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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

#191

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

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…

I remember being at a bar in the 18th, and asking for "L'Eau". "Quoi?" "L'eau sil vous plait?" ..... long pause ..... I motion to picking up a glass and drinking it ..... "Ahhhh! DE L'eau!"

I was like.... Dude... come the fuck on.

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

#192

Post by adev_ »

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…

> 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.

I think this is currently pretty typical in any language.

In my experience, Non-native speakers are much more resilient to strong accents and broken grammar. Probably because they passed themselves by this step.

I worked in a research laboratory with >100 nationalities: It was extremely common to be at a table with a Greek, a Spanish and a Chinese perfectly understanding each other in some "Globish English" while the British or Australian next chair were crying in tears.

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

#193

Post by throwme_123 »

ssnistfajen wrote: post #186
greatgib wrote: post #103

[flagged]

What you are describing is radicalization. People who are doing fine don't get easily radicalized. Why are they being radicalized then? Because they are not doing fine. Why are they not doing fine? Because of the colonial legacy and France supporting the status quo by propping up corrupt oligarchs/dictators in many parts of Francophone Africa. By instantly jumping to Russia/Wagner you are merely assisting radicalizat…

Is this parody?

Of course Wagner is pushing resentment and it's working... you're proving that now.

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

#194

Post by logtempo »

it's certainly interesting. Imo music, and especially the rap by its generally large young audience and creativity is and have been a huge "influencer" of French.

I think the article fail a little bit to put in perspective other influences, and even more when the title say "Africans" when it focus on west and central Africa only. Africa is a continent that don't talk only French, North Africa is part of Africa too, and arabic countries do have an influence too. So, no more bad title please.

Also, it's interesting to think that initially, "True" French was imposed by the state, and by law, in France, that led to the end of local dialects. I just hope that it will not happen in reverse in some africans countries, as pointed out by the article...People should remain free of speech, in whatever languages they want to use.

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

#195

Post by bubblematrix »

adev_ wrote: post #192
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…

> 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. I think this is currently pretty typical in any language. In my experience, Non-native speakers are much more resilient to strong accents and broken grammar. Probably because they passed themselves by this step. I worked in a research laboratory with >100 nationalities: It was extremel…

[dead]

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

#196

Post by lucb1e »

avarun wrote: post #91
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

Okay. Did anybody say they're surprised? Or are you just strawmanning?

(u/dang already said as much an hour before your comment, not sure there's a point making more accusations and adding fuel to the fire.)

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

#197

Post by Toutouxc »

bsaul wrote: post #128
cassepipe wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

i'd say the problem is mainly the inability of young generation to be able to write and speak proper french. Speaking slang is fun and everybody's been doing it forever. However being only able to speak slang is a problem.

> the inability of young generation to be able to write and speak proper french

The language isn’t going to stop evolving just because you were born.

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

#198

Post by Exoristos »

samus wrote: post #166
yawboakye wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and french as a germanic language? because french is a germanic language too.

French has a few Germanic loan words, but is most certainly not a Germanic language.

The Germanic vocabulary in French is surprisingly as high as 40–45%, as Fernand Braudel pointed out. French is kind of a hybrid.

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

#199

Post by elforce002 »

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.

That's a bummer for me. I spent +2 years learning French and now you're telling me this is useless. I'd assume I can talk with older folks and try to practice at restaurants, museums, etc. Prob I won't be able to communicate with GenZ but probably that's not the case for millennials.

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

#200

Post by sjfjsjdjwvwvc »

jimmaswell wrote: post #92
Swizec wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 US…

Europe as a whole has always come off as unpleasant to visit as an American, from what I've read online such as this thread. In no American city I've been to do you have to be so vigilant for pickpockets as you apparently do in European cities, and virtually no one in America will complain about your accent or grammar. We have free water at restaurants, and the staff won't treat you like a mooch for asking about it;…

You have been piled on a lot already in this thread but let me add my 2 cents:

- you don’t have to be particularly careful about pickpockets anywhere in Europe, at least not more than anywhere else in the world.

- you always get free tapwater in restaurants if you ask for it anywhere in Europe, also most waiters are also generally pleasant (of course there can be unpleasant people anywhere)

- not sure about the tax thing (why would you care about that as visitor anyway?) - atleast we have free healthcare and free university shrug

- haven’t heard from anyone that got arrested for a „rude“ tweet lolwhat

You don’t have to visit of course but it would surely expand your horizon. When I visited the US for the first time I realised that most of the prejudices against Americans weren’t true (that most Americans are fat, stupid and greedy for example - sure a lot of them are but not the majority)

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