How good is your French accent?
frenchmeter.com
frenchmeter.com
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.
I think it's more pride than shyness mostly because of history and the rivalry with England. It's unconscious too.
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 ;-)
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).
As it turns out, people are just people everywhere. Some are good, some are terrible.
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!
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.
I haven't met American tourists like that, and I haven't met French people that are arrogant asshole overprotective of their language. Somewhere, there probably are some specimen of both categories, but, as always, anecdote is not evidence, etc.
Disclaimer: I'm french.
This was especially odd because a lot of the Welsh terms for computing subjects were invented and/or standardised after we took the classes, and different colleges were using different terms for the same concepts.
Needless to say, nobody did the exams in Welsh.
(The only Welsh most of us learned was just enough to fake our way into Clwb Ifor Bach, the welsh-speakers' bar/nightclub!)
Many European languages had a local equivalent for "computer" long before electronic computers were around, and French is certainly not the only one that kept it.
Edit: accent
Forced frenchified words that come to mind would be couriel for email, and mot-dièse (literally "sharp word") for "hash tag", when both English terms already are in common use.
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.
I had no idea since nobody I know ever mentioned podcasts to me. Maybe they're all Luddites or they hide their podcast addiction well ;-) Me I exclusively listen to audio books (and I can recommend wholeheartedly the ones from Graphic Audio).
Many European languages have native words for computer. In Swedish it's "dator" (from "datum"), in Finnish "tietokone" (literally "knowledge machine").
The English word "computer" is not a new word, but an old job title reassigned to a machine. It makes sense that other languages might choose a different etymology for an information processing engine.
In my time travelling in France (Paris, Nice and surrounding areas), I made every attempt to say the little things in French. "Bonjour" , "Le menu pour Anglais" or "L'Addition s'il vous plait", "Parlez vous anglais?" etc. The idea was to start any question or conversation in french and then switch to English.
Never did I have a problem over my 2 weeks with anyone. Everyone appreciated the effort to speak the language and was super polite and warm.
My French friends speculated that it could have been xenophobia or specifically that I was mistaken for an Englishman (I'm American, but apparently the French particularly dislike the English?).
At any rate, I had many positive experiences, and even these "negative experiences" weren't particularly negative (this was before being easily offended was fashionable among university students in the U.S.); it was more a neutral, cultural observation.
Turkey has an official government body which regulates the Turkish language and naturalizes foreign loan words. It used to be much more active but people generally still listen to it, why copy the sounds of a foreign word when you can copy the meaning and end up with a word that's much easier to say and remember?
They recently tried to rebrand selfie as özçekim, "self-picture", but I think it's a little too late for that one.
At one time I was moderately competent in French and so was comfortable going up to counters and just asking questions in French without hesitation, in both France and Belgium.
That's to say, I've a lot of experience with this as a foreigner. I've had everything from beaming smiles and responses in French, to confused expressions upon which I've repeated myself more slowly, to grimaces and reluctant replies, to just outright replies in English.
The truth is, the regularity with which you're treated rudely is about the same as anywhere. Sometimes you go to counters, or restaurants, or bars at home and are treated very rudely. The person working there might be genuinely miserable, they might have just spoken to another customer who was rude, they might just be tired. You don't take any of these things to mean anything about the culture where you live. It's just people.
Any type of broad summary of 'the people in X' is always something I take with a massive grain of salt. You hear it all the time. Somebody spent 3 days in Hanoi, and had a friendly interaction with one or two locals, so the Vietnamese are lovely people, while in Hong Kong they had a rude taxi driver, and had a hotel on a busy road, so the people there are a bit ruder, a bit more rushed and loud, they say. Whilst the Australian they met who bought them a beer.. such generous people, those Australians! You get the idea :-)
For example when you enter a store in France you are expected to say "Bonjour" upon entering, and "au revoir" upon leaving.
In north america there is no such custom, so we just walk into stores and do our thing and it bothers no-one.
If you do the same in a smaller shop in France, it's slightly rude.
It's not your fault for not knowing that. Also it's not ok for the shop owner to be rude in response to that, but of course some are.
> In north america there is no such custom, so we just walk into stores and do our thing and it bothers no-one.
Maybe not in New England, but in other parts of America it's standard to say 'hello' and 'goodbye' to the properietor.
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 start with "bonjour"
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.
Different countries have different cultural expectations and customs. In France not saying Bonjour is considered rude (and hello works in Paris by the way), in other countries other things are considered rude. It's not because you're traveling and a tourist that you do not need to try to learn and follow the local customs.
Thank you!
I'd also like to point out that this yahoo seems unaware of his own cultural baggage. I bet he'd consider it extremely rude for someone to cut in front of a line at a bus stop, whereas such things are perfectly acceptable in other countries (in France we hardly have lines at bus stops).
Just like cutting a bus queue can be taken as a disrespect, engaging in a transaction without acknowledging that the person behind the counter is ... well... a person can be taken as looking down on people who serve you.
Just as I don't assume foreigners are conspiring to pounce on unsuspecting tourists who cut lines, I expect our friend switch007 not to assume we're doing the same with respect to saying "hello".
This kind of blatant ethnocetrism betrays self-ignorance that borders on comical, and invites ridicule hereabouts.
I'm about 99% sure this song is supposed to be satire. If you speak French, you'll get a kick out of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-VYdBKwSLc
I speak Tamil. Tamilians invent new words constantly for new concepts and as an example the word for computer is கணினி (ka-ni-ni).
Chinese did out of necessity, because the meaning-based character system fundamentally doesn't work well with foreign sounds.
Well épissage is not a new word just like splicing was not a new word.
Épisser is joining two ropes together by weaving their strands. That's sailor language, not some new word invented to spite the English.
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 same page.
A few examples: μεταγλωττιστής (compiler; lit. someone doing voice-overs of foreign language speech)
λειτουργικό (σύστημα) (operating system; lit. functional system)
πολυπλέκτης (multiplexer; lit. multi-knitter. Note that "plex" is possibly from the Greek for 'knitting', 'pleximo')
σφάλμα κατάτμησης (lit. segmentation fault)
περιηγητής (web browser; lit. explorer or sightseer)
μητρική (motherboard; lit. maternal (card))
And my personal favourite:
αντικειμενοστραφής προγραμματισμός (object oriented programming, literally, in the sense of "oriented" used to denote physically orienting one's body towards a given direction; in other words "programming that is facing objects")
Yes, now we also use "orientar a" to translate other English buzzwords like "orientado a resultados" (result-oriented), "orientado a la productividad" (productivity-oriented), etc. But outside of linguistic calques of modern English expressions and buzzwords, I've never heard or read anyone using "orientar a" for anything else than facing a direction.
I might be wrong, of course, as language is very complex and has a lot of regional variations (in particular Spanish, which changes a lot between Spain and the various Latin American countries); but my perception as a Spanish speaker from Spain is that the term originated from a bad translation of English, and something like "programación centrada en objetos", "basada en objetos", etc. would have been better.
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.
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.
Marketers (in France and many other countries) have realized that the American legacy of progress and technology is still cool and edgy, and helps sell pretty much anything.
It honestly irritates me, as 95% of those intruder words are not only often misused in their context, but have perfect etymologically correct translations in French.
Un steak is spelled the same but pronounced "steck". The Hangover movie was literally called "Bad Trip" in France, instead of "La gueule de bois". "Shopping" is the go-to word to describe purchasing goods, even though "achat" is a perfectly valid word.
I could go on and on: un smartphone, la freebox (router), un smoking (a tuxedo), un string (a thong), wi-fi (this one is worldwide), chewing gum, businessman, boycott, startup, warning...
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!
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 kind of honorific mark they should cultivate.
Me, I've always thought the French accent is the worst ever and I try my best to hide it because it makes me feel retarded.
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.
It impresses Americans, who unconciously assume anything European is more sophisticated. Go to a high-end restaurant in the U.S. and I'll bet your maitre d' has a European accent. Or just look at the top luxury brands; why is a Mercedes somehow more sophisticated than a Lexus? French wine more sophisticated than Californian?
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. So if you want to speak a language with a native accent, you have to experiment with all those parameters, and find what your voice sounds like in that language. For instance, my voice is a bit deeper in English than it is in French; this is particularly noticeable with my female friends who are speak both English and French natively - their voices tend to be very noticeably higher in French.
I've been learning Japanese, and it seems that I get best pronunciation results when my throat is in an even lower, more relaxed position than English. I intend to pick up mandarin at some point and am very much looking forward to experimenting with that, as I have no experience with strongly tonal languages.
Kids get this intuitively, but adults have a much harder time with it- it has to be taught consciously. Which is why most French people, even after living in an English speaking country for many years, retain a horrible French accent. We really ought to be teaching kids from the maternelle, much like many of our European neighbors do.
That being said, one thing I just have never been able to do are regional accents in languages I already speak. I cannot for the life of me speak with a northern French accent (my family's from the south, although I grew up in Lyon so have a mostly neutral accent), or a British accent.
Right! This is why I hate saying English words in the middle of German sentences. It's actually easier to just say them with the German accent, rather than take the effort to rearrange both my mouth and my brain.
When I speak foreign languages I sort of subconsciously imitate characters I've heard speak in movies or shows. I'm always kind of worried my Japanese will sound like a mix of Naruto and Miyazaki characters.
As for regional accents, I find that's more a matter of knowing the little differences in certain words, like extending or shortening syllables, or rather strongly altering the key vowel (eg. Québecois 'nawn' vs. Parisian 'nohn' for 'non'). As you said, has a lot to do with mouth shapes.
For a lot of regional accents, I find you can fake things by transposing certain vowels. eg. for Australian transpose all the eh's (eg. get, head) into i's (eg. git, hid) and using soft r's (git me a beah mate). Whereas in my limited experience New Zealanders have a sharper change from e's to i's - it's almost "geet me a beah". And of course knowing the local slang - adding 'mate' to the end of your sentences just sounds more Australian.
As an example, if you read Irish writing and learn the Irish vowel and consonant sounds / rules you can't help speaking with an Irish accent. E.g. Dun Laoghaire is pronounced Dun Leary with an English accent, but if you read it properly it comes out in an Irish accent.
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.
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.
To native English-speaking ears it does sound kind of fancy. Kind of snobby too, though.
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.
But I'll take the flattery. :)
My favorite language story is from when I was studying in eastern France (Strasbourg). I went across the border to the train station in Kehl, Germany, as I reasoned that train tickets inside Germany (I was on my way to Berlin) would be vastly cheaper than trying to buy the same ticket with an origin in Strasbourg.
Anyway, I know a little bit of German, and suddenly I understood why foreign language classes always start you off with directions and tickets and timetables and so on. So I was all set with my basic train vocabulary. We went back and forth and conducted our business. I gave him my American passport at the end, he seamlessly transitioned to some pleasantry in English as we concluded, and I walked away with my train ticket.
Well, as I walked away, I was pondering his lack of surprise that I was American (which should not have been surprising; my crappy German is clearly not a Frenchman's crappy German), and I replayed the conversation in my head. As I got to the "smoking or non-smoking" part, I realized I could not recall the German word (rauchen, for those keeping score at home). Eventually it came to me, and I realized that he had actually said "smoking oder non" (oder being German for "or").. Well, of course, English with a German accent sounds like German to an English speaker...
And I suddenly realized that we had probably conducted virtually all of the transaction in English, and I had no clue. He probably switched to German-accented English as soon as I did a poor job of asking for a 2nd class ticket to Berlin arriving at this time on that date, and I didn't even realize it.
On the same trip, I was on a train from Italy to France. In my car was a French woman living in England, and an Italian woman. They were practicing on each other so the Italian would talk to the French woman in French, and she'd reply in Italian. This went on for some time. As we prepared to depart the train, the woman's child and husband joined her. I talked to the French woman's husband for 5 minutes or so. Eventually he asked me where I lived and I told him I was from California but studying in France. He turned out to be British, and switched to English and said "oh, well then I guess we can just speak in English then."
I'm sure our French pronunciation wouldn't have fooled a native, but it was good enough for a couple of foreigners.
One time when I was about 16 or 17 I was sent to do an installation at a dairy farm; specifically in the small trailer near the barns where a couple of Mexican migrant workers lived (the farm owner being nice enough to get them a TV subscription, I guess). In this area of the country there aren't a whole lot of Spanish speakers, so I'm guessing that the guys who were hanging out in the trailer just assumed the goofy looking white kid would have no clue what they were saying if they spoke in Spanish.
Little did they know that I studied Spanish in school for the better part of a decade (and actually paid attention/practiced), so I could understand most of what they were saying, and it was not good. It was a lot of complaining about the farm owner (who did not speak Spanish) and about how this "trash was not an excuse for better pay and working conditions". They definitely sounded bitter about their situation.
So when the time came to activate the satellite receiver I had to use their telephone to call the provider to turn it on, for fun I asked, "Puedo usar el telephono?" I have never seen anyone get more quiet and solemn this quickly. Neither of them said another word the rest of the time I was there, presumably in fear of me ratting them out (of course I didn't).
Here in Canada we have a french region, and if you walk into a mechanic's shop and say: “Hi! Does anybody speak english here? Can you fix my car?” They will help you, but if you make an attempt like: “Bon Jur. Can you fixé le car for moi?” They will be a lot more happy to accommodate you in English because you tried to bridge the gap. Maybe it's similar!
Have you considered the fact that they might have been foreign tourists like you? A French hiker would not greet you in English unless he clearly heard you speak in it on the way in, and even then. (am French).
Duolingo French elicits speech, but I fear that it is set so permissive as to hardly be helpful (I haven't dared to test feeding it nonsense or clearly incorrect pronunciations yet). There's a Czech-learning app I use that uses speech recognition to test the user's pronunciation, but the implementation is bad: it is fairly strict, and the speech recognition simply tries to interpret the speech (rather than gauging correctness), so it frequently misinterprets the user's utterance as another statement entirely. Which is frustrating and unhelpful.
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.
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?
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187234-d20819...
I'm at the point where I'd have a hard time following dialogue in a TV show (although, to be fair, that's always hard for foreigners), but am rarely identified as american by native french-speakers; they usually guess German or something similar (more plausible to know French well, but still with the harder-edged anglo accent; I'm clearly not an Italian or Spaniard... well, okay, I AM Italian, but do not speak Italian).
Anyway, what I mean to say is my background with the language is complicated, and my french is far from perfect. Typically I managed in the 80-100% range depending on words.
Anybody know the goal of the project?
tough trough though through thought thorough
Or, as commonly found on the internet: "English is weird, but it can be understood through tough thorough thought though..."
Oh dear, I gave myself semantic satiation just by writing this out.
As a Canadian I'm a bit surprised though as all the words it was able to detect I got 100% scores - I know a lot of the Quebecois french pronunciations we learn in Canada are very different than French from France so it'd be interesting to hear how that is taken into account.
I really hope they keep going on this project as mastering accents is one of the largest gaps right now in online language learning and market leaders either lack the feature all together (like Duolingo) or do a rubbish job of it and charge a fortune (like Rosetta Stone).
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 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.
In Québec, we were cut off from France after the British won the war, so our accent remained closer to the "Bel Usage."
In my linguistics classes it was always drilled into us that no accent is 'better' than any other. However ...
I personally prefer my accent, It is more demotic and earthy, it's the language of my grandmother and my ancestors, not of the village priest or the politician making a speech.
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.
[1]: http://legoutdufrancais.org/dou-vient-laccent-des-quebecois-...
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 pronounce the final "t" in "tout" or the "i" in "envoie" for example :)
Indeed, much like English, which is possibly worse, French is known precisely for the fact that it sounds so different from the way it's written.
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»
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.
The Quebecois programming was inevitably subtitled in (real) French, which was an endless source of humor for me.
On the other hand, while Quebec French has its regional expressions (as do most US, UK and French regions), it's fascinating how the language and accent has changed in 30-40 years only.
This archive video from 1963 church-era is hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HjSfZWI-ZA -- Radio-Canada interviewing a bunch of people at the municipal pool asking them about short shorts. Lots of different accents.
But if you tell me it's difficult even for Americans I'm a bit reassured about my abilities ;-)
She is not impressed ;)
Reading through the comments, before loading the page itself, I got really interested. Finally I clicked on the page just to find out that it is for Apple devices only. Quelle discrimination in the age of HTML5! If I only had a button to down-vote!
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?").