Ah, english....
by joon
English is so amazing. There is a word for everything!
I learned recently the word "to frown", that I would translate by "faire la moue". So as usual, french needs at least three words to describe something. And even it is not quite right.
Also, how on earth would you describe the world "fluffy"? I still can't find anything in french which describes "fluffy". Especially because you can talk about food or animals, or scarf even...
It is interesting how language describe different reality. As people "inuit" have 50 ways to describe different kind of snow, we have a different way to use languages according to different reality. Don't ask me why "fluffy" is so used here and in so many circumstances...but keep using this word, because it is so awesome!
Also today I said: "Je pars dans deux minutes, il faut que je "grab" mon dejeuner." I realize after all. "to grab" is again a very precise thing to do. And that was totally describing what I was gonna do. The french here failed to give me a better and well, quicker way to express myself. I should have said " Je dois "passer prendre" mon dejeuner". (I have to grab my lunch) Brain choose what is quicker and closer to the reality of the actions....
Finally after witing this entry I got my dictionary out to look at some translations...ahaha:
To frown: froncer les sourcils (3 words - seems very close together but we still need three words to precise, though we will reused the verb "froncer" in other situation.)
Fluffy: duveteux - pelucheux...never, never used in a normal casual conversation.
La langue anglaise est tout de meme incroyable. Il existe un mot pour tout. J'ai appris un nouveau mot recemment "to frown" que je traduirai comme ca sans dictionnaire par "faire la moue", ce qui necessite encore une fois au moins trois mots en francais. Et c'est pas vraiment ca. En fait je suis finalement aller voir la traduction dans le dictionnaire: "froncer les sourcils ". Encore trois mots.... La racine du mot est peut etre la meme quand meme.
Autre mot : "fluffy", ah, "fluffy" Utilise a toutes les sauces ici. Du gateau a la pate "fluffy" a l'echarpe que tu as tricote avec de la "fluffy" laine jusqu'au petit animal qui est mignon parce qu'il est "fluffy".
Alors la, dans le dictionnaire on trouve "duveteux, pelucheux". Ah, bref, ce mot decrit une realite qu'on a pas en France, c'est "fluffy", non?
D'ailleurs en parlant de realite... aujourd'hui j'en ai fait une belle phrase franco anglaise :
"Je pars dans deux minutes, il faut que je "grab" mon dejeuner."
"to grab" est une facon de prendre les choses, c'est un peu attraper a la volee, en passant! Mais la desolee, le francais n'a pas semble m'offrir la meilleure facon de m'exprimer de facon rapide et precise!
Posted on April 4, 2006 | Comments (6)
Le "schredder" / The "dechiqueteuse"
by joon
Il y a longtemps je parlais francais... maintenant quand je vais en France, mes amis et membres de ma famille se moque de moi car je ressemble a Jean-Claude Vandamme car je cherche mes mots et j'utilise des mots franglais... eh bah oui, je ne me moque plsu de lui dorenavant, enfin pas pour son francais en tout cas meme s'il exagere sacrement.
Perdre ta propre langue est parfois frustrant et paniquant. Ca fait peur de realiser que tu perds un peu de ton identite, de ton passe mais quand tu as choisi de vivre a l'etranger ou / et de vivre avec quelqu'un qui parle une autre langue, tu dois apprendre a vivre avec. D'ailleurs ce ne sont pas les seules choses avec ou sans lesquelles tu dois apprendre a vivre! Enfin, ca c'est une toute autre histoire.
Here we go, I wanted to post this entry a long time ago but well I didn't.
One week ago I was talking to one of my coworker, she has been living here for one year now but live by herself and well speak french 80% of the time. I told her that as soon as you starting losing your french, which means that english is taking over...it is a good sign. It means your english is getting better.
Well, for me and some of those coworkers who are sharing your life with someone whose mother tongue is english, your french is so bad that in France people are making fun of you and call you Jean-Claude Vandamme because you are not speaking french correctly anymore and you have sometimes very very long "pause" to look for your words. I am not making fun of Jean Claude Vandamme anymore. Not true, I am still making fun of him because he is still ridiculous anywhere he goes, but I am not making fun of him because of his french, even though, he exagerates too much.
Losing your own language is sometimes scary, panicking and frustrating. It is hard to realize that you are losing a part of your identity, a part of your past but when you plan on living abroad or/and when you are married to someone who is speaking another language, you have to learn to live with it. Not only things you have to learn to live with or without, anyway, this is a total different chapter.
So I don't speak a good french anymore, it is full of hesitation and english words now. But it doesn't matter at school, because we are all talking this way.
Je ne parle plus un tres bon francais. C'est plein d'hesitation et de mots bizarres maintenant. Mais en fait, a l'ecole, c'est pas tres grave parce que tout le monde fait la meme chose.
So you will find here some of the "frenglish" words used by french people living here. It is time for you to learn a new language...
Un peu de "franglais":
- Qwhat? (mix between "quoi" and "what". I didn't create it on purpose, it arrives in my mouth like that)
- Ce serait bien de "switcher" le planning, non? (it would be good to switch planning)
- Et si on fait "two" fois "eight" (and if we were doing two time eight)
- il faut que j'aille a la "librairie" ("librairie" in french is "bookstore", bibliotheque is "library")
- Si tu fais ca, tu vas etre en probleme ( I translated a sentence litterally from english and it's the worst, it doesn't mean anything said like that...I meant :"If you do that you are gonna be in trouble", which is "si tu fais ca tu vas avoir des problemes")
- N'oublie pas ta "pumpkin" (Don't forget your pumpkin "citrouille")
- Tu sais ca (litterally translated from "you know that", god, it is so wrong to say that. I can't stop though. But it is always after saying it that I realize that it is so wrrroooong! We should say : " Tu le sais", or "tu sais". Worse would be "tu connais ca")
- Pour toi de savoir (litterally translated from "For you to know". We were saying it on purpose because one of our american coworker was saying that all the time. But now, we are actually saying it...we should say "Pour que tu le saches")
- Le "shredder"... Rebecca, one of our front desk person has a little garbage where I always ask her to put some paper to shred. The thing is I say : "Peux tu mettre ca dans le "shredder"?" And you imagine here "shredder" with the beautiful french "RRRRR" and it sounds awesome! But she finally asked me one day..."what is the french word for "shReddeR" and I thought about it a long time and realize, I had no idea, we asked around and no one knew and we bet between her and I that the first one to find out would have some chocolates...
The thing is that, french don't us a "chredeur" (shredder) because we don't have all those Identity theft problems and I am sure some companies use some but it is not that common. So after days, I finally went on internet and it was not easy to find the word because the only time I saw it was on a special site for offices stuffs and even there, the french word was not used. So finally, I found: "dechiqueteuse" which is a great word enjoyable to use but it doesn't even describe the reality of the "dechiqueteuse" job! Conclusion, there is no word in french to describe what a shredder does to paper! Interesting! The french word would be more a description of what my cat did to my mail one day
Ah, francais, francaise, je vous presente le "chredeur" ou "shredder" ou "dechiqueteuse". Qui parmi mes francophones lecteurs a entendu parler de ce mot avant? Parce que pour moi c'est tout nouveau. Je crois que ce concept en France n'existe pas vraiment. "Dechiqueter", mon chat m'a dechiquete mon courrier un jour mais ca ressemble pas a ce que le "shredder" fait!
Here you will find a conversation between two persons living here and whose mothertongue was french 100000000 years ago:
Ci dessous, vous pouvez lire un extrait de ce que peut etre une conversation entre deux francaises lorsqu'elles parlaient francais 1000000000 ans auparavant:
- Alors, tu vois, moi je "freak out".
- Mais j'avais deja fait tout mon "plan" de la semaine.
- Oui, "je sais ca" mais est ce que tu as vu le "schedule".
- Non, peut etre qu'on devrait "switcher", toi, tu vas a la "librairie". Et moi, je reste dans la gym, mais ya encore les "mats".
- What? Enfin, quoi?
- Oh au fait, je change de sujets mais j'ai vu des "shoes" l'autre jour!
- Ou ca, oh bah au croisement de "broadway and fifteen"!
- Classe. Combien ?
- Bah 100 dollars, mais bon je peux pas. Ah, attends ca c'est pour le "shredder"
- Anyway! Je dois y aller.
- Ok. Bye!
Should I translate?
Posted on March 11, 2006 | Comments (2)
Accents...
by joon
Because where I work is maybe the axes of the evil...I mean we are all speaking french, you can find a little list stuck on the side of the computers screen. On this list it is written all the codes to get our special letters, all our vowels with accent. I can't find the way to write them here but on a PC, try shift and 133 for example. Very useful when you write things in french.
Parce que ou je travaille est le lieu par excellence de la langue francaise ici, on trouve colle sur le cote de l'ecran de l'ordinateur la liste de tous les codes pour pouvoir ecrire le "e" accent aigu par exemple. Chose que je ne peux pas faire ici avec cet ordinateur. Essayez sur un PC! Par exemple shift + 133 et vous obtenez le "a" avec accent!
Posted on September 23, 2004 | Comments (0)
kokikoko...[fone:tik] & animals(aux)
by joon
When we study phonetic, we learn that until around ten years old, everyone is able to hear all the sounds that a human being can produce and there is a lot !
After this age, little by little, we are becoming deaf to the foreign languages, or rather to the sounds which don’t exist in our own language... Our ears and brain programmed everything to recognize and use the sounds you have heard since your birth ... your parents’ language(s).
Of course, it depends also on people. But this phenomenon is the same for everyone. Basically, when it’s hard to pronounce something, or when we don’t make the difference between two apparently differents sounds and (damn it) we are sure it’s the same so we think we pronounce it well and it’s wrong... no panic, it’s normal, it’s because of your ears, or your brain or this weird stuff.
I think teachers should say that to children. It can explain some of the difficulties and could help a little! At least, it could avoid the loss of self-confidence we can feel sometimes!
Now I try to really care when I speak in english because I noticed several of my problems of pronounciation few months ago.
Example: there are three kind of sound close to [i] in english.
- One is pronounced as in french: “flea, sea...”
- The other is the hardest because the sound doesn’t exist in french but it is written like our“i” (which is pronounced like “ea”). This sound is more between the french [i] and “é ”. It is necessary to transform the mechanic of our jaw, how we use our lips, tongue, teeth... And of course, this one is current: “it, is, if, in...”
- The third is as the first but longer. Even if you don’t pronounce it correctly, it doesn’t really matter. It won’t change the sense of the words! Rather until now, I didn’t noticed any problem.
Anyway...
All this to say that all the sounds we hear in our lives are not exactly like what we think they are. We always transform them to be able to pronounce them according to the sounds of our language.
Do you follow me? If you have any question or even better some stuffs about what you disagree or more precisions, I will be happy to chat about it! I love it!
For the fun animals sounds...see the bottom of the french part.
Quand vous étudiez la phonétique, vous apprenez que jusqu’à l’âge de 10 ans à peu près, vous êtes capable d’entendre tous les sons que l’humain peut produire et dieu sait s’il y en a !
Après çà, eh bien peu à peu on devient sourd aux langues étrangères ou plutôt aux sons qui n’existent pas dans notre propre langue. En gros, nos oreilles et notre cerveau se basent sur les sons entendus dans notre enfance.
Je suppose aussi que tout cela dépend des gens puis que certains sont plus ou moins doués mais il n’empêche que personne n’échappe à ce phénomène.
Ce serait bien que les profs expliquent çà. Je suis sûre que cela peut aider.
Bref, quand tu prononces quelque chose et que c’est difficile ou que tu crois que tu prononces correctement et que tu t’aperçois que c’est faux, eh bien, c’est normal !
Maintenant en anglais j’essaie de faire attention et notamment l’histoire des [i]. Car en anglais y en a trois…
- le « ea » prononcé comme chez nous,
- le « i » prononcé entre notre « i » et « é » et là tu t’amuses parce que ce son n’existe absolument pas en français et tu dois transformer la manière dont tu utilises ta mâchoire…Et en plus c’est le plus courant puisque tu le trouves partout : « it, if, in… », tout ce qui s’écrit avec un «i » !
- le [i] légèrement plus long, le plus difficile à cerner finalement mais pas de panique peu à peu il disparaît et en plus n’occasionne pas de difficultés à vous faire comprendre si vous le faîtes mal !
Bref, tout çà pour vous dire que tous les sons que vous entendez ne sont pas tout à fait comme vous le pensez ou devrais-je dire comme vous croyez les entendre. Notre oreille va entreprendre quelques adaptations du son entendu afin de pouvoir prononcer le son.
Exemple… « I love him » comme « I love eam »…
Good and fun examples are sounds of animal...I asked a japanese girl some of them...
Bons exemples et amusants ...
French/Français: (f)... Japanese/Japonais: (j)
cock / coq ...(f) Cocorico (j) Kokikoko
cat / chat.... (f) Miaou (j) Niao
dog / chien ... (f) Ouaf ouaf (j) Ouin ouin
frog / grenouille... (f) Croâ croâ (j) Kero Kero
pig / cochon... (f) (unwritable) (j) Bu bu
cow / vache... (f) Meuh (j) Mo
goat / chèvre... (f) Bêêê (j) Mêêê
duck / canard... (f) Coin coin (j) Goua Goua
In japanese, I wrote with my abc that is to say how I heard the sound so of course “goua” in english should be something like “gwa” .
But “euh”, sorry uuuhhh, the most important is the cock! Isn’t that great?
And please note that it’s closer to the french one so the truth...cocorico, kokikoko... (I have a proof, I knew I was sure our “coq’s sound” is the real one!) though “cockduldoo” even if it’s cute (my parents thought it was cute!), come on...
Oh my god, I have just remembered why our mascot, symbol is the cock...because we say “proud like a cock”. I am so french... Ok I like cockduldoo... just impossible to write!
By the way, I discovered that my father can imitate the turkey!
Au fait, j’ai découvert que mon père sait imiter le dindon!
Please can you complete my repertory of sounds. English, spanish...everything...I love them!
Allez si vous connaissez d’autres sons d’autres langues...,je les adore!
Posted on June 18, 2004 | Comments (5)