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How good is your French accent?

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Re: How good is your French accent?

#121

Post by jpgauthier »

wibr wrote: post #77
grondilu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm French as well. When I saw the title of this post, I thought it was about how French you sound when you speak English, not how well you can speak French. The thing is, there are a lot of very educated French people who, when they speak English, have an extremely accentuated French accent. Typically scientists and politicians. It's like they don't make any effort whatsoever or think that the French accent is some…

I think an accent is perfectly fine (everybody has some kind of accent), as long as it doesn't significantly increase the effort for others to understand you. From my experience listening to some French people speaking English, you actually have to remind yourself that they are speaking English and not French. They might use English words and grammar, but it sounds like French, flowing from sentence to sentence with…

You are completely right. Speaking French is actually more than a different set of words, a different grammar and an accent (it probably applies to a lot of other languages). It's also a different mindset. We tend to use a lot of words and expressions to say something that can be summed up in one word in English. Moreover, French people like to speak with images instead of words. So, a word-for-word translation from French to English, which is what most of us do, results in confusing sentences that are hard to follow. Even if I'm a native French speaker, I always have a hard time trying to understand my fellow Frenchies speaking English, but I might be biased...

Re: How good is your French accent?

#122

Post by oblio »

switch007 wrote: post #119
omginternets wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autre Frenchie ici-présent. I concur. A tip to foreigners: it's considered exceptionally rude not to say hello to someone behind the counter, or when entering a store. I often cringe when I see Americans order something at a café counter: they have the best intentions, they're trying hard to be polite, and right off the bad they commit a huge faux-pas by immediately saying "un café s'il vous plait!". tl;dr: always st…

Only the French could describe asking for a coffee with "please" on the end as "exceptionally rude". It's almost petty. You will forgive any other faux-pas as long as you start the interaction with "bonjour"? And if you mis-pronounce "bonjour"? Do we need to seek forgiveness from the President? I like flying over France and going to Spain and Italy where none of this nonsense exists.

Bonjour is easy mode. You should see how many words you have to say when you leave a store :D

Re: How good is your French accent?

#123

Post by LeoPanthera »

chrstphrhrt wrote: post #101
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…

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

baladodiffusion means "podcasting". podcast is "balado"

Re: How good is your French accent?

#124

Post by switch007 »

rconti wrote: post #24
grondilu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm French as well. When I saw the title of this post, I thought it was about how French you sound when you speak English, not how well you can speak French. The thing is, there are a lot of very educated French people who, when they speak English, have an extremely accentuated French accent. Typically scientists and politicians. It's like they don't make any effort whatsoever or think that the French accent is some…

It's very strange how some people can add or drop accents at will, and others can move away from their home country at a young age and simply NEVER lose their accent. I work for a company that moved from Paris to California, so we have a large number of native French speakers who still work with us; it's an interesting dynamic.

I find it strange too. My grandmother moved to England from Italy over 60 years ago but she sounds like she arrived a couple of weeks ago. I think it's a combination of wanting to maintain her Italian identity and talking daily/weekly to other people in Italian. It must take effort, even if subconsciously (e.g. wanting to fit in, thinking it affects the way people perceive you, not being understood etc), because it clearly doesn't happen automatically.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#125

Post by webreac »

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…

We have also the word "informatique" which is not exactly computer science nor software engineering.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#126

Post by yodsanklai »

Lot of stereotypes in the comments. I'm little disappointed to read that on HN.

Some commenters tell they had bad experiences in France. In my opinion, it's a case of confirmation bias and lack of understanding of cultural differences. For many reasons, you can't expect the same types of interactions with a waiter in Paris and one in NYC or Tokyo. I think people traveling to foreign countries should be open-minded and understand that things may work a little differently than in their home country.

The French aren't arrogant assholes overprotective of their language! that's just plain stereotype. Yes, they don't speak English as well as Swedes for instance, but not worse than let say Italians. Besides, there are tons of English words making their way in the French language.

Also, French people are often shy of speaking English. Sadly, we tend to make fun of each other, and those that haven't had the opportunity to practice outside school are often embarrassed to speak English.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#127

Post by gerbilly »

seszett wrote: post #97
gerbilly wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> I find it funny how Parisians almost twist themselves in knots to over-pronounce every written letter of every word. It's almost as if it references the _written_ word more than the spoken one. While in my opinion it's generally true that in France (and not especially in Paris) the written language constitutes the reference more than it does Québec, I think you might be slightly biased here: Nobody in France would…

>Nobody in France would pronounce the final "t" in "tout" or the "i" in "envoie" for example

That's true there are still silent letters.

Ironically in Québec you sometimes hear the 'i' in «envoie».

I find that Québec french in general tends to have preserved a lot of dipthongs that Parisian french has eliminated.

I would still describe Parisian french as «une prononciation recherchée»

Re: How good is your French accent?

#129

Post by jmnicolas »

chrstphrhrt wrote: post #101
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…

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

No we don't. To be frank, podcasts are not a (big) thing here.

I love how Quebecois are always inventing these funny french words, always put a smile on my face.

I got to talk to my friends about 'baladodiffusions' but I'm not sure that they all know what a podcast is so I doubt they will appreciate this new word to its full extent.

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