it’s easier to figure out the latin roots of the anglicized?

The normand invasion of England and political control for 400 years changed the English language for sure.

The medieval English and the modern English are completely different. Medieval French and modern French, not so much.

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

#90

Post by pmontra »

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…

A French friend of mine told me: get the pronunciation right, then it doesn't matter if the words are wrong.
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