Reply With QuoteI guess I am allowed to say this because my grandmother was French. But, the french likes their language spoken and written well and will consider it rude otherwise.
|
|
|
I have to admit, I sometimes type in French but I just don't bother with the accents. If I was writing a business letter, etc. then I would but for just simple messages I figure it's not worth all the trouble of fishing for the accents in the character map...Originally Posted by hj
After all, I think anyone who reads French can figure out what's being said anyways.
silk
I guess I am allowed to say this because my grandmother was French. But, the french likes their language spoken and written well and will consider it rude otherwise.
Last edited by Cookie; 06-24-2007 at 02:58 PM.
Well so far no one has ever complained. They seem quite happy that I can even converse with them in French or that I make the effort and don't just expect them to talk to me in English. Plus if they had to wait for me to sit and look up an accent on the character map while we are chatting then the chat would grind to a halt.I guess I am allowed to say this because my grandmother was French. But, the french likes their language spoken and written well and will consider it rude otherwise.
Are you in Canada Cookie? Because I'm talking about French-Canadians for the most part rather than the French from France.
silk
Ya French-Canadians are quite different than the French I'd say. In fact they don't really even like each other I hear. lol
silk
Last edited by Cookie; 12-04-2007 at 07:14 PM.
S'true. The French french get pretty uptight about proper grammar & such. How else do you explain l'Academie Francaise? But we French-Canadians will just appreciate the effort.
Besides, we don't speak 'standard' French, anyways.
In emails with & from my family, it's pretty much understood that your keyboard is going to be set english (unless you live in Quebec), and you might not switch is over to send off a quick note.
It's considered more polite if you do, though. No accents is slower/harder to read.
If you could understand everything they say, you wouldn't like them much either.
Yes your spoken french is alittle different than my grandmother's. I think also, there are different dialects of french in Canada which might make it harder to understand. Am I right on this Frenchie?
Last edited by Cookie; 06-25-2007 at 08:43 AM.
Yup. Much more variety than english...
When I was 19, I spent a summer tree-planting (reforesting); the crew was from all over Quebec, and we used to laugh at each other's accents a lot... but we could understand each other, mostly.
The exception was the guys from the Lac-St-Jean region, I never could understand a word they said when they were speaking amongst themselves.
The other truly "different" dialect is Acadian french - spoken in the maritime provinces. It's a weird mix of perfectly preserved 16th century forms (there's no singular/plural forms for the verbs), and a whole lot of english loan words & sentence structure... "J'allions back" instead of "je retourne". Cajuns from Louisiana understand it, though.
What about Newfoundland? I think they have their own also, don't they?
New Brunswick, mostly.
Here's a good overview of the Acadian story...
http://www.umaine.edu/canam/ham/acadiansettlement.htm
The one group I did forget, are the Metis, in Manitoba. They speak a distinct language, based on French and Cree:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michif
Wow, Mamselle Lalonde (high school history teacher) would be impressed.
...but my geography teacher would be completely disappointed. You meant StPierre et Miquelon, didn't you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Pierre_et_Miquelon
Not part of Canada, still part of France... they were never isolated from France the way we were for 300 years, so they pretty much speak french French.
...I find it strange that we have this Academie Francaise that determines what is & isn't "correct" French; instead of letting it evolve naturally like other languages. You'd think it would make the language less varied? But it does the opposite. Everybody winds up speaking 2 dialects: the French they learn in school, and whatever the local version is.
I had this friend from Paris, a few years back. We could understand each other fine (both speaking the French we learned in school); but if he was on the phone to his friends in Paris, or I was on the phone to Montreal... forget it. We could hardly even follow what the topic was.
hahaha, so that's why you know french
I'm confused. Is there a post missing from this thread or something?
- how come seobeglobal's handle looks so different from everyone else's? Can't click on it to get profile, previous posts, or anything...
- hahaha, how come who knows french? Huh?
- Cookie: horoscopes?
ha ha ha ha, you are sane Frenchie. Yes, a post has been deleted, lol. Makes me look alittle foolish, too.
Did you read today where France gets a 5 week vacation and works only 35 hours a week?
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks