4 ms·
I think an accent is perfectly fine (everybody has some kind of accent), as long as it doesn't significantly increase the effort for others to understand you. F
by wibr 11y ago
I think an accent is perfectly fine (everybody has some kind of accent), as long as it doesn't significantly increase the effort for others to understand you. From my experience listening to some French people speaking English, you actually have to remind yourself that they are speaking English and not French. They might use English words and grammar, but it sounds like French, flowing from sentence to sentence with the typical melody.
- jpgauthier 11y agoYou are completely right. Speaking French is actually more than a different set of words, a different grammar and an accent (it probably applies to a lot of other languages). It's also a different mindset. We tend to use a lot of words and expressions to say something that can be summed up in one word in English. Moreover, French people like to speak with images instead of words. So, a word-for-word translation from French to English, which is what most of us do, results in confusing sentences that are hard to follow. Even if I'm a native French speaker, I always have a hard time trying to understand my fellow Frenchies speaking English, but I might be biased...
- defen 11y ago> it sounds like French, flowing from sentence to sentence with the typical melody. 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.