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How good is your French accent?

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Re: How good is your French accent?

#141

Post by jmnicolas »

yodsanklai wrote: post #126

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 an…

I'm French too and if you read more of the comments you will find more positive things about us.

By the way, if they form an opinion on France by how they are treated by parisiens I can understand they don't appreciate the experience.

We're much friendlier in province ;-)

Re: How good is your French accent?

#142

Post by rawfan »

webreac wrote: post #125
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…

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

We actually use that in German too. We don't have computer science at university, we call it Informatik. Checking out Wikipedia it seems you [borrowed](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatique#.C3.89tymologie) this mot-valise. ;)

Re: How good is your French accent?

#143

Post by programLyrique »

jmnicolas wrote: post #141
yodsanklai wrote: post #126

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 an…

I'm French too and if you read more of the comments you will find more positive things about us. By the way, if they form an opinion on France by how they are treated by parisiens I can understand they don't appreciate the experience. We're much friendlier in province ;-)

I am French and I've lived both in "province" (means not in Paris...) and in Paris, and I don't think that's particulary accurate to say that people are much friendlier in province. I've met friendly people both in Paris and in "province" as well as unfriendly ones...

In my opinion, it's just a way of reenforcing this dichotomy between Paris and "province" (and this word is also part of that scheme).

Re: How good is your French accent?

#144

Post by rawfan »

jmnicolas wrote: post #129
chrstphrhrt wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wait, what? No Podcasting in France? Go start a Podcast ;)

Re: How good is your French accent?

#145

Post by vidarh »

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 know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market (ordinateur)

Norwegian: datamaskin. Until the mid 80's it was widely debated what name to use, with datamaskin, data, komputer og dator (from Swedish) as common alternatives.

Icelandic apparently uses "tölva" - basically "prophetess of numbers" (from "tala" and "völva").

Swedish: dator (can be precisely dated to 1968). You can also use "datamaskin" in Swedish as well, but it is dated.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#146

Post by defen »

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…

> it sounds like French, flowing from sentence to sentence with the typical melody.

I've heard this described as stress-timed (English) vs syllable-timed (French) languages. Stress-timed meaning the time between stressed syllables is roughly equal, whereas syllable-timed means each syllable is roughly equal length.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#147

Post by OJFord »

yodsanklai wrote: post #126

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 an…

That sounds more like Paris than France as a whole; it's certainly not my experience of many childhood visits to Normandy.

My French never improved while over there, because they'd never give me an opportunity to use it - I'd open my mouth once and it would become immediately clear to them that their English surpassed my French!

Re: How good is your French accent?

#148

Post by etqwzutewzu »

GuiA wrote: post #59
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'm French, and speak American English natively (i.e., when people meet me they think I'm American and when I tell them I'm French it takes them a bit of time to believe me - "you mean, you have french parents but were born here?" etc.). Most people don't realize that a language's accent is a physical thing. Your throat, nose, tongue behave differently when speaking different languages. If you're French, you can't sp…

> Most people don't realize that a language's accent is a physical thing. Your throat, nose, tongue behave differently when speaking different languages. If you're French, you can't speak English while keeping the same physical arrangement of your mouth and throat than when you speak French.

Interesting theory but as a counterexample in Switzerland in the western side of the country people speak French natively and generally their English accent is way better than the English accent in French people. I think it has a lot to do with the culture of the country; for example the protection of the language is not considered as important in Switzerland as it is in France. In France radio stations have minimun quota for French music, something unthinkable in Switzerland.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#149

Post by rmason »

mangeletti wrote: post #105
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 restaurants name is Le Colbert. I suspect the place is under new ownership now. I visited in '76 and my parent's in '88. This link references a female, not a male owner:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187234-d20819...

Re: How good is your French accent?

#150

Post by OJFord »

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…

I had a very similar experience when I was very young and had been sent off on my bike to buy a couple of baguettes.

I must've looked totally bewildered; I remember just repeating the phrase "deux baguettes, svp." every time the guy said anything.

Fortunately a kind and patient lady in the queue behind me explained that he was telling me they had none left!

I fled the shop as quickly as I could with a "merci beaucoup" - as if I was kidding anybody by that point that I spoke French!

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