8 ms·

This is a distinction I first learned about working in france years ago. Without any real basis I wondered whether it is their general more precise use of langu

This is a distinction I first learned about working in france years ago. Without any real basis I wondered whether it is their general more precise use of language which made it a more obvious distinction for a french person to make. At the time they were more or less synonyms for me, but since then have become very distinct especially when talking about software!

kmicklas 9y ago
> their general more precise use of language This isn't really true, it's just a snobby idea the French have somehow successfully convinced us of. (It goes along with the idea that they have the most "refined" culture or something).
- gutnor 9y ago
  A lot of the specific term in English comes from the common French vocabulary and are still very (very) close to the common words in the French spoken today. The common vocabulary in English comes from German origin. Actually I think you can basically speak about anything using only German origin words. In order to learn French and its vocabulary, English speaker will found a lot of similarity but from the more formal side of their vocabulary. That would lead English speaker to think French is more precise, I don't think the French have something to do with this. That's BTW a common mistake English speaker make when evaluating some French speaker proficiency. The fact that I use rarely used words does not mean that I have a large vocabulary, it is just the opposite.
  - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
    >In order to learn French and its vocabulary, English speaker will found a lot of similarity but from the more formal side of their vocabulary. That would lead English speaker to think French is more precise, I don't think the French have something to do with this. Worse, the French apparently teach young students to write in a way that they consider profound, and the Anglosphere considers imprecise drivel.
    - arkades 9y ago
      Do elaborate?
      - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
        I can't really go into detail much, but my wife too intensive/immersion French in her school days. As she became fluent in basic spoken and casual-written French, they taught her the French style of literary writing. She's the one who told me it's meant to be profound or deep, but comes across to her Anglo brain as vague and, well, bad at saying anything at all.
  - Terr_ 9y ago
    There's also "Anglish", where non-germanic influences are replaced. A funny sample of this is Uncleftish Beholding [0], a fictional textbook entry by sci-fi writer Poul Anderson. [0] https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.language.artificial/ZL4e3fD7eW0/_7p8bKwLJWkJ https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.language...
- agumonkey 9y ago
  I beg to differ, as a young adult I became enamored with English, for its simplicity in structure and vocabulary, I was annoyed by French redundancy and diversity and almost started to think in English. Few years later, English feels restrictive and too simple. French aggregated many influences from centuries at a crossroad, and it seems it kept a lot in order to be able to add subtle layers of information by using particular sets of words fitting together well to propel metaphores and other succint yet precise description of the world. Now I say that, on average, about mainstream incarnations of both En and Fr, surely you can find poetic and tailor made English wording, in France it seemed part of the culture, but recently it's been on the way out, only elders speak a bit that way.
  - kmicklas 9y ago
    > French aggregated many influences from centuries at a crossroad This describes English perhaps more so. > and it seems it kept a lot in order to be able to add subtle layers of information by using particular sets of words fitting together well to propel metaphores and other succint yet precise description of the world. It's your native language, so of course you might think that (especially when added with this snobby French cultural ideal).
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      I don't appreciate your comment. I left my own native tongue for a reason, and came back to it for one too. I'm not even boasting superiority. I don't give the slightest damn if you talk with metaphores, or whatever figure of speech there is, I don't submit to cultural ideals or snobbery. It's a point of view on how one likes to communicate. And I very very rarely encountered it even when talking, reading and watching almost entirely English sources for many months. Also how can England be more influenced by countries as an Island ? the naval conquests, the commonwealth ? I don't know history much, but it seemed to me they kept a very cohesive identity except for the not so French/English feedback loop.
- nol13 9y ago
  dat baguette tho, mmm
dkarapetyan 9y ago
In what sense are other languages less precise?

kmicklas 9y ago

> their general more precise use of language This isn't really true, it's just a snobby idea the French have somehow successfully convinced us of. (It goes along with the idea that they have the most "refined" culture or something).

gutnor 9y ago
A lot of the specific term in English comes from the common French vocabulary and are still very (very) close to the common words in the French spoken today. The common vocabulary in English comes from German origin. Actually I think you can basically speak about anything using only German origin words. In order to learn French and its vocabulary, English speaker will found a lot of similarity but from the more formal side of their vocabulary. That would lead English speaker to think French is more precise, I don't think the French have something to do with this. That's BTW a common mistake English speaker make when evaluating some French speaker proficiency. The fact that I use rarely used words does not mean that I have a large vocabulary, it is just the opposite.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  >In order to learn French and its vocabulary, English speaker will found a lot of similarity but from the more formal side of their vocabulary. That would lead English speaker to think French is more precise, I don't think the French have something to do with this. Worse, the French apparently teach young students to write in a way that they consider profound, and the Anglosphere considers imprecise drivel.
  - arkades 9y ago
    Do elaborate?
    - eli_gottlieb 9y ago
      I can't really go into detail much, but my wife too intensive/immersion French in her school days. As she became fluent in basic spoken and casual-written French, they taught her the French style of literary writing. She's the one who told me it's meant to be profound or deep, but comes across to her Anglo brain as vague and, well, bad at saying anything at all.
- Terr_ 9y ago
  There's also "Anglish", where non-germanic influences are replaced. A funny sample of this is Uncleftish Beholding [0], a fictional textbook entry by sci-fi writer Poul Anderson. [0] https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.language.artificial/ZL4e3fD7eW0/_7p8bKwLJWkJ https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.language...
agumonkey 9y ago
I beg to differ, as a young adult I became enamored with English, for its simplicity in structure and vocabulary, I was annoyed by French redundancy and diversity and almost started to think in English. Few years later, English feels restrictive and too simple. French aggregated many influences from centuries at a crossroad, and it seems it kept a lot in order to be able to add subtle layers of information by using particular sets of words fitting together well to propel metaphores and other succint yet precise description of the world. Now I say that, on average, about mainstream incarnations of both En and Fr, surely you can find poetic and tailor made English wording, in France it seemed part of the culture, but recently it's been on the way out, only elders speak a bit that way.
- kmicklas 9y ago
  > French aggregated many influences from centuries at a crossroad This describes English perhaps more so. > and it seems it kept a lot in order to be able to add subtle layers of information by using particular sets of words fitting together well to propel metaphores and other succint yet precise description of the world. It's your native language, so of course you might think that (especially when added with this snobby French cultural ideal).
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    I don't appreciate your comment. I left my own native tongue for a reason, and came back to it for one too. I'm not even boasting superiority. I don't give the slightest damn if you talk with metaphores, or whatever figure of speech there is, I don't submit to cultural ideals or snobbery. It's a point of view on how one likes to communicate. And I very very rarely encountered it even when talking, reading and watching almost entirely English sources for many months. Also how can England be more influenced by countries as an Island ? the naval conquests, the commonwealth ? I don't know history much, but it seemed to me they kept a very cohesive identity except for the not so French/English feedback loop.
nol13 9y ago
dat baguette tho, mmm

dkarapetyan 9y ago

In what sense are other languages less precise?