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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

#341

Post by mathieuh »

eloisant wrote: post #324
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…

The first time I went to US, I was pretty confident in my English but natives didn't understand me. I could repeat the same, grammatically correct sentence 3 times and they still wouldn't get it. Then I realized that in English (especially American English) you have to accentuate the right syllabus or they won't understand you. Say you're going to "mounTAIN view" instead of "MOUNtain view" and they have no idea what…

That's with every dialect of English. English has phonemic stress, i.e. the way you stress a word can change its meaning or make it unrecognisable unless you're speaking to an English-speaker familiar with people who speak English coloured by whatever your native language is. This is a particular problem for French-speakers, since French doesn't have phonemic stress.

British and Irish people will probably understand French-accented English better than Americans because of greater exposure to French.

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

#342

Post by Bayart »

kashunstva wrote: post #205
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…

> It is because it actually is very hard to understand broken French. Is there any evidence that French has some unique qualities that render it unusually difficult to understand when not spoken by a someone fluent in the language? I’m reasonably competent in French and if there is such a feature, I don’t see it.

The lack of tonal stressing makes enounciation and grammar more important than it would otherwise.

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

#343

Post by glandium »

BrandoElFollito wrote: post #300
glandium wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

French here, living abroad for more than 10 years. > sa va koi Phonetically, it's easy. "ça va quoi" > vzy cr vas-y... you lost me here. crève? That kind of reminds me of a joke some rapper (I think) made about, I wanna say 20 years ago, when young people from the banlieue were starting to cut words. I don't remember it exactly, but it went from "arrête ça" (stop it) being verlan'ized to "teuarass" and when they'd go…

> Phonetically, it's easy. "ça va quoi" ies, but stil anoing This said, I am all for a simplification of French, esperanto-style, to make it easier for everyone (native and non-native users of French) > > vzy cr > vas-y... you lost me here. crève? It was "vas-y carré", which in English means "go ahead, all good". I do not blame you for not knowing, I had to check twice. > I guess you're thinking about things like "qu…

> This said, I am all for a simplification of French

Interestingly, they tried 15 or 20 years ago, and that went nowhere. The only thing I remember about it is they wanted to simplify oignon, but I don't even remember if they suggested removing the i or spelling it like in English.

> It was "vas-y carré"

I guess I'm too old to know this, even non abbreviated.

> sometimes one r, sometimes two, sometimes one l, sometimes two.

Same with m, etc. And many more. The "fun" part of living abroad and barely speaking or writing French is that now there are plenty of times where I can't find words or how to spell them. It's compounded by the fact that English spelling of similar words is sometimes different (e.g. address vs adresse), or worse, some words spelt the same way have different meanings (which trips French natives often, but now I sometimes have the opposite problem, ironically)

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

#344

Post by achenet »

eloisant wrote: post #329
esperent wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, this is Paris and should not be generalized to all of France. Paris is not a friendly city.

Yes Parisians are dicks to other French people too - including Parisians. It's not about Parisians ignoring foreigners because they don't speak the language, it's about Parisians ignoring people.

ex-Parisian here (or perhaps Parisian in exile, I'll always be Parisian in my heart, but I refuse to live in the city while it's under the tyrannical mismanagement of Anne Hidalgo)

We're nice to each other. The local social codes are perhaps not as obvious to visitors, but if you put some effort into befriending the city, Paris can be very kind.

Agree with the whole "Parisians ignoring people" thing though. If you're running late for an appointment and you see hundreds of thousands of people per day, you don't really differentiate between a lost tourist and yet another bum asking for spare change to buy beer and drugs with.

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

#346

Post by achenet »

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;…

> virtually no one in America will complain about your accent or grammar.

I grew up in Houston. I've heard enough rich Texans bitching about Mexicans not speaking English to disagree with that statement.

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

#347

Post by PeterStuer »

n0n0n4t0r wrote: post #318

Hello, I'm a french (non Parisian) reader, and was very surprised by the comments I read. More precisely, the near 100% percent agreement on "french are despising non native speakers, especially the Parisians". I really don't feel it this way and am so surprised. I don't have more to add since I really never thought about this. Speaking of English: I work in an international company since one year and am I the proces…

In the EU, especially EU administration, we have evolved a Euro-English dialect. It is mostly English, but with some typical European (French, German, Italian and Greek mostly) pronounciations and phrasings.

Btw, Whisper has no trouble transcribing Euro-English, even with thick accents and very fast (Italian) delivery.

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

#348

Post by 1f97 »

aden1ne wrote: post #316
sjfjsjdjwvwvc wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

> you always get free tapwater in restaurants if you ask for it anywhere in Europe In the Netherlands you'd have a hard time. Most places will refuse, especially if that's the only thing you're ordering.

that's not really been my experience. whenever i order something at a restaurant and then i ask for some tap water, most of them do

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

#349

Post by achenet »

flappyeagle wrote: post #246
jimmaswell wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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;…

Because it’s better in every way you didnt list. Have you never been to a European capital? The quality of life enjoyed there is amazing.

not always.

From personal experience, most large French cities (Toulouse, Lyon...) have higher QoL than Paris, for much lower prices. Would not be surprised if this is also true for London/rest of UK, perhaps other countries as well.

Had a friend say the same was similar for Amsterdam vs other cities (eg Eindhoven) in the Netherlands

Even in the US, it's probably easier to have a nice life on a reasonable budget in someplace like Denver or St Louis than in NYC or Washington DC. Capitals tend to expensive, crowded and loud.

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

#350

Post by achenet »

maest wrote: post #172
jimmaswell wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/3/31/23004339/uk-twitter-user-... Jail time was on the table in this instance I had in mind.

The conviction rates for illegal tweets in Europe are much lower than, say, gun murder rates in the US. That is, what you're saying is even more ridiculous than an European refusing to go to the US for fear of getting shot in the streets.

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