10 ms·

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

by joeblau 11y ago

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, that's the only word I know." He was not amused.

rconti 11y ago
Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsy3-ZfbqW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsy3-ZfbqW0
- hakcermani 11y ago
  And this one ! ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLuc6rtWkrM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLuc6rtWkrM )
teekert 11y ago
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 when RNA splicing was discovered (Épissage). French will be spoken long after Dutch completely Englifies.
- ArmandGrillet 11y ago
  These words have not been created by regular French people people proud of the language, it is mainly due to the fact that there is a pretty powerful council creating new words and regulating the French language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise.
- brian_cloutier 11y ago
  Turkish also did, the word was originally brought into Turkish as "Kompüter". But that didn't sound nearly turkish enough, so it was replaced with Bilgisayar, or "knowledge counter". 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.
  - melvinmt 11y ago
    And, don't forget "Yüz Kitap".
    - frandroid 11y ago
      Oh no :)
    - reirob 11y ago
      What does Yüz Kitap mean?
      - muricula 11y ago
        Face Book.
- zero_iq 11y ago
  I studied computer science in Wales in the 90s. Although the lectures were all in English, we had the option of taking our exams in Welsh. (University Policy was that everything must be bilingual, even hand-written student posters on bulleting boards. There was a free full-time translation service in the student union.) 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!)
- notalaser 11y ago
  Ordinateur was not invented when computers came to the market. It was coined in its modern sense of computing machine, not by Proud French People Who Liked Their Language but by IBM France, because they felt that "calculateur" (French for -- whaddya know! -- "something that computes", a literal equivalent for "computer") was too restrictive. In the 1950s, when that happened, "ordinateur" had been in use for a very long time. I don't know how common it was (I'm not a native French speaker), but it's certainly not a word they made up on the spot (it's of very obvious Latin origin), and they don't use it because they don't have a more appropriate word for "computer" (which they do -- "calculateur", which they deemed inappropriate because a "calculateur" could do a lot more than "calculer"; just like, indeed, a "computer" could do a lot more than "compute"). 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.
  - sevensor 11y ago
    A better example might be <<magnétoscope>>, which I learned means "VCR" when I studied French in the '90s. Edit: accent
    - pygy_ 11y ago
      A natural counterpart to the magnétophone that plays audio tape (which itself probably derives from gramophone). 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.
    - _ak 11y ago
      Télécopieur is one of my favourites, it's the fax machine. The fax, i.e. the piece of paper coming out, is the télécopie. Tele-copy, that's something I can get wrap my head around, it actually is a better derivation than from Latin facsimile.
  - chrstphrhrt 11y ago
    My fave in Québec is 'baladodiffusion' for podcast. Not sure if they say that in France too.
- pavlov 11y ago
  I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market (ordinateur) 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.
- enedil 11y ago
  Not saying anything, but Spanish features 'ordenador' for computer alike. French is not that different and alienated.
  - dietrichepp 11y ago
    French and Spanish are already rather similar languages.
    - enedil 11y ago
      Although, both came with this word separately.
  - pjlegato 11y ago
    And American Spanish has "computadora". (Ordenador is mainly used in Spain.)
- ankimal 11y ago
  Credit where credit's due. 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.
  - weberc2 11y ago
    I speak French reasonably well, but I was often treated rudely, particularly by people in customer service roles (my wife and I studied abroad). Clerks seemed agitated to have to deal with foreigners, taxis would blow off appointments, and even simple questions (e.g., asking for directions to a nearby building/office/etc) was met with "c'est impossible". In one case, my wife and I booked a hotel online, but upon checking in the clerk told us we had to pay for two rooms because my wife and I couldn't share a room. When I asked for an explanation, he said, "It's like putting 3 people on a 2-person motorcycle, it's just impossible!" (clearly he'd not been to India). 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.
- Sakiina_ 11y ago
  That's interesting... I've had positive experiences when I've visited. I've heard from a lot of Americans that they are treated rudely, even when they attempt to communicate in limited French. I had several years of it, though I was rusty when I went to France, but despite my mistakes I felt I was treated very warmly and they seemed to enjoy indulging my attempts to use the language.
  - davnicwil 11y ago
    This is a meme that comes up again and again. 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 :-)
  - gerbilly 11y ago
    The rudeness may not have anything to do with accent, but with manners. 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.
- matthiasb 11y ago
  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 ;-)
  - omginternets 11y 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 start with "bonjour"
    - Rexxar 11y ago
      I think "Hello" will work too if someone has difficulties to pronounce "Bonjour".
    - robbiemitchell 11y ago
      My last time in Paris for a few days, _every time_ I said "Bonjour," the person replied with "Hello".
      - seszett 11y ago
        Well even French people between themselves occasionally use "hello", so it's quite natural to answer hello to someone who seems to have a foreign accent.
    - baby 11y ago
      That's my theory as well. I've heard many horror stories about American being served by racists french, but most of these starts with the American not knowing you have to start with "Bonjour". Extremely unpolite not to start by "Bonjour" in France, even when you enter an elevator with complete strangers you will have to say Bonjour.
- senthil_rajasek 11y ago
  >I know of no other language that invented new words... I speak Tamil. Tamilians invent new words constantly for new concepts and as an example the word for computer is கணினி (ka-ni-ni).
- senthil_rajasek 11y ago
  >I know of no other language that invented new words... I speak Tamil. Tamilians invent new words constantly for new concepts and as an example the word for computer is கணினி (ka-ni-ni).
- z2 11y ago
  >I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market. Chinese did out of necessity, because the meaning-based character system fundamentally doesn't work well with foreign sounds.
- melvinmt 11y ago
  Every time I meet a French person my go-to sentence to show off my French is: "à quelle heure le garage est fermé?", only to be met with the same blank stare. I then ask if I pronounced it wrong and they say (in English): "no I understand, but which garage do you mean?".
  - robertnn 11y ago
    I had to look it up. That's a very useful sentence... ;-)
  - tonfa 11y ago
    s/la/le/
    - melvinmt 11y ago
      Thanks :)
  - apricot 11y ago
    Your sentence is a bit ungrammatical. It would be more natural to say "À quelle heure le garage ferme-t-il?" if you mean "when does the garage close?" (expecting a precise time: it closes at 9PM), or "Quand le garage est-il fermé?", if you mean "when is the garage closed"? (expecting an interval: it's closed from 9PM until 10AM the next day).
- Mikeb85 11y ago
  And yet there's tons of little anglicisms in French: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicisme#Liste_d.27anglicismes_courants_en_fran.C3.A7ais https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicisme#Liste_d.27anglicism...
  - jpgauthier 11y ago
    Anglicisms in French is actually a funny subject. According to different sources, roughly 45% of all English words have a French origin. Thus, there's a lot of overlap between English and French. Some words, such as camping, parking and flirting are considered anglicisms in French, but they are actually words from the Old French that did a full round-trip from French to English to French.
    - programLyrique 11y ago
      Although the stems are ok and related to other French words (camping -> camp, campement, camper ; parking -> parc, parquer ; flirting <-> conter fleurette), I think what can shock the purists is this ending is -ing which does not sound French at all and is not grammatically French.
- seszett 11y ago
  > I know of no other language that invented new words [...] when RNA splicing was discovered (Épissage) 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.
  - Naga 11y ago
    Yeah, it's a strange complaint since in English word the word for joining two ropes is also splicing.
- niccaluim 11y ago
  In Icelandic the word for computer is tölva, a compound of tala + völva (number + seeress).
- YeGoblynQueenne 11y ago
  >> 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 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")
  - Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago
    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.
    - Max_Mustermann 11y ago
      But in Spanish you can use "orientar" in a figurative sense. I fail to see the problem.
      - Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago
        I don't really think you could do that in Spanish, at least until we started copying English terms. 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.
- bobmoretti 11y ago
  I think that this reputation is waaaay overblown, due to the mostly futile efforts of the Académie Française to preserve the "pure" French language. 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.
  - anonu 11y ago
    There is also the infamous "courriel" which overthrew the ubiquitous use of "email". http://archive.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2003/07/59674 http://archive.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2003/07/5967...
    - jmnicolas 11y ago
      No it didn't, everybody uses "email" and sometimes (rarely) they use "courriel" when they want to be a bit funny.
- rukugu 11y ago
  Swahili has words for different types of computers e.g. Taraklishi(regular computer), Taraklishikuu(super computer) and Tarakilishi kiunzikuu (mainframe).
- vidarh 11y ago
  > I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market (ordinateur) 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.
- apricot 11y ago
  The French verb "épisser" is an old verb that means "to splice", and actually comes from middle Dutch "splissen". Épissage is just the noun form of it. It's as natural for French speakers to use "épissage" in the context of RNA splicing as it is for English speakers to use "splicing". Why would they borrow a word from English when they already have a perfectly good one?
- gheeohm 11y ago
  As someone who has spent half of their life in France and the other half in North America, I would disagree. I return every 2 years or so to visit family, and am always appalled by the amount of English words that weasel their way into the language. 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...
- jacalata 11y ago
  There are many languages that don't use the English word 'computer': http://www.omniglot.com/language/names/computerparts.htm http://www.omniglot.com/language/names/computerparts.htm
OJFord 11y ago
I had a very similar experience when I was very young and had been sent off on my bike to buy a couple of baguettes. 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!

by joeblau 11y ago

rconti 11y ago

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

hakcermani 11y ago
And this one ! ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLuc6rtWkrM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLuc6rtWkrM )

teekert 11y ago

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 when RNA splicing was discovered (Épissage). French will be spoken long after Dutch completely Englifies.

ArmandGrillet 11y ago
These words have not been created by regular French people people proud of the language, it is mainly due to the fact that there is a pretty powerful council creating new words and regulating the French language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise.
brian_cloutier 11y ago
Turkish also did, the word was originally brought into Turkish as "Kompüter". But that didn't sound nearly turkish enough, so it was replaced with Bilgisayar, or "knowledge counter". 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.
- melvinmt 11y ago
  And, don't forget "Yüz Kitap".
  - frandroid 11y ago
    Oh no :)
  - reirob 11y ago
    What does Yüz Kitap mean?
    - muricula 11y ago
      Face Book.
zero_iq 11y ago
I studied computer science in Wales in the 90s. Although the lectures were all in English, we had the option of taking our exams in Welsh. (University Policy was that everything must be bilingual, even hand-written student posters on bulleting boards. There was a free full-time translation service in the student union.) 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!)
notalaser 11y ago
Ordinateur was not invented when computers came to the market. It was coined in its modern sense of computing machine, not by Proud French People Who Liked Their Language but by IBM France, because they felt that "calculateur" (French for -- whaddya know! -- "something that computes", a literal equivalent for "computer") was too restrictive. In the 1950s, when that happened, "ordinateur" had been in use for a very long time. I don't know how common it was (I'm not a native French speaker), but it's certainly not a word they made up on the spot (it's of very obvious Latin origin), and they don't use it because they don't have a more appropriate word for "computer" (which they do -- "calculateur", which they deemed inappropriate because a "calculateur" could do a lot more than "calculer"; just like, indeed, a "computer" could do a lot more than "compute"). 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.
- sevensor 11y ago
  A better example might be <<magnétoscope>>, which I learned means "VCR" when I studied French in the '90s. Edit: accent
  - pygy_ 11y ago
    A natural counterpart to the magnétophone that plays audio tape (which itself probably derives from gramophone). 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.
  - _ak 11y ago
    Télécopieur is one of my favourites, it's the fax machine. The fax, i.e. the piece of paper coming out, is the télécopie. Tele-copy, that's something I can get wrap my head around, it actually is a better derivation than from Latin facsimile.
- chrstphrhrt 11y ago
  My fave in Québec is 'baladodiffusion' for podcast. Not sure if they say that in France too.
pavlov 11y ago
I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market (ordinateur) 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.
enedil 11y ago
Not saying anything, but Spanish features 'ordenador' for computer alike. French is not that different and alienated.
- dietrichepp 11y ago
  French and Spanish are already rather similar languages.
  - enedil 11y ago
    Although, both came with this word separately.
- pjlegato 11y ago
  And American Spanish has "computadora". (Ordenador is mainly used in Spain.)
ankimal 11y ago
Credit where credit's due. 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.
- weberc2 11y ago
  I speak French reasonably well, but I was often treated rudely, particularly by people in customer service roles (my wife and I studied abroad). Clerks seemed agitated to have to deal with foreigners, taxis would blow off appointments, and even simple questions (e.g., asking for directions to a nearby building/office/etc) was met with "c'est impossible". In one case, my wife and I booked a hotel online, but upon checking in the clerk told us we had to pay for two rooms because my wife and I couldn't share a room. When I asked for an explanation, he said, "It's like putting 3 people on a 2-person motorcycle, it's just impossible!" (clearly he'd not been to India). 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.
Sakiina_ 11y ago
That's interesting... I've had positive experiences when I've visited. I've heard from a lot of Americans that they are treated rudely, even when they attempt to communicate in limited French. I had several years of it, though I was rusty when I went to France, but despite my mistakes I felt I was treated very warmly and they seemed to enjoy indulging my attempts to use the language.
- davnicwil 11y ago
  This is a meme that comes up again and again. 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 :-)
- gerbilly 11y ago
  The rudeness may not have anything to do with accent, but with manners. 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.
matthiasb 11y ago
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 ;-)
- omginternets 11y 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 start with "bonjour"
  - Rexxar 11y ago
    I think "Hello" will work too if someone has difficulties to pronounce "Bonjour".
  - robbiemitchell 11y ago
    My last time in Paris for a few days, _every time_ I said "Bonjour," the person replied with "Hello".
    - seszett 11y ago
      Well even French people between themselves occasionally use "hello", so it's quite natural to answer hello to someone who seems to have a foreign accent.
  - baby 11y ago
    That's my theory as well. I've heard many horror stories about American being served by racists french, but most of these starts with the American not knowing you have to start with "Bonjour". Extremely unpolite not to start by "Bonjour" in France, even when you enter an elevator with complete strangers you will have to say Bonjour.
senthil_rajasek 11y ago
>I know of no other language that invented new words... I speak Tamil. Tamilians invent new words constantly for new concepts and as an example the word for computer is கணினி (ka-ni-ni).
senthil_rajasek 11y ago
>I know of no other language that invented new words... I speak Tamil. Tamilians invent new words constantly for new concepts and as an example the word for computer is கணினி (ka-ni-ni).
z2 11y ago
>I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market. Chinese did out of necessity, because the meaning-based character system fundamentally doesn't work well with foreign sounds.
melvinmt 11y ago
Every time I meet a French person my go-to sentence to show off my French is: "à quelle heure le garage est fermé?", only to be met with the same blank stare. I then ask if I pronounced it wrong and they say (in English): "no I understand, but which garage do you mean?".
- robertnn 11y ago
  I had to look it up. That's a very useful sentence... ;-)
- tonfa 11y ago
  s/la/le/
  - melvinmt 11y ago
    Thanks :)
- apricot 11y ago
  Your sentence is a bit ungrammatical. It would be more natural to say "À quelle heure le garage ferme-t-il?" if you mean "when does the garage close?" (expecting a precise time: it closes at 9PM), or "Quand le garage est-il fermé?", if you mean "when is the garage closed"? (expecting an interval: it's closed from 9PM until 10AM the next day).
Mikeb85 11y ago
And yet there's tons of little anglicisms in French: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicisme#Liste_d.27anglicismes_courants_en_fran.C3.A7ais https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicisme#Liste_d.27anglicism...
- jpgauthier 11y ago
  Anglicisms in French is actually a funny subject. According to different sources, roughly 45% of all English words have a French origin. Thus, there's a lot of overlap between English and French. Some words, such as camping, parking and flirting are considered anglicisms in French, but they are actually words from the Old French that did a full round-trip from French to English to French.
  - programLyrique 11y ago
    Although the stems are ok and related to other French words (camping -> camp, campement, camper ; parking -> parc, parquer ; flirting <-> conter fleurette), I think what can shock the purists is this ending is -ing which does not sound French at all and is not grammatically French.
seszett 11y ago
> I know of no other language that invented new words [...] when RNA splicing was discovered (Épissage) 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.
- Naga 11y ago
  Yeah, it's a strange complaint since in English word the word for joining two ropes is also splicing.
niccaluim 11y ago
In Icelandic the word for computer is tölva, a compound of tala + völva (number + seeress).
YeGoblynQueenne 11y ago
>> 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 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")
- Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago
  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.
  - Max_Mustermann 11y ago
    But in Spanish you can use "orientar" in a figurative sense. I fail to see the problem.
    - Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago
      I don't really think you could do that in Spanish, at least until we started copying English terms. 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.
bobmoretti 11y ago
I think that this reputation is waaaay overblown, due to the mostly futile efforts of the Académie Française to preserve the "pure" French language. 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.
- anonu 11y ago
  There is also the infamous "courriel" which overthrew the ubiquitous use of "email". http://archive.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2003/07/59674 http://archive.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2003/07/5967...
  - jmnicolas 11y ago
    No it didn't, everybody uses "email" and sometimes (rarely) they use "courriel" when they want to be a bit funny.
rukugu 11y ago
Swahili has words for different types of computers e.g. Taraklishi(regular computer), Taraklishikuu(super computer) and Tarakilishi kiunzikuu (mainframe).
vidarh 11y ago
> I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market (ordinateur) 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.
apricot 11y ago
The French verb "épisser" is an old verb that means "to splice", and actually comes from middle Dutch "splissen". Épissage is just the noun form of it. It's as natural for French speakers to use "épissage" in the context of RNA splicing as it is for English speakers to use "splicing". Why would they borrow a word from English when they already have a perfectly good one?
gheeohm 11y ago
As someone who has spent half of their life in France and the other half in North America, I would disagree. I return every 2 years or so to visit family, and am always appalled by the amount of English words that weasel their way into the language. 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...
jacalata 11y ago
There are many languages that don't use the English word 'computer': http://www.omniglot.com/language/names/computerparts.htm http://www.omniglot.com/language/names/computerparts.htm

OJFord 11y ago

I had a very similar experience when I was very young and had been sent off on my bike to buy a couple of baguettes. 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!