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How good is your French accent?

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Re: How good is your French accent?

#101

Post by chrstphrhrt »

notalaser wrote: post #36
teekert wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French are very proud and protective of their language. I have a similar experience, I was asking Je cherche le croissants (or something: I'm looking for croissants), I got a blank stare until my friend made a very theatrical overly french "Croissants!" hand waving and all, then the supermarket guy understood. I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market (ordinateur) or wh…

Ordinateur was not invented when computers came to the market. It was coined in its modern sense of computing machine , not by Proud French People Who Liked Their Language but by IBM France, because they felt that "calculateur" (French for -- whaddya know! -- "something that computes", a literal equivalent for "computer") was too restrictive. In the 1950s, when that happened, "ordinateur" had been in use for a very l…

My fave in Québec is 'baladodiffusion' for podcast. Not sure if they say that in France too.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#102

Post by rmason »

I think in general the French outside of Paris are more polite, especially in tourist areas. I've had Europeans complain to me about rude New Yorkers. I think at least part of it is the big city.

I've found the friendliest people in France are in the South. Along the French Riviera the economy is highly dependent upon tourists and they want the repeat business.

Many years ago I visited a restaurant near the train station in Nice. The proprietor seated me at a table with someone else. I was confused until I realized he seated me with a regular who spoke English. I visited a week later and he did the same thing but with another regular.

A dozen years later I relayed the story to my parents who were going to visit the area. My mother who did speak fluent French had a long conversation with the proprietor. After paying their bill he gave them a wine pitcher with the restaurants name and said give this to your son. Together we've probably sent two dozen friends to that restaurant.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#103

Post by Apocryphon »

gerbilly wrote: post #38
zdkl wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"standard"

>standard Uh huh, whatever that is. Even Paris has more than one accent. (St Denis for example) It's interesting how pronunciation in France shifted after the revolution.[1] Before that, everyone from the terroir to the king spoke mostly the same way. It was called the "Bel usage." When the king said: "La loi c'est moi" it probably came out more like: "La loi c'est moé." There was a more formal, accent reserved for p…

'There was a more formal, accent reserved for public speeches, and sermons at church called the: "Grand usage." After the revolution the new ruling class adopted the "Grand usage" in day to day speech and it became Parisian French.'

It's interesting how many languages standardized based on the variant spoken by the ruling elites, often imposed by revolutionaries. That's how Standard Chinese came to be based off of the courtly tongue of the Mandarins.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#105

Post by mangeletti »

rmason wrote: post #102

I think in general the French outside of Paris are more polite, especially in tourist areas. I've had Europeans complain to me about rude New Yorkers. I think at least part of it is the big city. I've found the friendliest people in France are in the South. Along the French Riviera the economy is highly dependent upon tourists and they want the repeat business. Many years ago I visited a restaurant near the train sta…

Absolutely agree.

We visited Domme, Arles, and Eze, and the people were really great, particularly in Domme.

The other thing I noticed about the South is that it was easier to carry on a conversation in French, in part because the people spoke a lot less (if any) English, which puts your mind into the mode of speaking only French. In Paris we'd be speaking French one minute, English the next.

BTW, what's the name of the restaurant in Nice?

Re: How good is your French accent?

#106

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #92
teekert wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French are very proud and protective of their language. I have a similar experience, I was asking Je cherche le croissants (or something: I'm looking for croissants), I got a blank stare until my friend made a very theatrical overly french "Croissants!" hand waving and all, then the supermarket guy understood. I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market (ordinateur) or wh…

>> I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market (ordinateur) Greek also: υπολογιστής ('ypologistis', literally "computer"). Greek universities teach computer science courses in Greek so a lot of the terminology is translated over. When I speak to fellow Greeks who have studied CS in Greek, there's always a bit of mental gear shifting needed before we can be sure we're on the s…

In Spanish OOP is "programación orientada a objetos", which suffers from the same mistranslation as in Greek. It also means "programming that is facing objects", in a quite physical sense.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#107

Post by Terr_ »

notalaser wrote: post #36
teekert wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French are very proud and protective of their language. I have a similar experience, I was asking Je cherche le croissants (or something: I'm looking for croissants), I got a blank stare until my friend made a very theatrical overly french "Croissants!" hand waving and all, then the supermarket guy understood. I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market (ordinateur) or wh…

Ordinateur was not invented when computers came to the market. It was coined in its modern sense of computing machine , not by Proud French People Who Liked Their Language but by IBM France, because they felt that "calculateur" (French for -- whaddya know! -- "something that computes", a literal equivalent for "computer") was too restrictive. In the 1950s, when that happened, "ordinateur" had been in use for a very l…

Side note: It amuses me that "calculator" can be over-analyzed down to "small chalk pebble-token doing thing".

Re: How good is your French accent?

#108

Post by _ak »

sevensor wrote: post #51
notalaser wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ordinateur was not invented when computers came to the market. It was coined in its modern sense of computing machine , not by Proud French People Who Liked Their Language but by IBM France, because they felt that "calculateur" (French for -- whaddya know! -- "something that computes", a literal equivalent for "computer") was too restrictive. In the 1950s, when that happened, "ordinateur" had been in use for a very l…

A better example might be >, which I learned means "VCR" when I studied French in the '90s. Edit: accent

Télécopieur is one of my favourites, it's the fax machine. The fax, i.e. the piece of paper coming out, is the télécopie. Tele-copy, that's something I can get wrap my head around, it actually is a better derivation than from Latin facsimile.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#109

Post by bobmoretti »

teekert wrote: post #31
joeblau wrote: post #27

Funny Story: I was traveling from Portugal back to the U.S. through Charles de Gaulle Airport and my Dad gave me 4 Euros. I went to this little bakery and the man behind the counter asked me what I wanted in French. I mustered up as much throat as I possibly could and said croissant which was apparently good enough for him to go off on this long answer to what I ordered. I looked at him blankly and said "Sorry man, t…

The French are very proud and protective of their language. I have a similar experience, I was asking Je cherche le croissants (or something: I'm looking for croissants), I got a blank stare until my friend made a very theatrical overly french "Croissants!" hand waving and all, then the supermarket guy understood. I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market (ordinateur) or wh…

I think that this reputation is waaaay overblown, due to the mostly futile efforts of the Académie Française to preserve the "pure" French language.

As an American who spent a semester in a high school in France, I remember being shocked hearing our French teacher use "le timing et le planning" discussing our strategy for how to write an in-class essay. This was an ordinary French class for French speakers made up of upper-middle class 11th graders in a stuffy Catholic school.

English loan words (the term itself is valid in French!) are all over the place. "OK" is pervasive. Other examples include "stop", "week-end", "parking", . There are even strange examples where English words are used in ways that make no sense in English. "Footing" means "jogging". "String" means "thong". "Pull" (as in "pullover") means "sweater". "Chewing" means gum. "Baskets" means "sneakers". My favorite though, is "talkie-walkie" where the "l"s are both pronounced.

If you received a blank stare from the supermarket guy, he probably just did not understand what you were saying.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#110

Post by enedil »

dietrichepp wrote: post #52
enedil wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying anything, but Spanish features 'ordenador' for computer alike. French is not that different and alienated.

French and Spanish are already rather similar languages.

Although, both came with this word separately.
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