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I'm a native French speaker, fluently thinking in English. There's a vast pool of vocabulary that is common to both languages, from which I draw words indiscri

by pygy_ 8y ago

I'm a native French speaker, fluently thinking in English. There's a vast pool of vocabulary that is common to both languages, from which I draw words indiscriminately (Latin roots and the same formula to derive verbs/nouns/adjectives, with minor variations for each langage (e.g. add "-ate" for verbs in Englsih and "-er" in French)). Some of these are so-called "false friends", with different meanings in both languages. I have a spidey sense that works most of the time in the English => French direction (e.g. "consistent"), less so in the other.

stochastic_monk 8y ago
Thank you, I wasn’t quite sure. As a native English speaker who has learned French, I’ve often run into “faux amis”. Perhaps the most embarrassing was “préservatifs”, which I expected to mean preservatives but actually meant condoms.
- pygy_ 8y ago
  Ooh, yes, that one must have been embarrassing indeed :-) "Préservatif" is such a weird euphemism.
  - stochastic_monk 8y ago
    “Prophylactic” is no less bizarre.
    - pygy_ 8y ago
      Wow TIL. I have a medical background, so I'm familiar with the "preventive" meaning, but I wasn't aware of the "contraceptive" one.
    - JadeNB 8y ago
      > “Prophylactic” is no less bizarre. Isn't it (less bizarre)? My dictionary gives the medical meaning of prophylactic as "intended to prevent disease"; using it to refer to contraception just requires a more generous conception of 'disease'. By contrast, if 'préservatif' in French were translated to 'preservative' in English, it would mean, again according to my dictionary, "a substance used to preserve … against decay." I find it a bit more of a stretch to generalise this to pregnancy. On the other hand, maybe it is just my English-speaker-ness showing through that I can think of pregnancy much more easily as a disease (it literally causes dis-ease …) than as decay.
      - stochastic_monk 8y ago
        You’re right. I’d not realized that it was regarding preventing disease, not simply a generic precautionary measure. And while pregnancy may well be viewed as a disease or a cancer, after a fashion, at least condoms protect from a wider range of affliction.

by pygy_ 8y ago

stochastic_monk 8y ago

Thank you, I wasn’t quite sure. As a native English speaker who has learned French, I’ve often run into “faux amis”. Perhaps the most embarrassing was “préservatifs”, which I expected to mean preservatives but actually meant condoms.

pygy_ 8y ago
Ooh, yes, that one must have been embarrassing indeed :-) "Préservatif" is such a weird euphemism.
- stochastic_monk 8y ago
  “Prophylactic” is no less bizarre.
  - pygy_ 8y ago
    Wow TIL. I have a medical background, so I'm familiar with the "preventive" meaning, but I wasn't aware of the "contraceptive" one.
  - JadeNB 8y ago
    > “Prophylactic” is no less bizarre. Isn't it (less bizarre)? My dictionary gives the medical meaning of prophylactic as "intended to prevent disease"; using it to refer to contraception just requires a more generous conception of 'disease'. By contrast, if 'préservatif' in French were translated to 'preservative' in English, it would mean, again according to my dictionary, "a substance used to preserve … against decay." I find it a bit more of a stretch to generalise this to pregnancy. On the other hand, maybe it is just my English-speaker-ness showing through that I can think of pregnancy much more easily as a disease (it literally causes dis-ease …) than as decay.
    - stochastic_monk 8y ago
      You’re right. I’d not realized that it was regarding preventing disease, not simply a generic precautionary measure. And while pregnancy may well be viewed as a disease or a cancer, after a fashion, at least condoms protect from a wider range of affliction.