Uh huh, whatever that is. Even Paris has more than one accent. (St Denis for example)
It's interesting how pronunciation in France shifted after the revolution.[1]
Before that, everyone from the terroir to the king spoke mostly the same way. It was called the "Bel usage."
When the king said: "La loi c'est moi" it probably came out more like: "La loi c'est moé."
There was a more formal, accent reserved for public speeches, and sermons at church called the: "Grand usage."
After the revolution the new ruling class adopted the "Grand usage" in day to day speech and it became Parisian French.
In Québec, we were cut off from France after the British won the war, so our accent remained closer to the "Bel Usage."
In my linguistics classes it was always drilled into us that no accent is 'better' than any other. However ...
I personally prefer my accent, It is more demotic and earthy, it's the language of my grandmother and my ancestors, not of the village priest or the politician making a speech.
I find it funny how Parisians almost twist themselves in knots to over-pronounce every written letter of every word. It's almost as if it references the _written_ word more than the spoken one.
> I find it funny how Parisians almost twist themselves in knots to over-pronounce every written letter of every word. It's almost as if it references the _written_ word more than the spoken one.
While in my opinion it's generally true that in France (and not especially in Paris) the written language constitutes the reference more than it does Québec, I think you might be slightly biased here:
Nobody in France would pronounce the final "t" in "tout" or the "i" in "envoie" for example :)
'There was a more formal, accent reserved for public speeches, and sermons at church called the: "Grand usage."
After the revolution the new ruling class adopted the "Grand usage" in day to day speech and it became Parisian French.'
It's interesting how many languages standardized based on the variant spoken by the ruling elites, often imposed by revolutionaries. That's how Standard Chinese came to be based off of the courtly tongue of the Mandarins.
Well it's similar to US and UK English. c.f. how confused people in the US can be when they hear UK English for the first time if they were not exposed to it when growing up.
On the other hand, while Quebec French has its regional expressions (as do most US, UK and French regions), it's fascinating how the language and accent has changed in 30-40 years only.
This archive video from 1963 church-era is hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HjSfZWI-ZA -- Radio-Canada interviewing a bunch of people at the municipal pool asking them about short shorts. Lots of different accents.
My wife (we're American) watches a lot of British programming, and for some shows she has to put on the subtitles. Between certain English accents and slang, it's hard to follow sometimes.
As a French I never found an American TV show that I had difficulties with (love the Appalachian accent btw) but English shows were another matter (usually when there are criminals).
But if you tell me it's difficult even for Americans I'm a bit reassured about my abilities ;-)
Rest assured, there are American accents I can't even understand. The most recent example on American TV that comes to mind is some of the characters in the first season of True Detective. Some of those Deep South accents, particularly from the bayou in Louisiana are beyond my comprehension.
Interesting, it looks like this is an app geared at accent reduction, which could be promising. I'll try it out.
Duolingo French elicits speech, but I fear that it is set so permissive as to hardly be helpful (I haven't dared to test feeding it nonsense or clearly incorrect pronunciations yet). There's a Czech-learning app I use that uses speech recognition to test the user's pronunciation, but the implementation is bad: it is fairly strict, and the speech recognition simply tries to interpret the speech (rather than gauging correctness), so it frequently misinterprets the user's utterance as another statement entirely. Which is frustrating and unhelpful.
Very interesting, thanks for posting this to be able to check it out. Now I get to find out how far I've fallen since passing the Paris Chamber of Commerce non-native business French test. Reminds me that I haven't listened to any streaming French radio in too long, which was a trick I used to re-up my comprehension and vocab from time to time. Super chouette app!
My employer's proxy blocks this site as "malicious." I suspect it's a false positive but on the off chance that the proxy actually has a way to detect this I figured I'd share.
I'm french so I had to try it out! Although I got 90-100% on all words, I was able to get 50+% on most words doing what I think is a strong (but totally understandable) american accent in french. That was fun!
I'm French as well. When I saw the title of this post, I thought it was about how French you sound when you speak English, not how well you can speak French.
The thing is, there are a lot of very educated French people who, when they speak English, have an extremely accentuated French accent. Typically scientists and politicians. It's like they don't make any effort whatsoever or think that the French accent is some kind of honorific mark they should cultivate.
Me, I've always thought the French accent is the worst ever and I try my best to hide it because it makes me feel retarded.
It's very strange how some people can add or drop accents at will, and others can move away from their home country at a young age and simply NEVER lose their accent.
I work for a company that moved from Paris to California, so we have a large number of native French speakers who still work with us; it's an interesting dynamic.
Accent is fluid and can change when you are young but by the time you are 15/16 it becomes difficult to "lose" your native accent regardless of the amount of exposure you have to a different language. This has been scientifically validated (can't find any relevant papers at the moment to link you to though).
He's not talking about losing it completely though. Some people are able to mostly lose their accent and sound relatively close to a native, others retain a very strong accent despite having lived in a new country for many years.
To be fair, I personally enjoy working in a diverse environment with so many accents, and at least for the european ones I don't have any trouble (international english is the working language, native english speakers are not a majority in my office and there are over 50 different countries represented). Personally unless I feel like people have trouble understanding me, I don't make too much effort to cover my (french) accent.
I find it strange too. My grandmother moved to England from Italy over 60 years ago but she sounds like she arrived a couple of weeks ago. I think it's a combination of wanting to maintain her Italian identity and talking daily/weekly to other people in Italian. It must take effort, even if subconsciously (e.g. wanting to fit in, thinking it affects the way people perceive you, not being understood etc), because it clearly doesn't happen automatically.
> or think that the French accent is some kind of honorific mark they should cultivate
It impresses Americans, who unconciously assume anything European is more sophisticated. Go to a high-end restaurant in the U.S. and I'll bet your maitre d' has a European accent. Or just look at the top luxury brands; why is a Mercedes somehow more sophisticated than a Lexus? French wine more sophisticated than Californian?
I'm French, and speak American English natively (i.e., when people meet me they think I'm American and when I tell them I'm French it takes them a bit of time to believe me - "you mean, you have french parents but were born here?" etc.).
Most people don't realize that a language's accent is a physical thing. Your throat, nose, tongue behave differently when speaking different languages. If you're French, you can't speak English while keeping the same physical arrangement of your mouth and throat than when you speak French. So if you want to speak a language with a native accent, you have to experiment with all those parameters, and find what your voice sounds like in that language. For instance, my voice is a bit deeper in English than it is in French; this is particularly noticeable with my female friends who are speak both English and French natively - their voices tend to be very noticeably higher in French.
I've been learning Japanese, and it seems that I get best pronunciation results when my throat is in an even lower, more relaxed position than English. I intend to pick up mandarin at some point and am very much looking forward to experimenting with that, as I have no experience with strongly tonal languages.
Kids get this intuitively, but adults have a much harder time with it- it has to be taught consciously. Which is why most French people, even after living in an English speaking country for many years, retain a horrible French accent. We really ought to be teaching kids from the maternelle, much like many of our European neighbors do.
That being said, one thing I just have never been able to do are regional accents in languages I already speak. I cannot for the life of me speak with a northern French accent (my family's from the south, although I grew up in Lyon so have a mostly neutral accent), or a British accent.
> Most people don't realize that a language's accent is a physical thing.
Right! This is why I hate saying English words in the middle of German sentences. It's actually easier to just say them with the German accent, rather than take the effort to rearrange both my mouth and my brain.
Agree! But vice versa: I've been learning German for a few years and it's hard to dynamically reconfigure for the odd German place name or person while in the middle of English, but my German accent is actually pretty decent and don't want to let it get Americanized by laziness. The other way, speaking German and inserting English words with a German accent, is actually pretty comfortable, I find.
I usually get the impression people aren't really trying to match an accent. They're just trying to pronounce the letters and syllables as they would in their native language. Hence the stereotypical cringe-inducing "bonn-joor!" or "watashee wah soo-miss-oo dess-oo". Maybe it's because they haven't heard enough native pronunciation of the words (just like I mispronounce words I've only ever read in a book).
When I speak foreign languages I sort of subconsciously imitate characters I've heard speak in movies or shows. I'm always kind of worried my Japanese will sound like a mix of Naruto and Miyazaki characters.
As for regional accents, I find that's more a matter of knowing the little differences in certain words, like extending or shortening syllables, or rather strongly altering the key vowel (eg. Québecois 'nawn' vs. Parisian 'nohn' for 'non'). As you said, has a lot to do with mouth shapes.
For a lot of regional accents, I find you can fake things by transposing certain vowels. eg. for Australian transpose all the eh's (eg. get, head) into i's (eg. git, hid) and using soft r's (git me a beah mate). Whereas in my limited experience New Zealanders have a sharper change from e's to i's - it's almost "geet me a beah". And of course knowing the local slang - adding 'mate' to the end of your sentences just sounds more Australian.
> Most people don't realize that a language's accent is a physical thing. Your throat, nose, tongue behave differently when speaking different languages.
As an example, if you read Irish writing and learn the Irish vowel and consonant sounds / rules you can't help speaking with an Irish accent. E.g. Dun Laoghaire is pronounced Dun Leary with an English accent, but if you read it properly it comes out in an Irish accent.
> Most people don't realize that a language's accent is a physical thing. Your throat, nose, tongue behave differently when speaking different languages. If you're French, you can't speak English while keeping the same physical arrangement of your mouth and throat than when you speak French.
Interesting theory but as a counterexample in Switzerland in the western side of the country people speak French natively and generally their English accent is way better than the English accent in French people. I think it has a lot to do with the culture of the country; for example the protection of the language is not considered as important in Switzerland as it is in France. In France radio stations have minimun quota for French music, something unthinkable in Switzerland.
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.
You 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...
> 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.
It's funny when you read the comments, I got the same issue when I move to UK, trying to hide my accent or let's say trying not to have an accent. What I learned is they don't mind your accent while you are trying to speak their English. The experience made me change the way I see others speaking/learning languages.
Nowadays it's all down to the communication and it's why I learn languages at the first place, being able to communicate and having fun learning from each other.
Unfortunately is not always the case in France, where we expect people to speak French as it should be, hopefully with more people travelling and having experiences abroad we will be more open when foreigners try to speak French.
It's too easy. I got 100% on "Bonjour," but I definitely do not sound native to French people. I know this because last year I took a hike in a french gorge and greeted people with "Bonjour" but they often answered me back in English.
I almost spit out my beer at "answered me back in English".
My favorite language story is from when I was studying in eastern France (Strasbourg). I went across the border to the train station in Kehl, Germany, as I reasoned that train tickets inside Germany (I was on my way to Berlin) would be vastly cheaper than trying to buy the same ticket with an origin in Strasbourg.
Anyway, I know a little bit of German, and suddenly I understood why foreign language classes always start you off with directions and tickets and timetables and so on. So I was all set with my basic train vocabulary. We went back and forth and conducted our business. I gave him my American passport at the end, he seamlessly transitioned to some pleasantry in English as we concluded, and I walked away with my train ticket.
Well, as I walked away, I was pondering his lack of surprise that I was American (which should not have been surprising; my crappy German is clearly not a Frenchman's crappy German), and I replayed the conversation in my head. As I got to the "smoking or non-smoking" part, I realized I could not recall the German word (rauchen, for those keeping score at home). Eventually it came to me, and I realized that he had actually said "smoking oder non" (oder being German for "or").. Well, of course, English with a German accent sounds like German to an English speaker...
And I suddenly realized that we had probably conducted virtually all of the transaction in English, and I had no clue. He probably switched to German-accented English as soon as I did a poor job of asking for a 2nd class ticket to Berlin arriving at this time on that date, and I didn't even realize it.
You know I think there is this phenomenon of "listening in the wrong language". As an American in France, sometimes I'd meet people and they'd want to try out their English with me. Every once in a while I'd meet someone and be totally confused by their French, and I'd have to ask for help. "Dude, he's speaking English to you". Then we'd both feel bad.
That's great. Yeah, if I don't expect a language, the first 10 words are just totally lost to me. Which is strange, because in normal, english conversation here back home, sometimes someone will say something and I'll completely miss it -- but then be able to stop, and replay what they said in my head. It's like some part of my subconscious records it.
On the same trip, I was on a train from Italy to France. In my car was a French woman living in England, and an Italian woman. They were practicing on each other so the Italian would talk to the French woman in French, and she'd reply in Italian. This went on for some time. As we prepared to depart the train, the woman's child and husband joined her. I talked to the French woman's husband for 5 minutes or so. Eventually he asked me where I lived and I told him I was from California but studying in France. He turned out to be British, and switched to English and said "oh, well then I guess we can just speak in English then."
I'm sure our French pronunciation wouldn't have fooled a native, but it was good enough for a couple of foreigners.
My best language story is growing up in rural New York state helping my father install satellite television systems.
One time when I was about 16 or 17 I was sent to do an installation at a dairy farm; specifically in the small trailer near the barns where a couple of Mexican migrant workers lived (the farm owner being nice enough to get them a TV subscription, I guess). In this area of the country there aren't a whole lot of Spanish speakers, so I'm guessing that the guys who were hanging out in the trailer just assumed the goofy looking white kid would have no clue what they were saying if they spoke in Spanish.
Little did they know that I studied Spanish in school for the better part of a decade (and actually paid attention/practiced), so I could understand most of what they were saying, and it was not good. It was a lot of complaining about the farm owner (who did not speak Spanish) and about how this "trash was not an excuse for better pay and working conditions". They definitely sounded bitter about their situation.
So when the time came to activate the satellite receiver I had to use their telephone to call the provider to turn it on, for fun I asked, "Puedo usar el telephono?" I have never seen anyone get more quiet and solemn this quickly. Neither of them said another word the rest of the time I was there, presumably in fear of me ratting them out (of course I didn't).
They probably enjoyed the chance to use their english with a native english speaker while appreciating that you initiated the interaction with consideration to them.
Here in Canada we have a french region, and if you walk into a mechanic's shop and say: “Hi! Does anybody speak english here? Can you fix my car?” They will help you, but if you make an attempt like: “Bon Jur. Can you fixé le car for moi?” They will be a lot more happy to accommodate you in English because you tried to bridge the gap. Maybe it's similar!
> I took a hike in a french gorge and greeted people with "Bonjour" but they often answered me back in English
Have you considered the fact that they might have been foreign tourists like you? A French hiker would not greet you in English unless he clearly heard you speak in it on the way in, and even then. (am French).
It's possible! Their English sounded French-accented to me most of the time, but that could just be a bias on my part since I was in France. I guess it will be hard to know for sure.
Heh, kinda cool! Definitely in its beginning stages, but I had to try it out as I'm probably a target market; studied French for ~10 years (middle school, high school, some university), and have spent a total of perhaps 6 months in France -- But I've not lived there permanently, and haven't really used the language in perhaps 10 years.
I'm at the point where I'd have a hard time following dialogue in a TV show (although, to be fair, that's always hard for foreigners), but am rarely identified as american by native french-speakers; they usually guess German or something similar (more plausible to know French well, but still with the harder-edged anglo accent; I'm clearly not an Italian or Spaniard... well, okay, I AM Italian, but do not speak Italian).
Anyway, what I mean to say is my background with the language is complicated, and my french is far from perfect. Typically I managed in the 80-100% range depending on words.
It'd be interesting to see accents from Northern, Southern France, Paris, Belgium, Switzerland and Quebec compared... I'd reckon there's more variation than people think.
Funny Story: I was traveling from Portugal back to the U.S. through Charles de Gaulle Airport and my Dad gave me 4 Euros. I went to this little bakery and the man behind the counter asked me what I wanted in French. I mustered up as much throat as I possibly could and said croissant which was apparently good enough for him to go off on this long answer to what I ordered. I looked at him blankly and said "Sorry man, that's the only word I know." He was not amused.
The French are very proud and protective of their language. I have a similar experience, I was asking Je cherche le croissants (or something: I'm looking for croissants), I got a blank stare until my friend made a very theatrical overly french "Croissants!" hand waving and all, then the supermarket guy understood. I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market (ordinateur) or when RNA splicing was discovered (Épissage). French will be spoken long after Dutch completely Englifies.
I studied computer science in Wales in the 90s. Although the lectures were all in English, we had the option of taking our exams in Welsh. (University Policy was that everything must be bilingual, even hand-written student posters on bulleting boards. There was a free full-time translation service in the student union.)
This was especially odd because a lot of the Welsh terms for computing subjects were invented and/or standardised after we took the classes, and different colleges were using different terms for the same concepts.
Needless to say, nobody did the exams in Welsh.
(The only Welsh most of us learned was just enough to fake our way into Clwb Ifor Bach, the welsh-speakers' bar/nightclub!)
Ordinateur was not invented when computers came to the market. It was coined in its modern sense of computing machine, not by Proud French People Who Liked Their Language but by IBM France, because they felt that "calculateur" (French for -- whaddya know! -- "something that computes", a literal equivalent for "computer") was too restrictive. In the 1950s, when that happened, "ordinateur" had been in use for a very long time. I don't know how common it was (I'm not a native French speaker), but it's certainly not a word they made up on the spot (it's of very obvious Latin origin), and they don't use it because they don't have a more appropriate word for "computer" (which they do -- "calculateur", which they deemed inappropriate because a "calculateur" could do a lot more than "calculer"; just like, indeed, a "computer" could do a lot more than "compute").
Many European languages had a local equivalent for "computer" long before electronic computers were around, and French is certainly not the only one that kept it.
A natural counterpart to the magnétophone that plays audio tape (which itself probably derives from gramophone).
Forced frenchified words that come to mind would be couriel for email, and mot-dièse (literally "sharp word") for "hash tag", when both English terms already are in common use.
Télécopieur is one of my favourites, it's the fax machine. The fax, i.e. the piece of paper coming out, is the télécopie. Tele-copy, that's something I can get wrap my head around, it actually is a better derivation than from Latin facsimile.
No we don't. To be frank, podcasts are not a (big) thing here.
I love how Quebecois are always inventing these funny french words, always put a smile on my face.
I got to talk to my friends about 'baladodiffusions' but I'm not sure that they all know what a podcast is so I doubt they will appreciate this new word to its full extent.
According to Google there are French podcasts, and they are very popular ! I found an article from 2012 that said there was 20 millions podcasts downloads in France every month (we're a bit less than 70 millions French).
I had no idea since nobody I know ever mentioned podcasts to me. Maybe they're all Luddites or they hide their podcast addiction well ;-)
Me I exclusively listen to audio books (and I can recommend wholeheartedly the ones from Graphic Audio).
There is also Informatics in English (what BAs, System Analysts and Software Project Managers study in some parts of the world), but I'm not sure how it maps:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatics
I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market (ordinateur)
Many European languages have native words for computer. In Swedish it's "dator" (from "datum"), in Finnish "tietokone" (literally "knowledge machine").
The English word "computer" is not a new word, but an old job title reassigned to a machine. It makes sense that other languages might choose a different etymology for an information processing engine.
In my time travelling in France (Paris, Nice and surrounding areas), I made every attempt to say the little things in French. "Bonjour" , "Le menu pour Anglais" or "L'Addition s'il vous plait", "Parlez vous anglais?" etc. The idea was to start any question or conversation in french and then switch to English.
Never did I have a problem over my 2 weeks with anyone. Everyone appreciated the effort to speak the language and was super polite and warm.
I speak French reasonably well, but I was often treated rudely, particularly by people in customer service roles (my wife and I studied abroad). Clerks seemed agitated to have to deal with foreigners, taxis would blow off appointments, and even simple questions (e.g., asking for directions to a nearby building/office/etc) was met with "c'est impossible". In one case, my wife and I booked a hotel online, but upon checking in the clerk told us we had to pay for two rooms because my wife and I couldn't share a room. When I asked for an explanation, he said, "It's like putting 3 people on a 2-person motorcycle, it's just impossible!" (clearly he'd not been to India).
My French friends speculated that it could have been xenophobia or specifically that I was mistaken for an Englishman (I'm American, but apparently the French particularly dislike the English?).
At any rate, I had many positive experiences, and even these "negative experiences" weren't particularly negative (this was before being easily offended was fashionable among university students in the U.S.); it was more a neutral, cultural observation.
These words have not been created by regular French people people proud of the language, it is mainly due to the fact that there is a pretty powerful council creating new words and regulating the French language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise.
Turkish also did, the word was originally brought into Turkish as "Kompüter". But that didn't sound nearly turkish enough, so it was replaced with Bilgisayar, or "knowledge counter".
Turkey has an official government body which regulates the Turkish language and naturalizes foreign loan words. It used to be much more active but people generally still listen to it, why copy the sounds of a foreign word when you can copy the meaning and end up with a word that's much easier to say and remember?
They recently tried to rebrand selfie as özçekim, "self-picture", but I think it's a little too late for that one.
That's interesting... I've had positive experiences when I've visited. I've heard from a lot of Americans that they are treated rudely, even when they attempt to communicate in limited French. I had several years of it, though I was rusty when I went to France, but despite my mistakes I felt I was treated very warmly and they seemed to enjoy indulging my attempts to use the language.
At one time I was moderately competent in French and so was comfortable going up to counters and just asking questions in French without hesitation, in both France and Belgium.
That's to say, I've a lot of experience with this as a foreigner. I've had everything from beaming smiles and responses in French, to confused expressions upon which I've repeated myself more slowly, to grimaces and reluctant replies, to just outright replies in English.
The truth is, the regularity with which you're treated rudely is about the same as anywhere. Sometimes you go to counters, or restaurants, or bars at home and are treated very rudely. The person working there might be genuinely miserable, they might have just spoken to another customer who was rude, they might just be tired. You don't take any of these things to mean anything about the culture where you live. It's just people.
Any type of broad summary of 'the people in X' is always something I take with a massive grain of salt. You hear it all the time. Somebody spent 3 days in Hanoi, and had a friendly interaction with one or two locals, so the Vietnamese are lovely people, while in Hong Kong they had a rude taxi driver, and had a hotel on a busy road, so the people there are a bit ruder, a bit more rushed and loud, they say. Whilst the Australian they met who bought them a beer.. such generous people, those Australians! You get the idea :-)
Frenchie here. I think it is a very common misunderstanding. My bet is that if you got a blank stare, the person just had no idea what you were saying. It has nothing to do with your proud or protection our language. I got a lot of blank stares when I moved to the US 10 years ago ;-)
A tip to foreigners: it's considered exceptionally rude not to say hello to someone behind the counter, or when entering a store. I often cringe when I see Americans order something at a café counter: they have the best intentions, they're trying hard to be polite, and right off the bad they commit a huge faux-pas by immediately saying "un café s'il vous plait!".
Well even French people between themselves occasionally use "hello", so it's quite natural to answer hello to someone who seems to have a foreign accent.
That's my theory as well. I've heard many horror stories about American being served by racists french, but most of these starts with the American not knowing you have to start with "Bonjour". Extremely unpolite not to start by "Bonjour" in France, even when you enter an elevator with complete strangers you will have to say Bonjour.
Only the French could describe asking for a coffee with "please" on the end as "exceptionally rude".
It's almost petty. You will forgive any other faux-pas as long as you start the interaction with "bonjour"? And if you mis-pronounce "bonjour"? Do we need to seek forgiveness from the President? I like flying over France and going to Spain and Italy where none of this nonsense exists.
If you go to Japan and do not take off your shoes in certain you'll be considered exceptionally rude. Are you going to criticize the Japanese now?
Different countries have different cultural expectations and customs. In France not saying Bonjour is considered rude (and hello works in Paris by the way), in other countries other things are considered rude. It's not because you're traveling and a tourist that you do not need to try to learn and follow the local customs.
>Different countries have different cultural expectations and customs.
Thank you!
I'd also like to point out that this yahoo seems unaware of his own cultural baggage. I bet he'd consider it extremely rude for someone to cut in front of a line at a bus stop, whereas such things are perfectly acceptable in other countries (in France we hardly have lines at bus stops).
Just like cutting a bus queue can be taken as a disrespect, engaging in a transaction without acknowledging that the person behind the counter is ... well... a person can be taken as looking down on people who serve you.
Just as I don't assume foreigners are conspiring to pounce on unsuspecting tourists who cut lines, I expect our friend switch007 not to assume we're doing the same with respect to saying "hello".
This kind of blatant ethnocetrism betrays self-ignorance that borders on comical, and invites ridicule hereabouts.
I think the parent was oversimplifying a bit, and it looks like you took his answer a bit too literally. What is important really here is to establish a contact with the person before asking for service. Anything goes - bonjour, hello, a smile, a nod (works for me very well). Just try to put a bit of your emotions into this (presumably: you are a stranger in a foreign g country not speaking language and needing assistance), and the rest will go accordingly.
It varies a lot. Last time I was in Paris there were people who were easy to deal with, and people who weren't. I can typically start a conversation in French, and carry out simple tasks like ordering/buying things, asking for directions. And that seems to help a lot, as does the fact that I've been told I have a Québecois accent (my first immersion in French was on a trip to Québec) and so I probably get taken for Canadian rather than American. But there are still many people whose entire attitude changes when they hear someone walking in and holding a conversation in English before switching to French, and I've actually been unable to get a table at a restaurant, or get help finding something in a store, when that happened.
I've been to many countries and French are by far the hardest people to communicate with. Every time I'd ask something, I would be completely misunderstood. Like this time I tried to order a set menu in a fast food restaurant (Quick). You'd think it would be the easiest thing ever? Except the cashier brought out 2 identical burgers for some reason. It took me 5 minutes to explain that I only need one burger, all the while a huge queue accumulated behind me. I can't help but have a suspicion they're just fucking with me.
In most countries I have been to people tried to help me when I spoke their language badly. In France (especially in Paris) I just get a blank stare or they are amused when I mispronounce something but still won't help. Maybe they are not used to people with an accent?
Every time I meet a French person my go-to sentence to show off my French is: "à quelle heure le garage est fermé?", only to be met with the same blank stare. I then ask if I pronounced it wrong and they say (in English): "no I understand, but which garage do you mean?".
Your sentence is a bit ungrammatical. It would be more natural to say "À quelle heure le garage ferme-t-il?" if you mean "when does the garage close?" (expecting a precise time: it closes at 9PM), or "Quand le garage est-il fermé?", if you mean "when is the garage closed"? (expecting an interval: it's closed from 9PM until 10AM the next day).
Anglicisms in French is actually a funny subject. According to different sources, roughly 45% of all English words have a French origin. Thus, there's a lot of overlap between English and French. Some words, such as camping, parking and flirting are considered anglicisms in French, but they are actually words from the Old French that did a full round-trip from French to English to French.
Although the stems are ok and related to other French words (camping -> camp, campement, camper ; parking -> parc, parquer ; flirting <-> conter fleurette), I think what can shock the purists is this ending is -ing which does not sound French at all and is not grammatically French.
Greek universities teach computer science courses in Greek so a lot of the terminology is translated over. When I speak to fellow Greeks who have studied CS in Greek, there's always a bit of mental gear shifting needed before we can be sure we're on the same page.
A few examples:
μεταγλωττιστής (compiler; lit. someone doing voice-overs of foreign language speech)
πολυπλέκτης (multiplexer; lit. multi-knitter. Note that "plex" is possibly from the Greek for 'knitting', 'pleximo')
σφάλμα κατάτμησης (lit. segmentation fault)
περιηγητής (web browser; lit. explorer or sightseer)
μητρική (motherboard; lit. maternal (card))
And my personal favourite:
αντικειμενοστραφής προγραμματισμός (object oriented programming, literally, in the sense of "oriented" used to denote physically orienting one's body towards a given direction; in other words "programming that is facing objects")
In Spanish OOP is "programación orientada a objetos", which suffers from the same mistranslation as in Greek. It also means "programming that is facing objects", in a quite physical sense.
I don't really think you could do that in Spanish, at least until we started copying English terms.
Yes, now we also use "orientar a" to translate other English buzzwords like "orientado a resultados" (result-oriented), "orientado a la productividad" (productivity-oriented), etc. But outside of linguistic calques of modern English expressions and buzzwords, I've never heard or read anyone using "orientar a" for anything else than facing a direction.
I might be wrong, of course, as language is very complex and has a lot of regional variations (in particular Spanish, which changes a lot between Spain and the various Latin American countries); but my perception as a Spanish speaker from Spain is that the term originated from a bad translation of English, and something like "programación centrada en objetos", "basada en objetos", etc. would have been better.
I think that this reputation is waaaay overblown, due to the mostly futile efforts of the Académie Française to preserve the "pure" French language.
As an American who spent a semester in a high school in France, I remember being shocked hearing our French teacher use "le timing et le planning" discussing our strategy for how to write an in-class essay. This was an ordinary French class for French speakers made up of upper-middle class 11th graders in a stuffy Catholic school.
English loan words (the term itself is valid in French!) are all over the place. "OK" is pervasive. Other examples include "stop", "week-end", "parking", . There are even strange examples where English words are used in ways that make no sense in English. "Footing" means "jogging". "String" means "thong". "Pull" (as in "pullover") means "sweater". "Chewing" means gum. "Baskets" means "sneakers". My favorite though, is "talkie-walkie" where the "l"s are both pronounced.
If you received a blank stare from the supermarket guy, he probably just did not understand what you were saying.
Swahili has words for different types of computers e.g. Taraklishi(regular computer), Taraklishikuu(super computer) and Tarakilishi kiunzikuu (mainframe).
> I know of no other language that invented new words when computers came to the market (ordinateur)
Norwegian: datamaskin. Until the mid 80's it was widely debated what name to use, with datamaskin, data, komputer og dator (from Swedish) as common alternatives.
Icelandic apparently uses "tölva" - basically "prophetess of numbers" (from "tala" and "völva").
Swedish: dator (can be precisely dated to 1968). You can also use "datamaskin" in Swedish as well, but it is dated.
The French verb "épisser" is an old verb that means "to splice", and actually comes from middle Dutch "splissen". Épissage is just the noun form of it. It's as natural for French speakers to use "épissage" in the context of RNA splicing as it is for English speakers to use "splicing". Why would they borrow a word from English when they already have a perfectly good one?
As someone who has spent half of their life in France and the other half in North America, I would disagree. I return every 2 years or so to visit family, and am always appalled by the amount of English words that weasel their way into the language.
Marketers (in France and many other countries) have realized that the American legacy of progress and technology is still cool and edgy, and helps sell pretty much anything.
It honestly irritates me, as 95% of those intruder words are not only often misused in their context, but have perfect etymologically correct translations in French.
Un steak is spelled the same but pronounced "steck". The Hangover movie was literally called "Bad Trip" in France, instead of "La gueule de bois". "Shopping" is the go-to word to describe purchasing goods, even though "achat" is a perfectly valid word.
I could go on and on: un smartphone, la freebox (router), un smoking (a tuxedo), un string (a thong), wi-fi (this one is worldwide), chewing gum, businessman, boycott, startup, warning...
Really great concept - I feel the UI needs some work, there were a lot of times where it showed an "x" and didnt give me a score - I assume this means its having trouble hearing me. Some sort of distance or volume indicator would be great.
As a Canadian I'm a bit surprised though as all the words it was able to detect I got 100% scores - I know a lot of the Quebecois french pronunciations we learn in Canada are very different than French from France so it'd be interesting to hear how that is taken into account.
I really hope they keep going on this project as mastering accents is one of the largest gaps right now in online language learning and market leaders either lack the feature all together (like Duolingo) or do a rubbish job of it and charge a fortune (like Rosetta Stone).
Funny, maybe cute, but not very useful if you're actually trying to learn a new language.
Having "perfect" accent is pointless. When learning a new language you should aim for learning grammar, understanding basic pronunciation, but not "speaking with native accent". That's pointless, unless you're a spy[1] (Look the answer to "Q: Is it possible to acquire a language to a "native" level?").
This app is indeed the complete opposite of what you're looking for. The FrenchMeter is not meant to teach French. It focuses on the spoken aspect of the language, unlike most of the apps out there.
Very cool! I've been looking for something like this to improve pronunciation in other languages. The next best thing I have is to change the input language on iOS and try to talk to Siri. One could certainly do the same thing on Android/Google Now, but keep in mind not all voice recognition/synthesis is equal between languages.
Misleading app. If you say "bon appétit" in a good French accent, it fails, then if you say it in a very bad accent but imitating the distinct pitch and rhythm of the guy in the recording, it scores 100%.
The accuracy is better if you maintain the same distance from the mic when you try several times in a row. If the distance is significantly different between 2 tries then you might get odd results. The recorded voice has to be used as a reference only. The pitch doesn't matter, I'd say don't speak too fast or too slow either and you'll be fine.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 93.2 ms ] threadUh huh, whatever that is. Even Paris has more than one accent. (St Denis for example)
It's interesting how pronunciation in France shifted after the revolution.[1]
Before that, everyone from the terroir to the king spoke mostly the same way. It was called the "Bel usage."
When the king said: "La loi c'est moi" it probably came out more like: "La loi c'est moé."
There was a more formal, accent reserved for public speeches, and sermons at church called the: "Grand usage."
After the revolution the new ruling class adopted the "Grand usage" in day to day speech and it became Parisian French.
In Québec, we were cut off from France after the British won the war, so our accent remained closer to the "Bel Usage."
In my linguistics classes it was always drilled into us that no accent is 'better' than any other. However ...
I personally prefer my accent, It is more demotic and earthy, it's the language of my grandmother and my ancestors, not of the village priest or the politician making a speech.
I find it funny how Parisians almost twist themselves in knots to over-pronounce every written letter of every word. It's almost as if it references the _written_ word more than the spoken one.
[1]: http://legoutdufrancais.org/dou-vient-laccent-des-quebecois-...
While in my opinion it's generally true that in France (and not especially in Paris) the written language constitutes the reference more than it does Québec, I think you might be slightly biased here:
Nobody in France would pronounce the final "t" in "tout" or the "i" in "envoie" for example :)
Indeed, much like English, which is possibly worse, French is known precisely for the fact that it sounds so different from the way it's written.
That's true there are still silent letters.
Ironically in Québec you sometimes hear the 'i' in «envoie».
I find that Québec french in general tends to have preserved a lot of dipthongs that Parisian french has eliminated.
I would still describe Parisian french as «une prononciation recherchée»
It's interesting how many languages standardized based on the variant spoken by the ruling elites, often imposed by revolutionaries. That's how Standard Chinese came to be based off of the courtly tongue of the Mandarins.
The Quebecois programming was inevitably subtitled in (real) French, which was an endless source of humor for me.
On the other hand, while Quebec French has its regional expressions (as do most US, UK and French regions), it's fascinating how the language and accent has changed in 30-40 years only.
This archive video from 1963 church-era is hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HjSfZWI-ZA -- Radio-Canada interviewing a bunch of people at the municipal pool asking them about short shorts. Lots of different accents.
But if you tell me it's difficult even for Americans I'm a bit reassured about my abilities ;-)
Duolingo French elicits speech, but I fear that it is set so permissive as to hardly be helpful (I haven't dared to test feeding it nonsense or clearly incorrect pronunciations yet). There's a Czech-learning app I use that uses speech recognition to test the user's pronunciation, but the implementation is bad: it is fairly strict, and the speech recognition simply tries to interpret the speech (rather than gauging correctness), so it frequently misinterprets the user's utterance as another statement entirely. Which is frustrating and unhelpful.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepé_Le_Pew
The thing is, there are a lot of very educated French people who, when they speak English, have an extremely accentuated French accent. Typically scientists and politicians. It's like they don't make any effort whatsoever or think that the French accent is some kind of honorific mark they should cultivate.
Me, I've always thought the French accent is the worst ever and I try my best to hide it because it makes me feel retarded.
I work for a company that moved from Paris to California, so we have a large number of native French speakers who still work with us; it's an interesting dynamic.
It impresses Americans, who unconciously assume anything European is more sophisticated. Go to a high-end restaurant in the U.S. and I'll bet your maitre d' has a European accent. Or just look at the top luxury brands; why is a Mercedes somehow more sophisticated than a Lexus? French wine more sophisticated than Californian?
Most people don't realize that a language's accent is a physical thing. Your throat, nose, tongue behave differently when speaking different languages. If you're French, you can't speak English while keeping the same physical arrangement of your mouth and throat than when you speak French. So if you want to speak a language with a native accent, you have to experiment with all those parameters, and find what your voice sounds like in that language. For instance, my voice is a bit deeper in English than it is in French; this is particularly noticeable with my female friends who are speak both English and French natively - their voices tend to be very noticeably higher in French.
I've been learning Japanese, and it seems that I get best pronunciation results when my throat is in an even lower, more relaxed position than English. I intend to pick up mandarin at some point and am very much looking forward to experimenting with that, as I have no experience with strongly tonal languages.
Kids get this intuitively, but adults have a much harder time with it- it has to be taught consciously. Which is why most French people, even after living in an English speaking country for many years, retain a horrible French accent. We really ought to be teaching kids from the maternelle, much like many of our European neighbors do.
That being said, one thing I just have never been able to do are regional accents in languages I already speak. I cannot for the life of me speak with a northern French accent (my family's from the south, although I grew up in Lyon so have a mostly neutral accent), or a British accent.
Right! This is why I hate saying English words in the middle of German sentences. It's actually easier to just say them with the German accent, rather than take the effort to rearrange both my mouth and my brain.
When I speak foreign languages I sort of subconsciously imitate characters I've heard speak in movies or shows. I'm always kind of worried my Japanese will sound like a mix of Naruto and Miyazaki characters.
As for regional accents, I find that's more a matter of knowing the little differences in certain words, like extending or shortening syllables, or rather strongly altering the key vowel (eg. Québecois 'nawn' vs. Parisian 'nohn' for 'non'). As you said, has a lot to do with mouth shapes.
For a lot of regional accents, I find you can fake things by transposing certain vowels. eg. for Australian transpose all the eh's (eg. get, head) into i's (eg. git, hid) and using soft r's (git me a beah mate). Whereas in my limited experience New Zealanders have a sharper change from e's to i's - it's almost "geet me a beah". And of course knowing the local slang - adding 'mate' to the end of your sentences just sounds more Australian.
As an example, if you read Irish writing and learn the Irish vowel and consonant sounds / rules you can't help speaking with an Irish accent. E.g. Dun Laoghaire is pronounced Dun Leary with an English accent, but if you read it properly it comes out in an Irish accent.
Interesting theory but as a counterexample in Switzerland in the western side of the country people speak French natively and generally their English accent is way better than the English accent in French people. I think it has a lot to do with the culture of the country; for example the protection of the language is not considered as important in Switzerland as it is in France. In France radio stations have minimun quota for French music, something unthinkable in Switzerland.
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.
To native English-speaking ears it does sound kind of fancy. Kind of snobby too, though.
Nowadays it's all down to the communication and it's why I learn languages at the first place, being able to communicate and having fun learning from each other.
Unfortunately is not always the case in France, where we expect people to speak French as it should be, hopefully with more people travelling and having experiences abroad we will be more open when foreigners try to speak French.
But I'll take the flattery. :)
My favorite language story is from when I was studying in eastern France (Strasbourg). I went across the border to the train station in Kehl, Germany, as I reasoned that train tickets inside Germany (I was on my way to Berlin) would be vastly cheaper than trying to buy the same ticket with an origin in Strasbourg.
Anyway, I know a little bit of German, and suddenly I understood why foreign language classes always start you off with directions and tickets and timetables and so on. So I was all set with my basic train vocabulary. We went back and forth and conducted our business. I gave him my American passport at the end, he seamlessly transitioned to some pleasantry in English as we concluded, and I walked away with my train ticket.
Well, as I walked away, I was pondering his lack of surprise that I was American (which should not have been surprising; my crappy German is clearly not a Frenchman's crappy German), and I replayed the conversation in my head. As I got to the "smoking or non-smoking" part, I realized I could not recall the German word (rauchen, for those keeping score at home). Eventually it came to me, and I realized that he had actually said "smoking oder non" (oder being German for "or").. Well, of course, English with a German accent sounds like German to an English speaker...
And I suddenly realized that we had probably conducted virtually all of the transaction in English, and I had no clue. He probably switched to German-accented English as soon as I did a poor job of asking for a 2nd class ticket to Berlin arriving at this time on that date, and I didn't even realize it.
On the same trip, I was on a train from Italy to France. In my car was a French woman living in England, and an Italian woman. They were practicing on each other so the Italian would talk to the French woman in French, and she'd reply in Italian. This went on for some time. As we prepared to depart the train, the woman's child and husband joined her. I talked to the French woman's husband for 5 minutes or so. Eventually he asked me where I lived and I told him I was from California but studying in France. He turned out to be British, and switched to English and said "oh, well then I guess we can just speak in English then."
I'm sure our French pronunciation wouldn't have fooled a native, but it was good enough for a couple of foreigners.
One time when I was about 16 or 17 I was sent to do an installation at a dairy farm; specifically in the small trailer near the barns where a couple of Mexican migrant workers lived (the farm owner being nice enough to get them a TV subscription, I guess). In this area of the country there aren't a whole lot of Spanish speakers, so I'm guessing that the guys who were hanging out in the trailer just assumed the goofy looking white kid would have no clue what they were saying if they spoke in Spanish.
Little did they know that I studied Spanish in school for the better part of a decade (and actually paid attention/practiced), so I could understand most of what they were saying, and it was not good. It was a lot of complaining about the farm owner (who did not speak Spanish) and about how this "trash was not an excuse for better pay and working conditions". They definitely sounded bitter about their situation.
So when the time came to activate the satellite receiver I had to use their telephone to call the provider to turn it on, for fun I asked, "Puedo usar el telephono?" I have never seen anyone get more quiet and solemn this quickly. Neither of them said another word the rest of the time I was there, presumably in fear of me ratting them out (of course I didn't).
Here in Canada we have a french region, and if you walk into a mechanic's shop and say: “Hi! Does anybody speak english here? Can you fix my car?” They will help you, but if you make an attempt like: “Bon Jur. Can you fixé le car for moi?” They will be a lot more happy to accommodate you in English because you tried to bridge the gap. Maybe it's similar!
Have you considered the fact that they might have been foreign tourists like you? A French hiker would not greet you in English unless he clearly heard you speak in it on the way in, and even then. (am French).
I'm at the point where I'd have a hard time following dialogue in a TV show (although, to be fair, that's always hard for foreigners), but am rarely identified as american by native french-speakers; they usually guess German or something similar (more plausible to know French well, but still with the harder-edged anglo accent; I'm clearly not an Italian or Spaniard... well, okay, I AM Italian, but do not speak Italian).
Anyway, what I mean to say is my background with the language is complicated, and my french is far from perfect. Typically I managed in the 80-100% range depending on words.
Anybody know the goal of the project?
This was especially odd because a lot of the Welsh terms for computing subjects were invented and/or standardised after we took the classes, and different colleges were using different terms for the same concepts.
Needless to say, nobody did the exams in Welsh.
(The only Welsh most of us learned was just enough to fake our way into Clwb Ifor Bach, the welsh-speakers' bar/nightclub!)
Many European languages had a local equivalent for "computer" long before electronic computers were around, and French is certainly not the only one that kept it.
Edit: accent
Forced frenchified words that come to mind would be couriel for email, and mot-dièse (literally "sharp word") for "hash tag", when both English terms already are in common use.
I love how Quebecois are always inventing these funny french words, always put a smile on my face.
I got to talk to my friends about 'baladodiffusions' but I'm not sure that they all know what a podcast is so I doubt they will appreciate this new word to its full extent.
I had no idea since nobody I know ever mentioned podcasts to me. Maybe they're all Luddites or they hide their podcast addiction well ;-) Me I exclusively listen to audio books (and I can recommend wholeheartedly the ones from Graphic Audio).
Many European languages have native words for computer. In Swedish it's "dator" (from "datum"), in Finnish "tietokone" (literally "knowledge machine").
The English word "computer" is not a new word, but an old job title reassigned to a machine. It makes sense that other languages might choose a different etymology for an information processing engine.
In my time travelling in France (Paris, Nice and surrounding areas), I made every attempt to say the little things in French. "Bonjour" , "Le menu pour Anglais" or "L'Addition s'il vous plait", "Parlez vous anglais?" etc. The idea was to start any question or conversation in french and then switch to English.
Never did I have a problem over my 2 weeks with anyone. Everyone appreciated the effort to speak the language and was super polite and warm.
My French friends speculated that it could have been xenophobia or specifically that I was mistaken for an Englishman (I'm American, but apparently the French particularly dislike the English?).
At any rate, I had many positive experiences, and even these "negative experiences" weren't particularly negative (this was before being easily offended was fashionable among university students in the U.S.); it was more a neutral, cultural observation.
Turkey has an official government body which regulates the Turkish language and naturalizes foreign loan words. It used to be much more active but people generally still listen to it, why copy the sounds of a foreign word when you can copy the meaning and end up with a word that's much easier to say and remember?
They recently tried to rebrand selfie as özçekim, "self-picture", but I think it's a little too late for that one.
At one time I was moderately competent in French and so was comfortable going up to counters and just asking questions in French without hesitation, in both France and Belgium.
That's to say, I've a lot of experience with this as a foreigner. I've had everything from beaming smiles and responses in French, to confused expressions upon which I've repeated myself more slowly, to grimaces and reluctant replies, to just outright replies in English.
The truth is, the regularity with which you're treated rudely is about the same as anywhere. Sometimes you go to counters, or restaurants, or bars at home and are treated very rudely. The person working there might be genuinely miserable, they might have just spoken to another customer who was rude, they might just be tired. You don't take any of these things to mean anything about the culture where you live. It's just people.
Any type of broad summary of 'the people in X' is always something I take with a massive grain of salt. You hear it all the time. Somebody spent 3 days in Hanoi, and had a friendly interaction with one or two locals, so the Vietnamese are lovely people, while in Hong Kong they had a rude taxi driver, and had a hotel on a busy road, so the people there are a bit ruder, a bit more rushed and loud, they say. Whilst the Australian they met who bought them a beer.. such generous people, those Australians! You get the idea :-)
For example when you enter a store in France you are expected to say "Bonjour" upon entering, and "au revoir" upon leaving.
In north america there is no such custom, so we just walk into stores and do our thing and it bothers no-one.
If you do the same in a smaller shop in France, it's slightly rude.
It's not your fault for not knowing that. Also it's not ok for the shop owner to be rude in response to that, but of course some are.
> In north america there is no such custom, so we just walk into stores and do our thing and it bothers no-one.
Maybe not in New England, but in other parts of America it's standard to say 'hello' and 'goodbye' to the properietor.
A tip to foreigners: it's considered exceptionally rude not to say hello to someone behind the counter, or when entering a store. I often cringe when I see Americans order something at a café counter: they have the best intentions, they're trying hard to be polite, and right off the bad they commit a huge faux-pas by immediately saying "un café s'il vous plait!".
tl;dr: always start with "bonjour"
It's almost petty. You will forgive any other faux-pas as long as you start the interaction with "bonjour"? And if you mis-pronounce "bonjour"? Do we need to seek forgiveness from the President? I like flying over France and going to Spain and Italy where none of this nonsense exists.
Different countries have different cultural expectations and customs. In France not saying Bonjour is considered rude (and hello works in Paris by the way), in other countries other things are considered rude. It's not because you're traveling and a tourist that you do not need to try to learn and follow the local customs.
Thank you!
I'd also like to point out that this yahoo seems unaware of his own cultural baggage. I bet he'd consider it extremely rude for someone to cut in front of a line at a bus stop, whereas such things are perfectly acceptable in other countries (in France we hardly have lines at bus stops).
Just like cutting a bus queue can be taken as a disrespect, engaging in a transaction without acknowledging that the person behind the counter is ... well... a person can be taken as looking down on people who serve you.
Just as I don't assume foreigners are conspiring to pounce on unsuspecting tourists who cut lines, I expect our friend switch007 not to assume we're doing the same with respect to saying "hello".
This kind of blatant ethnocetrism betrays self-ignorance that borders on comical, and invites ridicule hereabouts.
I'm about 99% sure this song is supposed to be satire. If you speak French, you'll get a kick out of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-VYdBKwSLc
I speak Tamil. Tamilians invent new words constantly for new concepts and as an example the word for computer is கணினி (ka-ni-ni).
I speak Tamil. Tamilians invent new words constantly for new concepts and as an example the word for computer is கணினி (ka-ni-ni).
Chinese did out of necessity, because the meaning-based character system fundamentally doesn't work well with foreign sounds.
Well épissage is not a new word just like splicing was not a new word.
Épisser is joining two ropes together by weaving their strands. That's sailor language, not some new word invented to spite the English.
Greek also: υπολογιστής ('ypologistis', literally "computer").
Greek universities teach computer science courses in Greek so a lot of the terminology is translated over. When I speak to fellow Greeks who have studied CS in Greek, there's always a bit of mental gear shifting needed before we can be sure we're on the same page.
A few examples: μεταγλωττιστής (compiler; lit. someone doing voice-overs of foreign language speech)
λειτουργικό (σύστημα) (operating system; lit. functional system)
πολυπλέκτης (multiplexer; lit. multi-knitter. Note that "plex" is possibly from the Greek for 'knitting', 'pleximo')
σφάλμα κατάτμησης (lit. segmentation fault)
περιηγητής (web browser; lit. explorer or sightseer)
μητρική (motherboard; lit. maternal (card))
And my personal favourite:
αντικειμενοστραφής προγραμματισμός (object oriented programming, literally, in the sense of "oriented" used to denote physically orienting one's body towards a given direction; in other words "programming that is facing objects")
Yes, now we also use "orientar a" to translate other English buzzwords like "orientado a resultados" (result-oriented), "orientado a la productividad" (productivity-oriented), etc. But outside of linguistic calques of modern English expressions and buzzwords, I've never heard or read anyone using "orientar a" for anything else than facing a direction.
I might be wrong, of course, as language is very complex and has a lot of regional variations (in particular Spanish, which changes a lot between Spain and the various Latin American countries); but my perception as a Spanish speaker from Spain is that the term originated from a bad translation of English, and something like "programación centrada en objetos", "basada en objetos", etc. would have been better.
As an American who spent a semester in a high school in France, I remember being shocked hearing our French teacher use "le timing et le planning" discussing our strategy for how to write an in-class essay. This was an ordinary French class for French speakers made up of upper-middle class 11th graders in a stuffy Catholic school.
English loan words (the term itself is valid in French!) are all over the place. "OK" is pervasive. Other examples include "stop", "week-end", "parking", . There are even strange examples where English words are used in ways that make no sense in English. "Footing" means "jogging". "String" means "thong". "Pull" (as in "pullover") means "sweater". "Chewing" means gum. "Baskets" means "sneakers". My favorite though, is "talkie-walkie" where the "l"s are both pronounced.
If you received a blank stare from the supermarket guy, he probably just did not understand what you were saying.
Norwegian: datamaskin. Until the mid 80's it was widely debated what name to use, with datamaskin, data, komputer og dator (from Swedish) as common alternatives.
Icelandic apparently uses "tölva" - basically "prophetess of numbers" (from "tala" and "völva").
Swedish: dator (can be precisely dated to 1968). You can also use "datamaskin" in Swedish as well, but it is dated.
Marketers (in France and many other countries) have realized that the American legacy of progress and technology is still cool and edgy, and helps sell pretty much anything.
It honestly irritates me, as 95% of those intruder words are not only often misused in their context, but have perfect etymologically correct translations in French.
Un steak is spelled the same but pronounced "steck". The Hangover movie was literally called "Bad Trip" in France, instead of "La gueule de bois". "Shopping" is the go-to word to describe purchasing goods, even though "achat" is a perfectly valid word.
I could go on and on: un smartphone, la freebox (router), un smoking (a tuxedo), un string (a thong), wi-fi (this one is worldwide), chewing gum, businessman, boycott, startup, warning...
I must've looked totally bewildered; I remember just repeating the phrase "deux baguettes, svp." every time the guy said anything.
Fortunately a kind and patient lady in the queue behind me explained that he was telling me they had none left!
I fled the shop as quickly as I could with a "merci beaucoup" - as if I was kidding anybody by that point that I spoke French!
As a Canadian I'm a bit surprised though as all the words it was able to detect I got 100% scores - I know a lot of the Quebecois french pronunciations we learn in Canada are very different than French from France so it'd be interesting to hear how that is taken into account.
I really hope they keep going on this project as mastering accents is one of the largest gaps right now in online language learning and market leaders either lack the feature all together (like Duolingo) or do a rubbish job of it and charge a fortune (like Rosetta Stone).
Having "perfect" accent is pointless. When learning a new language you should aim for learning grammar, understanding basic pronunciation, but not "speaking with native accent". That's pointless, unless you're a spy[1] (Look the answer to "Q: Is it possible to acquire a language to a "native" level?").
[1]: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article.php?id=517093
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a69toGGjoO0
tough trough though through thought thorough
Or, as commonly found on the internet: "English is weird, but it can be understood through tough thorough thought though..."
Oh dear, I gave myself semantic satiation just by writing this out.