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How good is your French accent?

frenchmeter.com

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Re: How good is your French accent?

#161

Post by hakcermani »

rconti wrote: post #30
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…

Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsy3-ZfbqW0

And this one ! ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLuc6rtWkrM )

Re: How good is your French accent?

#162

Post by ubernostrum »

omginternets wrote: post #56
matthiasb wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frenchie here. I think it is a very common misunderstanding. My bet is that if you got a blank stare, the person just had no idea what you were saying. It has nothing to do with your proud or protection our language. I got a lot of blank stares when I moved to the US 10 years ago ;-)

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…

It varies a lot. Last time I was in Paris there were people who were easy to deal with, and people who weren't. I can typically start a conversation in French, and carry out simple tasks like ordering/buying things, asking for directions. And that seems to help a lot, as does the fact that I've been told I have a Québecois accent (my first immersion in French was on a trip to Québec) and so I probably get taken for Canadian rather than American. But there are still many people whose entire attitude changes when they hear someone walking in and holding a conversation in English before switching to French, and I've actually been unable to get a table at a restaurant, or get help finding something in a store, when that happened.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#163

Post by Max_Mustermann »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #106
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

But in Spanish you can use "orientar" in a figurative sense. I fail to see the problem.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#164

Post by alouanchi »

grondilu wrote: post #22
cpa wrote: post #15

I'm french so I had to try it out! Although I got 90-100% on all words, I was able to get 50+% on most words doing what I think is a strong (but totally understandable) american accent in french. That was fun!

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 funny when you read the comments, I got the same issue when I move to UK, trying to hide my accent or let's say trying not to have an accent. What I learned is they don't mind your accent while you are trying to speak their English. The experience made me change the way I see others speaking/learning languages.

Nowadays it's all down to the communication and it's why I learn languages at the first place, being able to communicate and having fun learning from each other.

Unfortunately is not always the case in France, where we expect people to speak French as it should be, hopefully with more people travelling and having experiences abroad we will be more open when foreigners try to speak French.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#165

Post by alouanchi »

funkaster wrote: post #35

Funny, maybe cute, but not very useful if you're actually trying to learn a new language. Having "perfect" accent is pointless. When learning a new language you should aim for learning grammar, understanding basic pronunciation, but not "speaking with native accent". That's pointless, unless you're a spy[1] (Look the answer to "Q: Is it possible to acquire a language to a "native" level?"). [1]: http://www.themoscowt…

+1

Re: How good is your French accent?

#166

Post by jacalata »

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…

There are many languages that don't use the English word 'computer': http://www.omniglot.com/language/names/computerparts.htm

Re: How good is your French accent?

#167

Post by bane »

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've visited France (Paris mostly) in the off season and found it a great experience. In general people were as friendly or helpful as any other large city I've been in.

I can imagine when tourists are clogging up everything people's tempers get short (I know mine do and I live near a major tourist friendly city). Anybody who wasn't overtly friendly was at least reasonably professional and I can't recall any specifically negative interaction with any French person during my stay. Language was sometimes a barrier, but nearly everybody we interacted with was patient and kind with our terrible abuse of our few French words.

I remember one evening trying to find a certain restaurant, my wife stopped a lady out on her evening exercise/walk and asked for directions. This lovely Parisian woman not only offered directions, but made a better restaurant recommendation, walked us the dozen or so blocks over to it and made arrangements with the staff to let us dine there even without proper reservations.

Every place has some bad things as well, things that can be constructively criticized. I'm an American and it's pretty obvious we screw up all kinds of things and those things are worthy of comment or criticism, France is no different in that respect.

France is beautiful, the people are great and I came away very impressed with the country and the people. I also learned a lot and came away with new perspectives on many things I had taken for granted before. French citizens have a tremendous amount to be proud of.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#168

Post by bane »

programLyrique wrote: post #143
jmnicolas wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> I've met friendly people both in Paris and in "province" as well as unfriendly ones...

As it turns out, people are just people everywhere. Some are good, some are terrible.

Re: How good is your French accent?

#169

Post by montbonnot »

funkaster wrote: post #35

Funny, maybe cute, but not very useful if you're actually trying to learn a new language. Having "perfect" accent is pointless. When learning a new language you should aim for learning grammar, understanding basic pronunciation, but not "speaking with native accent". That's pointless, unless you're a spy[1] (Look the answer to "Q: Is it possible to acquire a language to a "native" level?"). [1]: http://www.themoscowt…

This app is indeed the complete opposite of what you're looking for. The FrenchMeter is not meant to teach French. It focuses on the spoken aspect of the language, unlike most of the apps out there.
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