Post by ALEX on Jan 13, 2011 0:23:25 GMT -5
....that's not me. Which sucks, 'cause I can so be French. I knew everything in this thread before I read it! That should count for something. PARLEZ VOUS FRANÇAIS?
1. Let's start with my biggest pet peeve: soyez-logique quand vous choisissez votre
traducteur! Yes, online translators are evil nasty tools, and only use them when you're
looking for a word, like for example you don't know how to say "telephone" in french, you
can use an online translator. Don't expect to come out with perfect sentences. I think
most French speakers (well it may only be me) would prefer you just stuck to English if
you can't get it right.
2. Just like not everyone in the US is obese and stupid, not everyone in France is snotty
and nasty. In general stereotypes are bad, so this goes for us French people too.
3. This sort of goes with the stereotyping one, but hating America isn't on our top list
of things to do. We tend to think America's done stupid things, but we don't sit there
during our petit déjeuner and think in what ways we hate the US.
4. We are not all from Paris, so vary it up a little bit! We've got so many amazing departments
in France, such as Provence and Bretagne. And barely any French people look like we're
walking off the set of Gossip Girl either, despite being considered the capital of fashion.
5. If you're going to be daring and want to use some broken English, the hardest sound
for a French speaker to make is the "th" sound. Once you think about it, the sound of
putting a T and an H next to each other in the English language doesn't make sense.
We also find it harder to pronounce the H, especially at the beginning of a sentence.
The R is a hard letter to explain how its pronounced, but if anyone takes Spanish, its kind
of like rolling the R except more towards the back of the throat.
6. Most of the time when you're going on a date with someone or having a big family meal,
its lunch. Dinner usually isn't as big as lunch, but it all depends on which family. I know when
I see family, we always have bigger lunches than dinner.
7. When it comes to school, we have the école élémentaire, collège, and lycée. L'école
élémentaire is what we would know as first through fifth grade. What gets tricky is when
we get to collège. It's from sixth grade to ninth grade for us, but instead of calling it that,
sixth grade is sixième, seventh grade is cinquième eighth grade is quatrième,
and ninth grade is troisième. Anyone that knows a little French will notice that it seems
to count backwards, and you're right. Once you get to lycée, you've got seconde, terminale,
and then the last year is basically preparing for your baccalauréat, or your bac for short.
The bac is like the SAT here in the US, except is probably ten times more intense. It's
easy to fail, and if you don't pass you pretty much don't pass high school. But if you do pass,
you can get into certain schools for free.
Now, for a few cultural things and some terms you'll probably need to know:
petit déjeuner that's breakfast. It's not a very big meal to be honest.
déjeuner this is lunch. its probably the biggest meal of the day, depending on your schedule.
dîner dinner time!
The sad truth about meals is that no meal is complete without your bread, or baguette
Our current president is M. Nicolas Sarkozy. Like in the US, some people love him, some people
hate him. Some people are indifferent.
When we learn how to speak and write English, we learn things the British way. It's colour
and theatre. We also learn some things that we don't say at all but are proper English (the
big ones are who/whom, or/nor)
We love American music, though sometimes we're usually a little behind. We have our artists,
but we tend to like American music better.
American movies pretty much suck compared to ours. Even our dumb comedies are more
funny than dumb.
For us, fast food isn't really that big. We do have McDonalds, but the only other fast food chain
I can think of is l'AutoGrill and that's just a place where you can stop when you're on a
highway and you're hungry. They have some pretty good quality food there too. Otherwise, we'd
rather stop at a café and eat something light but healthier. It's the secret to eating a
lot but staying thin!
In every town (I haven't come across a town without them!) we've got a boulangerie and
a patissierie. Basically, a boulangerie is where you buy fresh bread, and a patissierie
you buy your baked goods. I'm talking éclaires, mille-feuilles, choux à la crème, and every yummy
thing you can imagine.
Carefour is pretty big here in France. Wikipedia it, because its hard to explain.
So yes, if anyone wants to add on to this, you're more than welcome
1. Let's start with my biggest pet peeve: soyez-logique quand vous choisissez votre
traducteur! Yes, online translators are evil nasty tools, and only use them when you're
looking for a word, like for example you don't know how to say "telephone" in french, you
can use an online translator. Don't expect to come out with perfect sentences. I think
most French speakers (well it may only be me) would prefer you just stuck to English if
you can't get it right.
2. Just like not everyone in the US is obese and stupid, not everyone in France is snotty
and nasty. In general stereotypes are bad, so this goes for us French people too.
3. This sort of goes with the stereotyping one, but hating America isn't on our top list
of things to do. We tend to think America's done stupid things, but we don't sit there
during our petit déjeuner and think in what ways we hate the US.
4. We are not all from Paris, so vary it up a little bit! We've got so many amazing departments
in France, such as Provence and Bretagne. And barely any French people look like we're
walking off the set of Gossip Girl either, despite being considered the capital of fashion.
5. If you're going to be daring and want to use some broken English, the hardest sound
for a French speaker to make is the "th" sound. Once you think about it, the sound of
putting a T and an H next to each other in the English language doesn't make sense.
We also find it harder to pronounce the H, especially at the beginning of a sentence.
The R is a hard letter to explain how its pronounced, but if anyone takes Spanish, its kind
of like rolling the R except more towards the back of the throat.
6. Most of the time when you're going on a date with someone or having a big family meal,
its lunch. Dinner usually isn't as big as lunch, but it all depends on which family. I know when
I see family, we always have bigger lunches than dinner.
7. When it comes to school, we have the école élémentaire, collège, and lycée. L'école
élémentaire is what we would know as first through fifth grade. What gets tricky is when
we get to collège. It's from sixth grade to ninth grade for us, but instead of calling it that,
sixth grade is sixième, seventh grade is cinquième eighth grade is quatrième,
and ninth grade is troisième. Anyone that knows a little French will notice that it seems
to count backwards, and you're right. Once you get to lycée, you've got seconde, terminale,
and then the last year is basically preparing for your baccalauréat, or your bac for short.
The bac is like the SAT here in the US, except is probably ten times more intense. It's
easy to fail, and if you don't pass you pretty much don't pass high school. But if you do pass,
you can get into certain schools for free.
Now, for a few cultural things and some terms you'll probably need to know:
petit déjeuner that's breakfast. It's not a very big meal to be honest.
déjeuner this is lunch. its probably the biggest meal of the day, depending on your schedule.
dîner dinner time!
The sad truth about meals is that no meal is complete without your bread, or baguette
Our current president is M. Nicolas Sarkozy. Like in the US, some people love him, some people
hate him. Some people are indifferent.
When we learn how to speak and write English, we learn things the British way. It's colour
and theatre. We also learn some things that we don't say at all but are proper English (the
big ones are who/whom, or/nor)
We love American music, though sometimes we're usually a little behind. We have our artists,
but we tend to like American music better.
American movies pretty much suck compared to ours. Even our dumb comedies are more
funny than dumb.
For us, fast food isn't really that big. We do have McDonalds, but the only other fast food chain
I can think of is l'AutoGrill and that's just a place where you can stop when you're on a
highway and you're hungry. They have some pretty good quality food there too. Otherwise, we'd
rather stop at a café and eat something light but healthier. It's the secret to eating a
lot but staying thin!
In every town (I haven't come across a town without them!) we've got a boulangerie and
a patissierie. Basically, a boulangerie is where you buy fresh bread, and a patissierie
you buy your baked goods. I'm talking éclaires, mille-feuilles, choux à la crème, and every yummy
thing you can imagine.
Carefour is pretty big here in France. Wikipedia it, because its hard to explain.
So yes, if anyone wants to add on to this, you're more than welcome
