Say quoi?
Most people suppose that the hardest sounds for an Anglo-Saxon to pronounce in French are the “u” and the “r.” How wrong most people are.
These new sounds will soon be mastered, and you may even become quite smug with passing yourself off as a native… but don’t. Unexpected challenges lie in wait.
The only times I’ve failed to understand what for the love of Pierre a French person was saying have been when English words were involved.
I once spent many minutes talking with someone about Dire Straits and another group called Deer Straats, certain that we were speaking of two different bands, and so struck by the similarities. I’m still looking for a recording by another band called Tallkeen Eds.
I have regular bouts of panic when having to ask for an American product. Upon entering KFC _(ka eff say),_ say, does one order a byoockette or a bouquet, and is it salade de chou or ze slow on the side? Who knows.
On TV, were it not for the accompanying images, we would not know who on earth are (please factor in French accent) Sayan Conaree, Gweenet Poltrov, Ali Beret, Veel Smeess, Oo Grunt, Ayzar Gramme, Roosselle Crov or Eessan Owk, to name but a few.
Bush comes out Bouche, so leads happily to such quips as “Halte à la Busherie!” (Boucherie=butchery, in case you’re wondering.)
The letter I is pronounced E in French, so when talking to your local Mac dealer, do you have a problem with your e- or your i-Mac? (Note: whichever one you choose, they will choose to correct you – much in the same way that if at 6 pm you say bon soir, they will reply bonjour, and vice versa.)
My last name is Amstrog here and my first name regularly adorned with a dieresis so looks like this: Gaïl or Gaël (which is very swank, but a guy’s name so mail is habitually addressed to Mister).
Ginger ale is called Canada Dry (pronounced Dree) and tonic water is Schweppes, iced tea is iced tea, weekend week-end and no-one ever says café au lait.
Tide is pronounced teed and Levis layveess, Ivanhoe is Eevanoay, Dunhill Dyooneel, Marlborough sounds like a Gainsbourg revival, cheeseburger like a pornographic threat and hi sink zerfor hi ham…
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Comment
- Yeah, that’s one of the unforeseen speed bumps in studying any language. You’re all proud of mastering the local stuff, and then you start reading newspapers and realizing you also need to see the rest of the world from their standpoint. Is Hemingway Khemingvey or Gemingvey in Russian? (The former, ‘cause he’s modern.) Names like “Washington” throw a monkey wrench into just about every other phonemic system. And so on.
— language hat Jan 9, 1:31pm # - I like how they talk about sreelair (thriller) movies on the TV. (As far as I can tell, they’re never not talking about movies on the TV.)
— Dean Allen Jan 9, 1:47pm # - Happens in North America with foreign-named products. Do you pronounce them as they would be in German or French, or do you “Anglicize” them? Order a “Lowenbrow” from a bartender and you might get a highbrow correction to the proper German, which I can’t quite imitate here in text (luuh-ven-broy?); do it the other way round, and get a blank stare. I once ordered a “grolsh” on KLM and it took quite a few stabs before the attendant realized I wanted a “hreultz”.
— Simon Fodden Jan 9, 3:42pm # - Mercy.
I got sort of through the day in Paris a few years back by saying whenever possible
Zhe pahrl frawnsay comb la vosh pahrl espanyol.
The sympathy was immediate and unexpectedly sincere.
Mercy again.
— msg Jan 9, 6:31pm # - On my trip to France, I discovered something very important: if you speak English with a French accent, they still won’t understand you.
— sjc Jan 9, 11:04pm # - Try as I might, I could never master the “r”.
— Warren Jan 10, 9:19am # - LOL.
— IB Bill Jan 10, 1:08pm # - My ex-girlfriend is spanish, and so ‘sheet’ was always pronounced ‘shit’, and ‘beach’ as ‘bitch’. I still laugh when I think about the look of our neighbours face when she was asking her where she wanted to go on holiday, and her reply was ’ I want to go some place where I can go down on the bitch’
— Perlito Jan 10, 2:01pm # - Funny, that bit on the French correcting your speech. I just finished a book by John Baxter, where he muses that it must be required of French citizens to correct everyone’s grammar and pronunciation… I suppose, with his being an Australian, he’s received more than his share of corrections.
— roggey Jan 11, 12:37pm # - In Spain, when people come up with unexpected pronunciations of English, they’re actually being logical and phonetic, as they’re quick to point out after I’ve finished slapping my thigh. Among my favourites are the names of some old film stars as pronounced by the over 50’s: Honvinay, Clargablay, Himistevar, Owdrihebur. Recognize them? (I feel that for the full effect, they’re best rendered as single sounds rather than separate words.)
— Jonathan Jan 11, 8:50pm # - my favourite bilingual conversation was one with a japanese university clerk. i addressed him in ugly, yet intelligible japanese, while he insisted on replying in very ugly, barely intelligible english, shouted out so loud that everyone in the huge office could hear (“wwwwattttttojuuuuuuwanttto?”) it felt like hours, but lasted only ten minutes.
— katatonik Jan 12, 12:15am # - John Wayne, Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Audrey Hepburn.
Phew… that took a while.
I don’t mind being corrected, except when I spell my name properly and they say, ‘Are you sure?’
If ever they get nasty about it, I just remind them that it’s the same name that has won the Tour de France three years running. (Which is invariably followed by their joke of asking whether I’m related to Louis. Always a thigh slapper.)
What I can’t figure out for the life of me is why they don’t pronounce the H at the beginning of a word, but add one on to all words beginning with a vowel. So ‘I hate helicopters’ comes out ‘Hi ate elicopters.’
— gail Jan 12, 4:20am # - I grew up in New Hampshire with all French Canadian neighbors. My parents, Helen and Eddie, were always called Ellen and Heady.
— leslee Jan 12, 11:14am # - My Belgian (francophone) husband has picked his parents up at the hairport, has worried about cholesterol hardening his harteries, and has read the book by Robert Graves, “Hi, Claudius” (much to my endless amusement).
— Katie Jan 12, 10:34pm # - #5 brings the Steve Martin line to mind: “Ah wood laak to go to zee ‘otehl!”
There’s no way it’s going to help, but I can see myself trying the same thing.
— mangoduck Jan 15, 3:22am # - our friends have the same issue above with “bitch” and “beach”... no matter how many times I say the both of them, they can’t tell the difference. and when my loving other half says “garage”, I swear it sounds more like “crotch.”
of course, when I say sweater in french, it comes out sounding like the word for chicken, so…
oh, and here I am called “Keem.” except by David’s grandfather, who most often makes the mistake of calling me “Kreem” (and god forbid anyone would name their child Crime, which is just awful).
— kim Jan 15, 9:28am # - I remember one professor of political science at the Univ. of Vienna, Austria, who made a point of pronouncing all English words as if they were German words.
He argued that Americans always “raped” German and other foreign words by “Americanizing” them, so he simply wanted to return the favour.
— Werner George Patels, M.A. Jan 20, 4:10pm # - No, my names not really keith myers, but it’s great to hear that name said in a french accent. Great in a juvenile way, but great.
Duchamp made an artwork called ‘LHOOQ’ apparently a suggestive pun in french. And there’s that scene in ‘Night on Earth’ where the taxi driver’s customers wonder why the african taxi driver is so bad at driving: ‘oh he comes from the ivory coast’: ‘y voir rien’
okay, that’s enough! -j
— keith myers Jan 23, 6:23am #
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