How much an English speaker knows French without learning it
<<" - Qu'est ce que vous avez fait de beau?
- Nous avons invité ici, chez nous, des amis pour fêter le nouvel emploi de Marc. Te rappelle-tu de Marc, notre ami Parisien? Tu l'as connu quand nous sommes allées à Paris l'année dernière. Je t'ai téléphoné à toi aussi, mais...
- Ah, figure-toi, hier je me suis balladée toute la journée! Qui d'autre est venu?
- Laure et Paul, Claire, Marcel et Catherine sont venus. "
>>
I can't understand anything.
This is quite questionable.
"Nous avons invité ici, chez nous, des amis pour fêter le nouvel emploi de Marc"
The relationship of Fr. "fêter" and "emploi" to Eng. "fete" and "employ" is somewhat more transparent than to It. "festa" and "impiego".
" I can't understand anything. "
That's logical; Anglophones can't understand even very basic french without having learning it. The two languages are part of two different linguistic families. that's all. It would be better that Anglophones accept the reality of their language, and the reality is that this language is far to look like french or to any other romance language. There is nothing bad being germanic-speaking.
All those claims that told endlessly that english is made of half french is bullshit. And inversely a french that never did learn english can't understand english more than he would with german or Dutch. English has borrowed from french, that the only reason why you can find some words that are the same; this is not because those languages are similar but just because English has integrated some french words in its vocabulary; like the also (as all languages) integrated form many languages. That french and English both use the persian word "pyjama" doesn't make those language easier to understand.
<<Ask an Italian without any knowledge of french; he/she will understand everything >>
There's also a lot of vocabulary that an english speaker would recognize, but an Italian or spanish speaker would not.
For example, Italian and Spanish, don't have words like "nuance" and "chagrin" etc. but English does.
... no other language in the world is as deeply influenced/affected by french as english is. The common vocabulary between french/english is VAST.
Observer ask Matko whether I can speak Spanish and French or not.. I've learnt all latin languages deeply, now I'm learning catalan...
<<...English and French... both share a very rare feature among major IE languages: they are not mutually intelligible with any other. >>
I think this is mainly because the related languages went extinct, and not because they are unique languages.
The dialect which is now modern french was part of a continuum, and had many closely related mutually intelligible neighbors (oil languages) - they just got wiped out for political reasons creating the illusion of a isolated french language.
Learning all the Romance languages would be deadly boring. They are all more or less the same.
Franco, nobody is interested in your opinion!
<< The dialect which is now modern french was part of a continuum, and had many closely related mutually intelligible neighbors (oil languages) - they just got wiped out for political reasons creating the illusion of a isolated french language. >>
-- How come such utterly moronic assumptions show up so often?
Starting from Latin, I like analysing the evolution of the main Romance languages in their main aspects of phonology, syntax and morphology. On the whole, they are less similar and straightforward than most people think. As a matter of fact, most people who know more than a romance language tend to mix them, confusing grammar, vocabulary and particularly syntax.
" The dialect which is now modern french was part of a continuum, and had many closely related mutually intelligible neighbors (oil languages) - they just got wiped out for political reasons creating the illusion of a isolated french language "
french is nothing like an isolated language, unlike English might be.
By the way the "oil languages" are not considered separate language but are dialects of French. Standard french is just one oil dialect among others. outside of Oil dialects, french is far to be isolated from the other romance languages.
Let's compare i you have a hard time to understand;
(fr-oc-cat-sp-it - en)
Tous les êtres humains naissent libres et égaux en dignité et en droits.
Totes los èssers umans naisson liures e egals en dignitat e en dreches.
Tots els éssers humans neixen lliures i iguals en dignitat i en drets
Todos los seres humanos nacen libres e iguales en dignidad y derechos
Tutti gli esseri umani nascono liberi ed eguali in dignità e diritti
(All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights)
French is in no way out of context; the words are all clearly understandable/recognisable and the word order is the exact same.
If we look closer at how the words look like, the french version is far to be the most derivative, especially when we compare with occitan and Catalan.
But even when comparing FR-SP-IT, the french words are not either distinctively different from their Italian and Spanish version; most of the time it is even the inverse:
tous - todos - tutti
Are "tutti" and "todos" more similar together than (fr) "tous" ??
les - los - gli
Are "gli" and "los" more similar together than (fr) "les" ??
humains - humanos - umani
Are "umani" and "humanos" more similar together than (fr) "humains" ??
naissent - nacen - nascono
Are "nascono" and "nacen" more similar together than (fr) "naissent" ??
libres - libres - liberi
Are "liberi" and "libres" more similar together than (fr) "libres" ??
et - y - ed
Are "y" and "ed" more similar together than (fr) "et" ??
en - en - in
Are "in" and "en" more similar together than (fr) "en" ??
dignité - dignidad - dignita
Are "dignidad" and "dignita" more similar together than (fr) "dignité" ??
droits - derechos - diritti
Are "derechos" and "diritti" more similar together than (fr) "droits" ??
" For example, Italian and Spanish, don't have words like "nuance" and "chagrin" etc. but English does. "
How many Anglophone people use "nuance" and "chagrin"? I think most people, not as much educated as you are would prefer to use the original english word "sorrow" than the french word that english as borrowed "chagrin"... I suspect that many English speaking people might not even know what "chagrin" means. Am I wrong?
<<... no other language in the world is as deeply influenced/affected by french as english is. The common vocabulary between french/english is VAST. >>
WWOW, you seem rather overbearingly proud of this! Not that there is anything wrong with French: there isn't. But tell an anglophone that his language is not like French and he takes severe offense...hehe WHY!?
Even where English has French words, they are not always words that survive in Modern French or any other Romance language.
Take for instance Franco-English words "huge", "abet", "bacon" (in French, "bacon" was reintroduced from English), "brawn", "random", "dismay", "elope", "garbage", "guile", "liege", "perform", "rebuke", "waive", "rubbish", "vagrant", "tryst"...none of these are found in French anymore...so just because English has French words doesn't make it "like French"
" WWOW, you seem rather overbearingly proud of this! Not that there is anything wrong with French: there isn't. But tell an anglophone that his language is not like French and he takes severe offense...hehe WHY!? "
because English speakers are ashamed of being of a germanic culture. For a strange reason since nowadays the germanic/protestant nations are much more advanced or dominant than the latin/catholic ones.
Most english speakers overestimate the real roile and importance of french/latin words borrowed into their language (as it has been said numerous times the average rate is quite low (about 5-15%) in an average English text; where 85 of the vocabulary (which above all is the most important one to construct the language).
They seems to think that having latin/french vocabulary borrowed at one time in their history makes them speacial, maybe they think it makes them less "germanic" (so "better" in their mind?) than their Dutch, German or Scandinavian neighbours. this is strange, especiallly when we see that in Dutch or German, especially in technical/intellectual speech you can find many words of latin origins also. The English-speaker are usually desesperatly trying to increase the number of latinates words by counting numerous scientific terms that only specialists use, or to take in consideration some words or expressions that are known and use only by a tiny very educated literatural elite.
English has an average of 5 to 15% of words of latin/french origins (whom many of them are not use anymore in french, are false friends or not used in the same meanings); that's all. Which mean that the level of similarity between french and English is a quite low one. There is nothing to be ashamed about that, germanic words are not inferior than latin ones; and germanic cultures are not inferior than latin ones. Accept it and you'll be happier with you own linguistic identity.
<<There is nothing to be ashamed about that, germanic words are not inferior than latin ones; and germanic cultures are not inferior than latin ones. Accept it and you'll be happier with you own linguistic identity. >>
Obviously, nobody today thinks that Germanic is inferior to Latin. But in the past it was that way, and the connotations words gained in the past have been passed on through the generations, so that nowadays Latinate words are seen as formal and refined and Germanic words as ordinary and vulgar. It has NOTHING to do with today's people, 90% of us DON'T EVEN REALISE and have NO IDEA which words are Germanic and which are Latin! Those connotations were created a long time ago, and they've become too ingrained to do anything about them.