Francaise, franglais...or Del boy ? (1 Viewer)

[2657]

I am multi -lingual when it comes to ordering beer

And asking for an ash tray

Got the priorities right then........next is the food.........I like to know what I am eating!

Don't do a lot of beer drinking in French bars........too b****y expensive

 

[Chris]

Got the priorities right then........next is the food.........I like to know what I am eating!

Don't do a lot of beer drinking in French bars........too b****y expensive

I know. French beer is as well.

Italian beer is nice but again too expensive in restaurants.

 

[spitfire]

I have been in France 13 years and am fairly fluent apart from the odd mistake lol But as I live here it is a necessity but I do like languages it hasn't been a chore. I did french at school but that wasn't yesterday ! Also it is correct those who dont speak english are more tolerant of errors ! But not you Frankie lol Your english is far superior to my french

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[yodeli]

@Madcaravanner Je m'excuse Mon français n'est pas très bon et lent J'essaie d'apprendre s'il vous plaît ours avec moi

Very nice from you to try, but that's where Google OR even a dictionnary can't help where a native can .

Bear, here is a verb, not a noun. You looked up for the translation of the noun, which is OURS ...the animal .... you know the bear in the mountains!
While you 're looking for the the verb TO BEAR which here would be difficult for google to translate as we don't use the same idiom. We would never say anything near to bear with me BUT be understanding with me, which of course in English even if understandable is not idiomatic at all.
So, this is what you should say : Merci d'être compréhensif, or, Merci de votre compréhension

 

[nicholsong]

I was on another motorhome forum recently and someone asked in broken pigeon franglais about the tour de france next year.” nous going a la tour”. I was amazed that anyone could publicly show how ignorant they were.I resisted the temptation to slag her off,just leaving a cryptic comment,then It crossed my mind that maybe most people(english) dont bother with any foreign languages because they can expect foreigners to understand us! This may be the case in northern france and the low countries,but I know when I had problems with my campervan this year down SW France,if I hadn’t had a bit of french I would’ve been screwed.I got the feeling some of the locals went out of their way not to talk english. So I just wonder how many of you guys make an effort to comunicate when in europe..or am I just talking out of my derrière ?

Is that anywhere near your a*se?

 

[ianthebuilder]

I think a simple please and thank you in any language gets you a long way!!

Not hard to learn,,,

And the other phrase guaranteed to get you through is,,, I'm sorry, I don't speak,,,, whatever,, yet!!!

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[davidbaldam]

Wow, David, that's a bit hurtfull... Fancy spearing the reasonable ones?

What does she do to the ones that are not so reasonable?

Damn predict text, or there again..........

 

[pappajohn]

My wife spears reasonable French

What does she do to the unreasonable ones ?

 

[TinaLes]

What does she do to the unreasonable ones ?

She marinates them in Oil & Garlic, before she sears them off

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[rangi]

Gi Daay Mate! spracken sie vous the old Anglais Senor?
Generally gets me thro to Johnny Foreigner.

I can get by in German, French, a bit of Maori, a tad Samoan, a few swear words here and there but! Seriously! if anyone English criticized my speaking foreign, I would tell them at least I'm trying, and

 

[Yorick]

I was amazed that anyone could publicly show how ignorant they were.

Before I answer, what did you mean by 'ignorant' ?

 

[bigtwin]

..... I was amazed that anyone could publicly show how ignorant they were.I resisted the temptation to slag her off .....

Before I answer, what did you mean by 'ignorant' ?

As I suspect @Yorick is alluding to, one of the consequences of being ignorant is that you don’t have the knowledge to appreciate that you are about to make/have made a faux pas.

That being the case, they would hardly be in a position to contemplate the wisdom of their saying their piece!

Ian

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[TerryL]

Once stayed with an English builder who had moved to France - he spoke French with a pronounced Somerset accent! Sounded hilarious but when I asked his workmates they thought nothing of it.

 

[klaatu]

I’m a member of the same FB group, saw the same post, but it never crossed my mind at all that they were “ignorant” (in any sense of the word), they were just posting like that for humorous effect - for “fun”, as in the name of this forum. They may well be able to speak perfectly good French, but posting in French, no matter how perfect, would be rather silly in a group populated by people whose first language is English.

Bon soirée!

 

[Minxy]

If you understand what the poster is asking what is the problem? We went to night class for 2 years to learn French as we were seriously considering moving to France permanently a few years later and wanted to be able to speak some of the lingo when we got there. As it turned out we didn't do that but it has certainly come in very handy on holiday in places that speak French and also in some that don't as there are similarities between a lot of the main European languages in terms of how sentences are structures and some of the words. We can read and understand a lot more than we can 'say' but we can still have basic conversations in French ... or in my case give a telling off to a young lady who pushed in at a queue at the till during our last holiday.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Ricardoe]

Before I answer, what did you mean by 'ignorant' ?

The ignorance of someone who obviously loved going to france,but couldn’t be bothered to look up the correct french..so why do it? Why not talk in english?

 

[Minxy]

The ignorance of someone who obviously loved going to france,but couldn’t be bothered to look up the correct french..so why do it? Why not talk in english?

For comedy/fun value ... you shouldn't take stuff so seriously IMV.

 

[Ricardoe]

Yeh but I did conclude the original post by asking “if I was talking out of my derrière”..so it had a light hearted twist.All I’m doing is explaining what I think...its just chat.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Yorick]

The ignorance of someone who obviously loved going to france,but couldn’t be bothered to look up the correct french..so why do it? Why not talk in english?

I'd better bite my tongue.

 

[Spriddler]

The hard bit to understand initially was that everything has a gender, its either male or female even a wheel barrow!,

Hilarious (apparently) joke, told to me by a colleague in our Paris office:

Englishman pointing to the sky:...... "Regardez, Pierre! Une hélicoptère".

Pierre: ......"Non, c'est UN hélicoptère"

........ "Ah Pierre, you obviously have better eyesight than me".

His other favourite was that it was a Belgian who invented the toilet seat, but it was a Frenchman who had the idea to put the hole in the middle.

 

[Theonlysue]

A lot of english words have invaded the french language, known as franglais.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Minxy]

A lot of english words have invaded the french language, known as franglais.

"Le parking" "le tennis" ... "le weekend" why isn't this "le semaine fin"???

 

[OldAgeTravellers]

I have lived in France for fifteen years and I do not speak French and probably never will. I get by and I mix well with my neighbours many of whom have become friends. Unfortunately my brain is not wired for languages. The only criticism I have ever had is from a Brit who does speak French (badly I am told). He said I should be ashamed of myself for not learning. I asked him how long he had been using computers, which was longer than I have been in France and shouldn't he be fluent in computers.He comes to me to fix his computer. Because my brain is wired that way.
As @Frankie above has demonstrated a little knowledge and a dictionary can be very dangerous and will usually steer you wrong. She can speak excellent English and write it and make jokes and probably understands the technicalities better than I but as I am sure she will be the first to admit she does make mistakes. We all understand her though and I hope would never criticise.
I have great respect and admiration for those that can converse in other languages. But anybody who suggests that I or anybody else is ignorant because they do not or who make mistakes I think should look in the mirror and have a very strong conversation with them self. Even in fun that sort of criticism can be devastating and hurtful.
Steve

 

[yodeli]

I have lived in France for fifteen years and I do not speak French and probably never will. I get by and I mix well with my neighbours many of whom have become friends. Unfortunately my brain is not wired for languages. The only criticism I have ever had is from a Brit who does speak French (badly I am told). He said I should be ashamed of myself for not learning. I asked him how long he had been using computers, which was longer than I have been in France and shouldn't he be fluent in computers.He comes to me to fix his computer. Because my brain is wired that way.
As @Frankie above has demonstrated a little knowledge and a dictionary can be very dangerous and will usually steer you wrong. She can speak excellent English and write it and make jokes and probably understands the technicalities better than I but as I am sure she will be the first to admit she does make mistakes. We all understand her though and I hope would never criticise.
I have great respect and admiration for those that can converse in other languages. But anybody who suggests that I or anybody else is ignorant because they do not or who make mistakes I think should look in the mirror and have a very strong conversation with them self. Even in fun that sort of criticism can be devastating and hurtful.
Steve

Oh yes, deffo still make mistakes and not only a few. Since I got my Oxford dictionnary I understand better the use of some words. Having an english dictionnary is really helping, but natives will always give me another use of the word, which is not mentionned in the dict.

Steve, I came across your post accidently, as the person you mentionned with @ is another lady Funster whose username is Frankie. To mention me you have to use @yodeli .

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[OldAgeTravellers]

Oh yes, deffo still make mistakes and not only a few. Since I got my Oxford dictionnary I understand better the use of some words. Having an english dictionnary is really helping, but natives will always give me another use of the word, which is not mentionned in the dict.

Steve, I came across your post accidently, as the person you mentionned with @ is another lady Funster whose username is Frankie. To mention me you have to use @yodeli .

Sorry Frankie @yodeli typing late and while bobbing up & down in a Norwegian Fjoyd on a Northan Lights cruise at the top of the world. Just put Frankie in and accepted the result.
The point remains though that a dictionary, especially a French dictionary can lead you astray because more than English I think, French has so many words the same which totally depend on the context and sentence structure for their meaning. And TheFrench do shorten things so much. For example, your shortened word "deffo" above would rarely be used by other than a teenager. Nothing wrong with it at all and every English person would understand you but to me it would probably indicate somebody who works with teenagers, somebody who is trying to make out they were a teenager or somebody such as yourself who is not a native speaker. No offence at all intended. To somebody from a different UK region the inference may be slightly different. The French usually will shorten Resturant to " "Resto" why? Because they do. But I can't check butI doubt that it in the dictionary.
Your sentance correction above really makes little sense to an Englishman as does the one you corrected to a Frenchman.
Those that are linguistically gifted should not mock or look down on those that are not. We have our uses.
Steve

 

[yodeli]

@OldAgeTravellers

Shame on me Steve, I use "deffo" only because I've never been able to remember the spelling of the whole word. I've tried many times but seems to be stupid when it comes to this word lol! Never thought though it was for teenagers mainly, having read it on here so many times. I've learnt something else today.

French are very lazy when speaking, resto is shorter , easier, and somehow it means "why make it difficult when you can make it easy".

As you said all the people from different countries have their uses.
I've noticed that a lot of people use acronyms. I find it so difficult to understand, but there again, I am the foreign bit on here, so either I ask right away what it stands for, or look up on the internet to try and find the full meaning.

 

[yodeli]

"Le parking" "le tennis" ... "le weekend" why isn't this "le semaine fin"???

Probably for the same reason you say "rendez-vous" (verb rendre , subject is the pronoun vous and it's all French) or "quant à moi" I have read somewhere or even just Moi?
Best of all being: Honni soit qui mal y pense..... very surprising for an English motto . Even if I know you had some French bits in your history.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[stcyr]

Going to the tower .... hmm ....

 

[Reallyretired]

My French is so good the French ask me to say it again in English.

 

[Wildbill]

I was on another motorhome forum recently and someone asked in broken pigeon franglais about the tour de france next year.” nous going a la tour”. I was amazed that anyone could publicly show how ignorant they were.I resisted the temptation to slag her off,just leaving a cryptic comment,then It crossed my mind that maybe most people(english) dont bother with any foreign languages because they can expect foreigners to understand us! This may be the case in northern france and the low countries,but I know when I had problems with my campervan this year down SW France,if I hadn’t had a bit of french I would’ve been screwed.I got the feeling some of the locals went out of their way not to talk english. So I just wonder how many of you guys make an effort to comunicate when in europe..or am I just talking out of my derrière ?

So what would you make of Simone with dyslexia posting on hear or someone who's first language is not English
Bill

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}