How Africans are changing French, one joke, rap and book at a time • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by hef19898 » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 10:27 AM UTC

JPLeRouzic wrote: post #378

Raidion wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was (at one point) fairly conversational in French by US standards (was taking 300 level French conversation classes). Did a fairly long trip in France, using as much French as I could. The speed of native French speakers meant comprehension was hard but manageable, and they seemed (almost intentionally at times), unable to make anything but what I would consider "travel French" work. I was fairly discouraged. I th…

I am French, the oral French is very different from what is taught in books. There are a lot of transformations like 'je' to 'che' or 'il' to 'i' (from a French perspective). Also, many liaisons between words are pronounced but others are not, sometimes astonishingly to me, a guy born a long time ago in Brittany. And young people learn to speak very quickly when they go to primary school (I don't know why). Also ther…

One of the hardest things tobadapt to: following conversation and discussions in French. In the beginning, I always was at least five sentences behind with my comprehension of what was said...

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

#382

Post by acjohnson55 » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 10:30 AM UTC

BSDobelix wrote: post #356

Bayart wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly. Swiss German and Standard High German are entirely different languages, despite what the name would lead you to think. Quebec French is at most a dialect of French. There's as much different as there is between say RP English and Scottish English.

>Swiss German and Standard High German are entirely different languages Not a different language but a dialect-group within high german called Alemanic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemannic_German Also interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_languages

I don't think you have that quite right. Alemannic does not include Standard High German. Alemannic is a group of High German dialects in the southwestern German-speaking areas.

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

#383

Post by kabes » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 10:33 AM UTC

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…

I live just by the French border in Belgium (the dutch speaking part), I've been together with a girl from Paris for a couple of years and in a past life I was a waterski instructor for club med. So I've met my fair share of French people and I can tell you this is definitely a thing. Parisians even had this reputation amongst other French people. But I feel it's becoming a thing of the past as well. The younger generation seems less chauvinistic and more friendly in this regard.

I remember talking to a friend in Paris. I was talking in English about a trip to Disneyland I had planned. And this older man who was just passing by came to give me a rant in French of how an American theme park in Paris is just a disgrace and should be forbidden from ruining the superior French culture. Of course, this is just one anecdote, but I've got quite a few of those.

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

#384

Post by UncleSlacky » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 10:34 AM UTC

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…

Reminds me of foreigners asking for "water" in the US at restaurants, having to pronouce it "wadder" in order to be understood.

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

#385

Post by musha68k » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 10:35 AM UTC

carlmr wrote: post #331

nicbou wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not surprised. I'm from Quebec. I am more comfortable speaking English with anyone than I am speaking French around French people. They just can't get over the accent, like I'm some sort of curiosity at the zoo. There are so many YouTube videos of French people mocking us. It's not curiosity but a distinctly French superiority complex. My friends who learned French had similar struggles in France versus elsewhere…

Quebec French is very different though. It's like Swiss German and German, the Swiss understand the Germans, but not the other way around. It's not just the accent, it's the choice of words, the enunciation, everything.

Native German speaker from Austria here who has been living in Quebec for many years.

I had to study and pass my exams in standard French with a Parisian institution. This is made obligatory by the Quebec government for immigrants if they want to stay and apply for a PR.

Anyways, the insight I want to share here is that Quebecois French is much closer to Austrian or Bavarian German vs Standard German.

Both share a similar trajectory with their standard counterparts, diverging over centuries but in the end remaining more comprehensible compared to Swiss German.

Quebecois, evolving since the 17th century from settlers' French and Austrian/Bavarian dialects, shaped since the 6th century's “Lautverschiebung” are also old but less divergent branches.

Swiss German, though also rooted in the High German shift, has veered more distinctly. Watching Swiss TV (SRF), I only get about 80-90% due to that deeper linguistic forking.

Standard Quebecois has not been much harder for me to understand than standard French. Like in Austrian German there are certain “quirks” but again much easier to parse from context than with Swiss German.

Of course there might be the case where a heavy local dialect becomes even harder to understand than say Swiss German even. German language learners could test their comprehension of Swiss vs going to a pub in Wien Ottakring or into a deep recess of the Tyrollean alps. I’d guess some encounters would be minimum as hard to understand if not harder. Same for rural Quebec etc. Then again the underlying grammar even can be really different in fundamental ways with Swiss German which is not the case for Quebecois.

TL;DR standard Quebecois is easier to understand and much closer to standard French than standard Swiss German is to standard German.

IMHO: France has just been very steadfast about language standardization up to this day and across its zone of influence. E.g. there even is obligatory standard French language learning in Quebec for immigrants and possibly public schools as well. So for some people from France they often don’t have developed the “muscle” for even slight derivations. In addition not much proficiency in “foreign languages” in general especially for older generations.

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

#386

Post by BSDobelix » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 10:36 AM UTC

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #368

BSDobelix wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Swiss German and Standard High German are entirely different languages Not a different language but a dialect-group within high german called Alemanic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemannic_German Also interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_languages

Based on that definition Dutch also wouldn’t be a different language but a dialect within High German called Franconian. Now try telling Dutch people that they don’t actually have their own language and are all speaking Low Country German and see what happens… Most distinctions between dialects and languages are socio-political and not linguistic. There is a similar continuum between North/Low German and Frisian. Yet…

Let's see what happens if you tell them that we all talk Indo-European ;)

Except Hungary, Finnland and Estland

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

#387

Post by smallpipe » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 10:37 AM UTC

Where did they get that map from? Burundi is French speaking, and member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie [1], and, just like DRC, used to be a colony of Belgium

[1] https://www.francophonie.org/88-etats-et-gouvernements-125

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

#388

Post by BSDobelix » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 10:41 AM UTC

acjohnson55 wrote: post #382

BSDobelix wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Swiss German and Standard High German are entirely different languages Not a different language but a dialect-group within high german called Alemanic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemannic_German Also interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_languages

I don't think you have that quite right. Alemannic does not include Standard High German. Alemannic is a group of High German dialects in the southwestern German-speaking areas.

>>dialect-group within high german

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

#389

Post by sofixa » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 10:41 AM UTC

bubblematrix wrote: post #241

csomar wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you actually been to Europe? Paris/London has a few pickpockets problem but nothing come close to the violence in the states. And you can’t win when it comes to food. Most US food is garbage unless you are paying top dollars.

My last trip to Paris was 1 year ago and it was pretty bad compared to NYC, Los Angeles, and San Francisco for the average tourist - especially at night.

I live in the Paris area (initially came as a tourist) and I've visited San Francisco. It's all a matter of where exactly you are - there are bad parts and good parts. However, the worst parts of San Francisco were definitely worse than the worst parts of Paris (where no tourist has any reason to come close to, unlike in SF where it's literally a few blocks away from major tourist attractions).

You don't see people shooting heroin literally 5 metres away from a tourist attraction in Paris (for the record - right next to the queue of tourists to get on the cable car at Powell/Market stop).

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

#390

Post by acjohnson55 » Mon, Dec 18, 2023, 10:42 AM UTC

ffgjgf1 wrote: post #368

BSDobelix wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Swiss German and Standard High German are entirely different languages Not a different language but a dialect-group within high german called Alemanic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemannic_German Also interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_languages

Based on that definition Dutch also wouldn’t be a different language but a dialect within High German called Franconian. Now try telling Dutch people that they don’t actually have their own language and are all speaking Low Country German and see what happens… Most distinctions between dialects and languages are socio-political and not linguistic. There is a similar continuum between North/Low German and Frisian. Yet…

According to Wikipedia, Franconian is split between Low Franconian dialects, including Dutch, and the others, which underwent the same consonant shift as the High German languages. But I agree that the boundaries of languages are not purely linguistic.