Aaand by popular demand...here is my video on a few Frenchisms that are used in English! Let me know if there are any other videos like this that you guys want to see! :) th-cam.com/video/AGMsX9V-mVQ/w-d-xo.html
Baskettes [FR] refers to almost every sport shoes. This is because they were the first type of popular sport shoes used out of sport activity. Tape [EN] is "papier collant" (sticky paper) in french. But the 3M Scotch tape was so famous we use it like "Bic" for ball-pen or "Clarck" for forklift. I hate people using "scotcher" but I can't think of a proper verb in french to replace it. (I'm Belgian) When I see a sign "No smoking", I remove my tuxedo an light a cigarette... (joking) "Un zoning" in Belgium refers to an industrial zone. (The French laugh at us with that one) One fact that keeps me awake all night is we pronounce "FBI" the English way but "CIA" the french way. (~Say He Ah) 🙄
Hello. "Smoking" was used in the gazettes of the first half of the 19th century in London and designates a "robe de chambre (sic) curved at the back", intended to practice the art of smoking in a relaxed way, particularly in the smokehouses of the ships. By aggregate, in French, it refers to a gesture, or rather a technique that consists in sewing two pieces of fabric the closest of the back of body so as to cause very little undulations in order to make the movements possible. The final part is called "a smoke". In "couture", we use the term "smoker (verb) the back of a pant" for example. The particular shape of this jacket, adjusted, defined its generic name : "le smoking", The form "Tuxedo" is only used in the USA.
I'm French. When I was 13, I spent 3 weeks in England, in a host family. One day, I needed tape, but I didn't know the English word and assumed that "scotch" was the right one, as it didn't sound French at all in the first place. So... Well... I willingly asked my host "Do you have scotch ?" ... I will never forget the look on his face. It was a weird mix of confusion, shock, and panic. At that point, I understood something was wrong, so I ran to my room and looked up the right word in my dictionary. Seven years later, this memory still makes me laugh so hard.
Apparently Australians say Durex - which is probably one of the few requests a 13 year old could make in England and worry the host more than asking for Scotch (whisky), being a brand of condom...
Well actually lots of this english words come from French, like dressing ( dress => dresser ) or brushing (Brush=brosser) or parking (park = parc) It come from a French Duke William the conqueror invading Saxons, the mixt up of this german tribe and french just gave birth to english.
Scotch = ruban adhésif Dressing is a modern word, a few years ago (ok maybe more 😊) it was called "Garde-robe". "A brushing" is not really used for "to blow hair", it's to straighten the hair with a big hairbrush and a hairdryer.
Thanks for the tips! I read a bit about "dressing" and I think it came from "dressing room". Of course, dressing rooms are different from closets today, but probably when the term was borrowed, it had a more similar meaning. Just guessing 😄
dressing in French technically is a separate room aka a dressing room/walk-in closet (garde-robe) but some people use it wrongly to refer to a big(ger than usual?) closet (placard). and English somehow messed up when it took garde-robe from French to make it wardrobe, turning a room into a piece of furniture.
Nice video! I'm not France but from Quebec, so talking french anyway, and as I understand it, brushing is when you do it in a hair saloon (they dry your hair and place it beautifully). Your "brushing" would be your "hairdo" kind of... So your guess was right. And I think it never was parking lot in french... just parking. (And here in Quebec, we do use the verb, but a bit modified ("parké"). And here we say Garde-robe instead of dressing. And scotch tape instead of just scotch. And the other person was right, the good word in french is "ruban adhésif".
- Brushing is mostly used when done by a hairdresser, but we also use this word when it's made at home (it's just harder to do it at home so it's less common). - Scotcher ("to scotch" :/) is frequently used in french, yes. It's because we have a tendency to add "-er" at the end of a noun to make a verb. Just like you would add "to" before a noun in english to make a verb like for example "to google something"
Tape = adhésif in France (a-de-zif) And we use "scotcher" in an expression : être scotché (to be taped) meaning you are so impressed by something that it literally stun you
Apparently, smoking is just the non-English European word for tuxedo, or dinner jacket as it's called in the UK. I've checked, and it is the word in French, Spanish, Portugues, Italian, German, Danish, Dutch, Frisian, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, and Russian (spelled Смокинг and pronounced Smoking) with variations Smokki in Finnish, Смокінг (transliterated as smokinh) in Ukranian, and Σμόκιν (transliterated as Smókin) in Greek. It seems to be related to Smoking Jacket, but if anyone knows how this originated, I would love to know.
Oh wow, that's REALLY widespread then! Funny that it's so common in a billion other languages but has completely died out of use in its original language 😅
i remember reading it originally was the bathrobe thing men use to wear over their pajamas when they went to smoke. Men would also wear this when receiving guests in a non-formal setting, and because they still wanted to look ok, good, stylish, fashionable, makers of this piece of clothing started to make it more and more fancy. The original bathrobe clothing item was made of a shiny fabric, this is why many "smokings" today are also shiny and fancy. if anyone else has a beter insight into this, feel free to correct me ;) since im not a fashion historian or anything..
The thing that confuses me is that a Smoking Jacket as you described is a different article of clothing than a Dinner Jacket or Tuxedo. In fact, men wearing Dinner Jackets who wanted to go smoke would change into their Smoking Jackets to avoid making their Dinner Jackets smell like smoke.
The word "smoking" appeared in French in 1890. Its popularity in other languages is probably due to the role of French as a lingua franca, in diplomatic circles and elsewhere, up to WWII. It is derived from "smoking-jacket" which is still present in English dictionares
William Lima Where I'm from we don't typically use the word "shampooing," which is pronounced "sham-poo-eeng." Usually we just say "I'm going to wash my hair."
Regarding your sweat/pull question, in French, "un pull" can refer to any kind of sweater, but mostly the knitted ones. "Un sweat" is usually made from a specific fabric, the kind that looks like regular cotton cloth on the outside and fuzzy on the inside that hoodie are made of. And I guess that's also how we call the fabric itself.
Great video ! When you point out the fact that "Parking lot" was shorten to "parking", a perfect example with a French word used in English would be "Coup d'État" that was shorten to simply "a coup". As a French native speaker it sounds very weird every time I hear that :)
"Pull" is actually short fort pull-over, from English pullover, itself being short for pullover sweater, because it doesn't have a front opening and you put it on by pulling it from above your head. But this borrowing is actually quite old and pronounced in a completely french way (like we would say something like "pule"), and I think most people don't think of it as an anglicism. The native word, I'd say, would be "chandail" but it's old-fashioned and tends to evoke an old-fashioned pullover, like made of large wired wool tricot. Concerning "baskets", it's because the word was originally used to refer to basket shoes and then extended to mean all sorts of sport shoes, while these became themeselves more and more worn in everyday life. You can also sometimes hear "tennis", but it's less widespread. Both terms also refer to the respective sports. Concerning "parking" (and also generally a lot of -ing French words), it was actually built up in the French language from the English verb and suffix. "Parking" is quite old and very well established in the language, but since English has become somewhat fashionable, you can hear a lot of these made-up terms from either English or French root with an -ing ending because it sounds English. Borrowing words is a natural thing that languages have always done, but in some buisness or hipsters circles it can sometimes reach ridiculous levels.
I didn't say it comes from basket shoes, I sait it was used to refer to basket shoes (nor basketball shoes nor basket shoes were ever used in French, for all I know).
Jogging/basket/tennis are all the same story : it was originally pantalon de jogging , chaussures de tennis/basket that we short cut. For "scotch" the actual weird is "ruban adhesif" but you would hear it only in Quebec. For the tuxedo, if you ever heard "tux" the person was most probably.... Not french For the pull/sweat you are right, just they are usually not exactly the same kind of clothe for us: the sweat is more casual, will often have a hat included and sometimes a zipper. The "pull" will usually be more made of wool.
My favorite is "un camping car" instead of RV or trailer. I was trying to describe it to someone and they just looked at me in awe when I told them that it was not at all the same in english!
I think we make a difference between a camping car and a trailer (well... I think we do?) for a trailer we say "une caravane", which is just the camping "part" that you plug onto your car :) we also sometime use "mobile-home" but I think that we use it to refer both as a trailer and a camping car >< (quite wierd now that I think about it haha)
"Un camping-car" is a camper van. "Un mobil-home" is not a trailer (caravan) nor a camper-van : it's a light house that is built or mounted on a trailer so it can be moved (even if its not or very rarely : its mostly a matter or law). Un camping-car is supposed to be driven, not towed.
+moismyname - Yes we all know that, it's been said in the video, it's been recalled, here, inside the wikipedia page... BUT we are talking about origin... Thank you for this obvious information.
That would be funny! :D Did you know there's no exact English equivalent to say Bon Appétit? You can say Enjoy your meal or simply enjoy. But it is not the same as saying Bon appétit. Good appetite? Haha! Nope! Languages are really interresting. :)
The spelling is different largely because English "borrowed" the (Norman) French words as they were around the time of the Norman conquest, i.e. 1066. Around half the English _total_ vocabulary is old French, although the most common and _frequently used words_ are of anglo saxon or scandinavian origin.
Erin. I could have sworn I’ve heard the odd American use ‘scotch’ as a verb too on occasion. You’re right about us using sellotape as a generic noun and verb though.
Yet I do believe that "to park" a car actually comes from the french verb "parquer", wich is still used in Canada, though its usage has been lost in metropolitan France.
Almost every English word that ressembles a French one comes from French tbh "People" comes from "Peuple", "Forest" comes from "Forêt", "River" comes from "Rivière", "City" comes from "Cité", "Country" comes from "Contrée"....etc That's mainly because of the 1066 invasion and colonization of England
Parquer est un anglicisme, non pas un mot d'origine française. Le mot d'origine française est "stationner". Tu remarquera que le code de la route ne parle que d'arrêt, de stationnements et d'emplacements.
Zarachiel it's still used but mostly for animals not cars Grimly techniquement parquer est correct puisque ça se fait dans un parc (de stationnement) le fait est que ça vient de parc et était utilisé pour les animaux, du coup si on le dit pour une voiture ça sonne effectivement comme un anglicisme (mais ce n'en est pas un)
#1 Some Frenchmen do say "jogging" when referring to a tracksuit, but shoudn't do so because the right French word is "survêtement". #3 "Sneakers" has gotten more common in French recently. But "baskets" is still widely used indeed. #4 There is a French word for tape, which is "ruban adhésif", but no one would use it in everyday life because it's a hasstle to say compared to "scotch". #5 A "dressing" in French isn't a wardrobe or a closet, but a whole room dedicated to storing your clothes and shoes. So it presumably comes from "dressing room" with the last word dropped. #6 "Tuxedo" is never used in French. We'll always say "smoking", which I admit is a really weird.
#6 I would add that the correct word in france is "costume" in a day to day bassics . When we say smoking it's usually to talk to a costume you would wear at a party or a weading. Or maybe in james bond movies >.> But in a work environnement, salary men wears "costumes"
#3 sneakers is not commonly used because of sniker, which we (french) pronounce the same... and no one would use chocolate bar name for speaking about shoes ! :) About "Parking"/ Parking lot, notice we don't have same verb to park our car, so the "lot" suffix was un-nessecary for us ;)
But survêtement could mean a lot more things though. The whole point of introducing foreign words is you take something that for them has a whole breath of meanings, but you reduce it to one specific meaning, so that it doesn't conflict with words of your own language that have a wider, more complex meaning.
J'aime beaucoup l'expression "à la one again" dont la version longue est "à la one again tonight". Je sais que c'est très démodé, mais c'est tellement absurde, c'est trop mignon.
I don't know if it's been mentioned already, but "scotcher" can also be used in oral speech in the sense of "to be stumped for words" or "to be left speechless" (as in "je suis resté scotché lorsqu'elle m'a annoncé qu'elle était enceinte" -> "I was speechless when she told me she was pregnant").
About "un parking", we went so far that we also use "une place de parking" for a parking spot and we use the verb "se parquer" to say to get on a parking spot.
In italy is the same for "scotch", "smoking"(I didn't even know that was not how english speaker call it) , "pull-over" and I think also "planning". Very similar, didn't expect that :)
the fact is that "scotch" just comes from the brand which first began to sell tape (at least in France) and they've been known so much that the name of the brand replaced the real word (ruban adhésif in french)
In american college, I have seen the french word 'Entrée' used for a main dish while it literaly means a starter. One's like using fancy exotic word even without knowing its origins.
Some of these are because in French the noun comes before the adjective so the French borrow Scotch Tape, Jogging Suit, Parking Lot and Smoking Jacket and use the first word as if it is the noun.
Larry F agreed. Its about the languages sentence structure. English follows mostly subject, verb,object. French is different whether its noun,pronoun, or a question
Im french and I use scotch instead of tape but this made me think of what it's supposed to be called and well.... I dont know. I looked on translation devices and its the same. Wtf im confused 😅
simply easier for us to pronounce it. we dont have words starting with W as it doesnt exist in latin. but lots starting with T. so i think that during WWII, french soldiers remade the word so they could be understood but could pronounce it easily.
Tennis and Baskets are two different types of shoes. The first are the low cut types typically used by ... tennis players and the latter are the ankle-high trainers that ... Basketball players use. I get confused whether in English there's even a difference between Trainers, Sneakers and Running shoes.
Jean-Loup Rebours-Smith Sauf que le mot basket est souvent utilisé avec un sens beaucoup plus large aujourd'hui et a presque remplacé l'utilisation du mot tennis. Ça doit bien faire 15 ans que je n'ai pas entendu quelqu'un dire qu'il va "s'acheter des tennis" !
Oui possible. Je parlais seulement de la France, ne connaissant pas le vocabulaire francophone utilisé au Québec. Mais je sais que vous avez tendance à franciser tous nos anglicismes ! Les Québécois sont "plus royalistes que le roi" en somme. :-)
Bonjour, je confirme que "acheter des tennis" est moins utilisé chez les moins que 40 ans, mais toujours cependant en France ;), et les deux expressions viennent effectivement du sport du même nom ;)
Un pull comes from "Pullover" which is also itself commonly used = Sweater or hoodie, a piece of clothing "pulled over" the head instead of buttoned or zipped-up
Primarly, the word "baskets" in french refers directly to "basket shoes", the one used to play basket-ball, exactly like for "tennis". By extension, baskets is used to refer any shoe that is sporty. A "tennis" is therefore considered as a basket, but if you say basket talking about your tennis, you're wrong, you must properly use the word tennis when you reffer to your actual tennis shoes. There is a french expression : "être bien dans ses baskets" means to be at ease with yourselves.
^ This. Indeed we use the 2 words. "Tennis" would mainly reffer to small "cloth" shoes. As the "Basket" is the more "sporty" and modern sportt shoes, the one you use to run, play basket etc...
In fact "brushing" is not just blowdrying your hair but when you blowdry your hair with a round brush to give them some kind of natural curls! But it is really hard to do it by yourself, usually it's done at a hair salon!
Very interesting and funny! For the word "fast food", actually when it is countable "un fast food", you are referring in French to a fast food restaurant, and not the meal itself. If you refer to the meal, you would use the word as an uncountable same as in English "je mange du fast food". You would not really say "je mange un fast food"...
When I was younger we used 'baskets' for high ankle sport shoes and 'tennis' for the regular ones but 'baskets' became a more popular word and apply to both of them now.
The funny thing is that parking (parquer), brush(ing) (brosser) and many other English words that got "frenchified" actually come from old French :) About dressing (French dresser ;) ), it's actually a "misinterpretation" of the meaning of "dressing room", where the word room is mostly skipped but not always. "Dressing" with the meaning of wardrobe came relatively recently. It's only fair we frenchifise English as the English has done the same for over a millenia. ;) About "wardrobe", that is an old Englified word. Well the Normand conquerers of England were not good at pronouncing the French G, so garde-robe --> wardrobe. They liked making war though (guerre--->wehr--->war). But I'm way off topic now! :)
Nicolas Martinez actually old-norse has a pronunciation between "g" and "w". And many Norman words were frankyfied turning "w" into the frankish "g". The most famous being " Wilhelm ", in Frankish it turned " Guillaume ", and in English " William "... Norman bad pronunciation was (and still is) more about " Ch" pronunced "Q", and " S" pronunced "Tch" :') Thus chêne=> quesne , pêcheur=> pesquet , chemin=>quemin, saoul=>choul , etc.
Jà það er satt, pretty much what I meant but I decided to keep it short ;) Although, maybe not many but - some - Norman words! Words related to boats and navigation mostly -duh ;) (babord/tribord, quai, écume, vague...). Yeah, and ch'timis seem to have the same problem hehe.
I am a French nerd myself! :) - RE is a prefix in French so makes all sense to me as per Relooking, such as reloading, rebooking...etc. Fastfood when refered to it as countable it's not type of food but referring to restaurants such as Mcdo and burger king, those places are what we refer to as fast food, but it's not countable as a type of food in French too. Brushing is just straightening your hair if you have wavy or curly, nothing to do with a hairdresser at all. Smoking is from the British English word we took as they invited the style. The talkie-walkie is a speaking device so for French as per having adjectives after words it makes more sense to start with the main purpose which is talk then followed by walk... my opinion there. :)
Regarding "parking", we actually do have a verb to say to park: "se parquer". It's rarely used, though, since people will rather say "se garer". I'm also surprised you didn't add "shampooing" to your -ing list! And great video :D
Interesting, I've never heard "se parquer" before, only "se garer" :) I can't believe I forgot about shampooing! That one cracked me up the first time I saw it...
To be fair, I'm not sure I've ever heard "se parquer" either. But I know it does exist. Maybe people use "parquer" (like "parquer sa voiture")? I can't remember. I asked around, and I've been told it may be something used in Quebec, too...
Another good one I had trouble with in New York is when I asked for a "pressing" which actually doesn't even exist, it will be dry cleaning or wash and fold.
You should come to Montréal, there is a lot of those expression that have french word, like a pull is un chandail or a tricot, a parking is a stationnement, scotch is use but we also use papier collant. Basket is running shoes... not really better then the french! But word like relooking, brushing, smoking, dressing are only use in bad movie traduction.
Je confirme aussi :) J'ai seulement vu ruban adhésif à l'écrit. J'ai été enseignant pendant plus de 15 ans et jamais je n'ai pris mon ruban adhésif!!! Je prenais mon papier collant ou mon bon vieux scotch tape!
I also like how some short English words don't have actual translations but are translated as some sort of an expression, like _fermeture éclair_ for "zip" or _envoyer un radiomessage_ for "to page." Arguably the reverse is also true, but far less common, it's usually English that is a more concise language.
So funny! There's even funny ways English people use English worlds similarly. Like "joggers" being used for sweat pants! Or hoover (a brand name) for vacuuming your house! Moving from 1 English speaking country to another I didn't think any of these would be an issue but I was confused for a while! Ha ha. Another great video!
I totally know what you mean from my year in England! I also have an Australian co-worker now, so I'm constantly comparing NA English, UK English, South African English, and Australian English now :D
All very true and very funny. Once again as a Frenchman living in the UK these are words I am probably too used to. You are very right with all of them and your accent is amazing so you shouldn’t apologise so much! Des tennis mean tennis shoes, des baskets mean basketball shoes. French always cut the word ball from the sport so they play basket, foot and hand! -ewww! 😉 So the shoes are also baskets. Scotch: in the UK we use hoover for vacuum cleaner and we “hoover the room” so that similar. Un fast food is indeed the restaurant. We don’t eat fast food in France we eat in a fast food! :) And about brushing, it is used a lot actually in France!!! I’m a grammar freak too so I hate these words not used correctly, but that video is so funny!!!
Been years since I lived in Paris, I visit regularly but not up to date with the cool expressions, so I've never heard 'junk food' in France, and even less 'mal bouffe'!!! That sounds so French Canadian! God I'm getting old!
About "parking", it comes from the french "se parquer", it roughly means "to put yourself in a location", "parquer les bêtes", to assemble the animals in a location. With time, and cars, it went to the american word "parking lot", then parking as a location. And about "planning", the french word for "to schedule" is "planifier", so it was quite practical to adapt the english word planing as the "schedule object"
"Un brushing" is when you blowdry your hair but giving it a certain shape or movement, not simply drying it, usually to give volume, to shape your bang etc ;)
how about une commode? I am French and when I referred to a commode in the USA, we had a lots of awkward moments ah ah !! Une commode is a dresser chest and a commode in the USA is a WC chair...
Pratiquement tous les mots d'origine latine en anglais viennent du francais (avec Guillaume le conquerant). Donc si tu vois un mot d'origine latine similaire en francais et en anglais t'es quasiment sure que c'est apparut en francais d'abords . Les exceptions ce sont des mots qui viennent d'autres langues latines (conquistador, pizza, ....)
In french, we refer to tuxedo as "smoking" because originally, this particular clothing was made to be put when men goes on a place full of cigarette smoke (like smokehouse). The goal was to cover the daily shirt from the smell. Americans have used it later as a formal wear.
Auctoria Mld I think us English did know already mate. De ja vu Carousel Baguette Brunette Depot Chic Critique Eau de parfum Just making a point. We already knew
English is not the only language affected by French! My native language took that list above, plus words like _maskin, elektrisk, bomb, kapten, entré (entrance), ateljé (studio), sås (sauce), servitör (waiter), effektiv, person, brutal,..._ and thousands of others, quite literally. Mainly during the middle ages and the 1700s in this case.
The most *_frequently used_* everyday words are not french though, but north germanic or Scandinavian. So the roots are pretty intact, despite all those old french, latin and greek loans.
4:28 the other word for tape (scotch) in French is "ruban adhésif", which literally translates to "sticky ribbon". I am a native English and French speaker (from a bilingual country) and have used all of these words in my day to day life, but I have never noticed these nuances since they all seemed natural or normal to me. thanks for pointing them out.
Moi je n'ai jamais dit ni tennis, ni chaussures de tennis^^ si c'est pour trainer/faire du sport.être confortable, ce sont des baskets pour moi^^ ma mère un jour m'a dit qu'elle avait des "tennis" qu'elle adorait étant petite, quand elle m'en parlait je me disais "ahhhh ok, c'est des baskets.^^"
Des tennis sont des chaussures de sport qui ne montent pas jusqu'à la cheville. Des baskets sont des chaussures de sport qui montent jusqu'à la cheville, à raz ou qui la recouvrent. Là est la subtilité.
Sara belh Si tu écris ces nombres, tu t'aperçois qu'ils sont composés d'autres nombres voire d'opérations arithmétiques. Les français ont l'habitude d'utiliser ces appellations depuis l'enfance ; pour les non-francophones, c'est un casse-tête.
On dit soixante-dix, quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt-dix et les anglais ne disent pas "sixty ten" "fourthy twenties" et "fourthy twenties ten" Je crois que ce sont les belges qui sont okay avec ça puisqu'ils disent septante octante et nonante (écrire en lettre au départ aurait été plus clair xd)
Hé bien, EX 80, c'est quatre vingts à l'écrit : 4x20. 76 c'est soixante seize à l'écrit : 60+16. (literaly speaking!) Ce sont des anglophones qui en parle quand ils ont comptés en français la 1re fois!
Les Belges disent septante / quatre-vingts / nonante. Ce sont les Suisses qui ont tout compris, avec septante / huitante / nonante. Octante n’est plus utilisé.
And you also have "un camping" (campsite), "un camping car" (camper van) and "un mobile home" (caravan). You can also use the verb "scotcher" in a figurative way to say e.g. that someone has been absorbed in some activity for a long time, usually in a negative way (il est scotché devant la télé depuis ce matin - he's been watching TV since this morning).
The weird thing about "planning" is that we (french people) use this term to refer to the schedule ("un planning" with 2 "n"), but we also use the verb "planifier" (with only one "n") for the action of scheduling something... The two words seams to have the same origin, but may have been integrated in the french language at a different era...
As a Belgian french speaker, It's so funny to hear you talking about some words and expressions that I use on a everyday basis ! If you feel comfortable enough to move further on this topic, try to find some Belgian expressions : it's called "belgicismes" and there's even a dictionary about it haha (you'll understand soon enough why) ! Actually, even from a country to another, you'll see some differences in this language. Some words/expressions are used in a "wrong" way for French people but makes sense to Belgian. Example : "parking" is a noun in both countries but in Belgium, we would also use "se parker" as a verb in belgian french instead of "se garer" :)
in trucking; drivers pickup or load the trailer, drive it to the destination, and then drop or unload the shipment. in french the proper words are chargement and décharment. many quebec francophone drivers and shippers/receivers now use the words pickupé and dropé. i don't know if that's how you 'should' spell them, given that's it's entirely a verbal creation, but it's pronounced exactly as pickup and drop with the extra é on the end to french it up.
There's an alternative to " a parking lot" or " a parking" in French. We sometimes say "une zone de stationnement" ou " une aire de parcage" (less used). For smoking, we use it for a classy suit, otherwise we say "costume". I think that the origin of the word "smoking" in French is related to a particular suit that we put to smoke.
French from Mtl and I was thinking, we don't say many of those words, then I saw the European wall plug adapter on her desk and realized, Oh "France", well yes. Fun to watch.
1. The french name for tape is "ruban adhésif". It means adhesive ribbon. We say "scotcher" or "taper" because it's shorter and sounds better. 2. We also use parking as a verb. We will say "J'ai parké ma voiture (I parked my car)". we also use "place de parking", for a parking space.
Pull (pull-over) term comes from USA, 1924 refered as sweaters “pull-over”. Previously, in English language pull-over was used to qualify a veil you pull over your hat (women’s hat) and then to qualify everything you pull over the top of your body, specifically the sweaters ;)
Je suis resté scotché toute le journée sur youtube en pull alors j'ai sorti mes basket et mon jogging de mon dressing pour faire un tennis. Je me suis ensuite permis d'aller manger un fast-food en smoking. J'ai parqué ma voiture dans le parking du fast-food.
Scotch was a brand of tape, so we used it as a verb "scotcher". It is also used in slang for "to be very surprised" : "ça m'a scotché!". We often make verbs from brands, example : "filmoluxer". Filmolux is a brand of auto-adhesive plastic you use to cover books or notebooks, and the action of applying that material to a book was dubbed "filmoluxer". Pretty popular in libraries were laminating books is a common thing.
Ho yeah Interesting how living languages are evolving from each other. Let see about Tape in English, translated as Scotch in France cause you are right. In France if you speak well you will use "Bande adhesive" which is literally "Adhesive Tape" as a name. But for the verb you got a issue as the world "bander" in french was existing and has the same meaning for medical bandage... But in common language the verb "Bander" strongly means to have a sex erection (get hard)! So whatever the verb "Bander" exist in French and mean also to bend/draw a bow, it is not used so much for that meaning; but of course a lot more for sexual purpose in everyday talks. I guess that would have been awkward to use it as varb for "to tape" then.... So to avoid the discomfort and misunderstanding while talking to a girl -" hey cherie tu peux me bander mon truc" = "Hey dear could you make me hard", hahaha, I think it's better than as French we decided to use the brand "Scotch" and the verb "Scotcher" to replace "to Tape".
The original french phrase for tape is "ruban adhésif", but that sounds so old-fashioned that no-one really uses it. In Belgium, people commonly use "papier collant" (which really says it like it is), but I think that most French people won't even have heard of it.
Okay so, more details hehe (french native here) un brushing is basically hair drying your hair while styling it with a brush! different from just hair drying it hair straightening/curling it. it gives it a controlled volume. the difference between un pull (we also say un pullover) and un sweat is that the pullover is more often made of wool, you know, fluffier and sweat is more sporty? literally like a sweater! cheers!
The funny thing with Scotch is the brand name origin. If I remember when adhesive tape began to spread, it was reusable and therefore cheaper than glue, so someone called it "Scotch-tape" (because of their reputation of being skinflint), the name stuck (like the tape) and was later use as a brand name.
As a french guy I can say everything was pretty accurate, but in my opinion the tone was a little bit condescending We could easily find many french words that are used in a weird or silly way in the english language so there is no need to laugh at how we interpret and appropriate words from other languages :)
As a french guy too I didn't find her condescending I gess she just finds it weird and unnatural the way we use those words and that's why she is acting this way. Plus it can come from the fact that you know those words and she try to explain a lot you already know so it seems to you that she's condescending.
We use a lot of these in Flemish as well. A dressing is typically a walk-in closet. A smoking is widely used in Europe because the dinner jacket or tuxedo resembled a smoking jacket worn in Victorian times.
Regarding the "Pull" (for Pull-Over) it is used for Wool (or Acrylic) Knitted garments. Any Cotton or Poly/cotton piece will be considered "un sweat" or"un sweat-shirt" (a sweater) as you suggested.
In Québec we use a lot of english words and we conjugate these word but with a french way. For exemple: For the verb "to park", we say "je vais me parker" which means " i'll park my car.
For tape, in Belgium at least, you'll find the word "papier collant" (sticky paper) alongside scotch. May be used in France too, but won't claim with certainty, as there are differences in French from Belgium with the one of France that can be confusing too.
A parking lot comes from the french meaning of "to park trains in a specific area" (une "station de train"), (a stationary area for trains) or "a parking lot" ... Parking lot: comes from "a piece of land (lot) designated for parked waggons (stationery waggons)" Im guessing you figured where "stationary" comes from at that point... (Une "station d'essence", une armée "stationnée" quelque part) A "Gas station", or the army being "stationed" somewhere, all come from the latin words "stare" (to stand) and "statio" (in position, or stationary). Put it together; "a regular stopping place on route, especially one on a railroad or military service road, with buildings surrounding it"
I remember in France during the 80s when sport shoes were called "tennis" because at that time, all sport shoes looked like tennis shoes. Then basket shoes became hugely popular, and progressively the term "basket" ended up being used for any shoe with a style approaching that of a basket shoe. (Including All Star shoes, for example) Note that in French, the gender of the noun carries useful information. Since "shoe" is feminine in French, "une basket" must therefore refer to the shoe, not the sport which would be masculine.
they are so many french word used in some time with not even the same sens une Jounée a DAY but the brits use to refert of their travel time taking days ... as the journey
Aaand by popular demand...here is my video on a few Frenchisms that are used in English! Let me know if there are any other videos like this that you guys want to see! :) th-cam.com/video/AGMsX9V-mVQ/w-d-xo.html
Baskettes [FR] refers to almost every sport shoes. This is because they were the first type of popular sport shoes used out of sport activity.
Tape [EN] is "papier collant" (sticky paper) in french. But the 3M Scotch tape was so famous we use it like "Bic" for ball-pen or "Clarck" for forklift. I hate people using "scotcher" but I can't think of a proper verb in french to replace it. (I'm Belgian)
When I see a sign "No smoking", I remove my tuxedo an light a cigarette... (joking)
"Un zoning" in Belgium refers to an industrial zone. (The French laugh at us with that one)
One fact that keeps me awake all night is we pronounce "FBI" the English way but "CIA" the french way. (~Say He Ah) 🙄
Dr. K. Wette ruban adhésif
C'est pas faux !
the real french word for scotch is papier-collant
That's what I said...
An other question is why 'SCOTCH' tape ? (I would not repair my bagpipe with tape)
Hello. "Smoking" was used in the gazettes of the first half of the 19th century in London and designates a "robe de chambre (sic) curved at the back", intended to practice the art of smoking in a relaxed way, particularly in the smokehouses of the ships. By aggregate, in French, it refers to a gesture, or rather a technique that consists in sewing two pieces of fabric the closest of the back of body so as to cause very little undulations in order to make the movements possible. The final part is called "a smoke". In "couture", we use the term "smoker (verb) the back of a pant" for example. The particular shape of this jacket, adjusted, defined its generic name : "le smoking", The form "Tuxedo" is only used in the USA.
I'm French. When I was 13, I spent 3 weeks in England, in a host family. One day, I needed tape, but I didn't know the English word and assumed that "scotch" was the right one, as it didn't sound French at all in the first place. So... Well... I willingly asked my host "Do you have scotch ?"
...
I will never forget the look on his face. It was a weird mix of confusion, shock, and panic.
At that point, I understood something was wrong, so I ran to my room and looked up the right word in my dictionary. Seven years later, this memory still makes me laugh so hard.
Well I'm French too and I wouldn't say no to a good scotch ;) But I agree that this situation is funny !
Apparently Australians say Durex - which is probably one of the few requests a 13 year old could make in England and worry the host more than asking for Scotch (whisky), being a brand of condom...
J'imagine dans sa tête "ainsi tous ces clichés sur les français étaient bien réels !!"
AlceaRose Mdr X'D Énorme !
Ah, what? No, we really don't. Durex is a condom brand. We generally say tape, masking tape or packing tape.
In UK English sweatpants are called jogging bottoms or joggers so the French being un jogging is not far from that.
Oh cool, that's probably where it comes from then! I don't think I've ever heard that term in North American English :)
Well actually lots of this english words come from French, like dressing ( dress => dresser ) or brushing (Brush=brosser) or parking (park = parc)
It come from a French Duke William the conqueror invading Saxons, the mixt up of this german tribe and french just gave birth to english.
Scotch = ruban adhésif
Dressing is a modern word, a few years ago (ok maybe more 😊) it was called "Garde-robe".
"A brushing" is not really used for "to blow hair", it's to straighten the hair with a big hairbrush and a hairdryer.
Thanks for the tips! I read a bit about "dressing" and I think it came from "dressing room". Of course, dressing rooms are different from closets today, but probably when the term was borrowed, it had a more similar meaning. Just guessing 😄
dressing in French technically is a separate room aka a dressing room/walk-in closet (garde-robe) but some people use it wrongly to refer to a big(ger than usual?) closet (placard).
and English somehow messed up when it took garde-robe from French to make it wardrobe, turning a room into a piece of furniture.
Nice video! I'm not France but from Quebec, so talking french anyway, and as I understand it, brushing is when you do it in a hair saloon (they dry your hair and place it beautifully). Your "brushing" would be your "hairdo" kind of... So your guess was right. And I think it never was parking lot in french... just parking. (And here in Quebec, we do use the verb, but a bit modified ("parké").
And here we say Garde-robe instead of dressing.
And scotch tape instead of just scotch. And the other person was right, the good word in french is "ruban adhésif".
+Andrea Heckler i'm pretty sure that brushing means straightening your hair at the hair dresser (or with a blow dryer) :)
- Brushing is mostly used when done by a hairdresser, but we also use this word when it's made at home (it's just harder to do it at home so it's less common).
- Scotcher ("to scotch" :/) is frequently used in french, yes. It's because we have a tendency to add "-er" at the end of a noun to make a verb. Just like you would add "to" before a noun in english to make a verb like for example "to google something"
Tape = adhésif in France (a-de-zif)
And we use "scotcher" in an expression : être scotché (to be taped) meaning you are so impressed by something that it literally stun you
Apparently, smoking is just the non-English European word for tuxedo, or dinner jacket as it's called in the UK. I've checked, and it is the word in French, Spanish, Portugues, Italian, German, Danish, Dutch, Frisian, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, and Russian (spelled Смокинг and pronounced Smoking) with variations Smokki in Finnish, Смокінг (transliterated as smokinh) in Ukranian, and Σμόκιν (transliterated as Smókin) in Greek. It seems to be related to Smoking Jacket, but if anyone knows how this originated, I would love to know.
Oh wow, that's REALLY widespread then! Funny that it's so common in a billion other languages but has completely died out of use in its original language 😅
i remember reading it originally was the bathrobe thing men use to wear over their pajamas when they went to smoke. Men would also wear this when receiving guests in a non-formal setting, and because they still wanted to look ok, good, stylish, fashionable, makers of this piece of clothing started to make it more and more fancy. The original bathrobe clothing item was made of a shiny fabric, this is why many "smokings" today are also shiny and fancy.
if anyone else has a beter insight into this, feel free to correct me ;) since im not a fashion historian or anything..
The thing that confuses me is that a Smoking Jacket as you described is a different article of clothing than a Dinner Jacket or Tuxedo. In fact, men wearing Dinner Jackets who wanted to go smoke would change into their Smoking Jackets to avoid making their Dinner Jackets smell like smoke.
In canadian french, people also don't use this at all. It really seems to be a european thing.
The word "smoking" appeared in French in 1890. Its popularity in other languages is probably due to the role of French as a lingua franca, in diplomatic circles and elsewhere, up to WWII. It is derived from "smoking-jacket" which is still present in English dictionares
"Shampooing" is the funniest anglicism.
Eddie Gooch haha! how do you say it in your country? :)
William Lima Where I'm from we don't typically use the word "shampooing," which is pronounced "sham-poo-eeng." Usually we just say "I'm going to wash my hair."
Regarding your sweat/pull question, in French, "un pull" can refer to any kind of sweater, but mostly the knitted ones. "Un sweat" is usually made from a specific fabric, the kind that looks like regular cotton cloth on the outside and fuzzy on the inside that hoodie are made of. And I guess that's also how we call the fabric itself.
"Pull" obviously comes from pullover, which is a somewhat archaic word for sweater (AE) or jumper (BE).
I can comfirm all of these are real names we give to certain objects.
Edit: actually we do have a verb for parking which is "se garer"
Great video !
When you point out the fact that "Parking lot" was shorten to "parking", a perfect example with a French word used in English would be "Coup d'État" that was shorten to simply "a coup". As a French native speaker it sounds very weird every time I hear that :)
and maitre d'hotel shortened to maitre d'!
Empire d'Ælia what about déjà vu
damon-st but deja vu isnt a shortened ver though
You're right le mon, déjà vu isn't shortened, just mean "already seen"
Especially that "un coup" in French can mean something very different ;)
You forgot the most awesome one: shampooing, pronounced "champouin" :)
"Pull" is actually short fort pull-over, from English pullover, itself being short for pullover sweater, because it doesn't have a front opening and you put it on by pulling it from above your head.
But this borrowing is actually quite old and pronounced in a completely french way (like we would say something like "pule"), and I think most people don't think of it as an anglicism. The native word, I'd say, would be "chandail" but it's old-fashioned and tends to evoke an old-fashioned pullover, like made of large wired wool tricot.
Concerning "baskets", it's because the word was originally used to refer to basket shoes and then extended to mean all sorts of sport shoes, while these became themeselves more and more worn in everyday life. You can also sometimes hear "tennis", but it's less widespread. Both terms also refer to the respective sports.
Concerning "parking" (and also generally a lot of -ing French words), it was actually built up in the French language from the English verb and suffix. "Parking" is quite old and very well established in the language, but since English has become somewhat fashionable, you can hear a lot of these made-up terms from either English or French root with an -ing ending because it sounds English. Borrowing words is a natural thing that languages have always done, but in some buisness or hipsters circles it can sometimes reach ridiculous levels.
I'm french and i can speak english but I never realized that pull-over means literraly to pull over.
In Brazilian Portuguese we use "pulôver" (notice the spelling, with a single 'l' and a circumflex), but it's not shortened.
Bombur | you mean it comes from basketball shoes, not basket shoes.
I didn't say it comes from basket shoes, I sait it was used to refer to basket shoes (nor basketball shoes nor basket shoes were ever used in French, for all I know).
Bombur | I got that, but "basket shoes" is not used in English either. So that already is borrowed.
Jogging/basket/tennis are all the same story : it was originally pantalon de jogging , chaussures de tennis/basket that we short cut.
For "scotch" the actual weird is "ruban adhesif" but you would hear it only in Quebec.
For the tuxedo, if you ever heard "tux" the person was most probably.... Not french
For the pull/sweat you are right, just they are usually not exactly the same kind of clothe for us: the sweat is more casual, will often have a hat included and sometimes a zipper. The "pull" will usually be more made of wool.
My favorite is "un camping car" instead of RV or trailer. I was trying to describe it to someone and they just looked at me in awe when I told them that it was not at all the same in english!
I think we make a difference between a camping car and a trailer (well... I think we do?) for a trailer we say "une caravane", which is just the camping "part" that you plug onto your car :) we also sometime use "mobile-home" but I think that we use it to refer both as a trailer and a camping car >< (quite wierd now that I think about it haha)
We say "mobile home" in Belgium !
"Un camping-car" is a camper van. "Un mobil-home" is not a trailer (caravan) nor a camper-van : it's a light house that is built or mounted on a trailer so it can be moved (even if its not or very rarely : its mostly a matter or law). Un camping-car is supposed to be driven, not towed.
what the French call a "mobilhome" is trailer home in American English
Smoking IS English (yes English, not American...) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smoking_jacket
Yes, but that's a different garment to what is referred to here as 'a smoking'.
It still came from that word, Garry is right ;)
True, but when continental Europeans say "smoking" they're referring to a dinner jacket, or more often the whole suit ("tuxedo" in American English)
+moismyname - Yes we all know that, it's been said in the video, it's been recalled, here, inside the wikipedia page...
BUT we are talking about origin... Thank you for this obvious information.
Sorry I tread on your toes. It seemed as though you where equating the two.
You should do a "French words used weirdly/wrongly in English" video tbh
And French words used in English, there is a lot x'D
That would be funny! :D
Did you know there's no exact English equivalent to say Bon Appétit? You can say Enjoy your meal or simply enjoy. But it is not the same as saying Bon appétit. Good appetite? Haha! Nope!
Languages are really interresting. :)
"reconnoitre" and "connoisseur" drive me crazy as a French person, why not use the correct spelling? 😅
ugh connoisseur is such an ugly word.
and i also find the use prune/raisin for the dried versions of these fruits so annoying .__.
The spelling is different largely because English "borrowed" the (Norman) French words as they were around the time of the Norman conquest, i.e. 1066. Around half the English _total_ vocabulary is old French, although the most common and _frequently used words_ are of anglo saxon or scandinavian origin.
To be fair in Britain we do the tape thing just with a different brand
Do you have any sellotape?
It's fine, I'll sellotape it
Erin. I could have sworn I’ve heard the odd American use ‘scotch’ as a verb too on occasion. You’re right about us using sellotape as a generic noun and verb though.
Yet I do believe that "to park" a car actually comes from the french verb "parquer", wich is still used in Canada, though its usage has been lost in metropolitan France.
Almost every English word that ressembles a French one comes from French tbh
"People" comes from "Peuple", "Forest" comes from "Forêt", "River" comes from "Rivière", "City" comes from "Cité", "Country" comes from "Contrée"....etc
That's mainly because of the 1066 invasion and colonization of England
Le français se gare dans un parking, le québecois se parque dans un stationnement. Et les deux ont bien raison, s'ils veulent éviter une amende.
Parquer est un anglicisme, non pas un mot d'origine française. Le mot d'origine française est "stationner". Tu remarquera que le code de la route ne parle que d'arrêt, de stationnements et d'emplacements.
parquer vient simplement du mot français parc
Zarachiel
it's still used but mostly for animals not cars
Grimly
techniquement parquer est correct puisque ça se fait dans un parc (de stationnement)
le fait est que ça vient de parc et était utilisé pour les animaux, du coup si on le dit pour une voiture ça sonne effectivement comme un anglicisme (mais ce n'en est pas un)
‘Le before’ and ‘L’after’ as in, predrinks and after party 😂😂😂
#1 Some Frenchmen do say "jogging" when referring to a tracksuit, but shoudn't do so because the right French word is "survêtement".
#3 "Sneakers" has gotten more common in French recently. But "baskets" is still widely used indeed.
#4 There is a French word for tape, which is "ruban adhésif", but no one would use it in everyday life because it's a hasstle to say compared to "scotch".
#5 A "dressing" in French isn't a wardrobe or a closet, but a whole room dedicated to storing your clothes and shoes. So it presumably comes from "dressing room" with the last word dropped.
#6 "Tuxedo" is never used in French. We'll always say "smoking", which I admit is a really weird.
#6 I would add that the correct word in france is "costume" in a day to day bassics . When we say smoking it's usually to talk to a costume you would wear at a party or a weading. Or maybe in james bond movies >.>
But in a work environnement, salary men wears "costumes"
#3 sneakers is not commonly used because of sniker, which we (french) pronounce the same... and no one would use chocolate bar name for speaking about shoes ! :)
About "Parking"/ Parking lot, notice we don't have same verb to park our car, so the "lot" suffix was un-nessecary for us ;)
The most confusing English word the I heard from a French was when a friend told me to bring my "K WAY".
Yes good point on #5 - a 'dressing' has to be a walk-in wardrobe, not just a regular one..
But survêtement could mean a lot more things though. The whole point of introducing foreign words is you take something that for them has a whole breath of meanings, but you reduce it to one specific meaning, so that it doesn't conflict with words of your own language that have a wider, more complex meaning.
Such a nice video! I just discovered that many of the things french say (and how they use them) are very similar to italian! We do are cousins...
J'aime beaucoup l'expression "à la one again" dont la version longue est "à la one again tonight". Je sais que c'est très démodé, mais c'est tellement absurde, c'est trop mignon.
Je savais pas que ça s'écrivait comme ça :DD J'y ai jamais vraiment penser mais pour moi c'était plus "alawenagaine" :D
Qui utilise encore cette expression? 8|
Mamy ? c'est toi?
C'est pas "on the road again"? *My life is a lie*
Peut-être l’interprétation de "On the road again" par l’oreille d’un francophone. Une aberration lexicale.
fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A0_la_one_again
I don't know if it's been mentioned already, but "scotcher" can also be used in oral speech in the sense of "to be stumped for words" or "to be left speechless" (as in "je suis resté scotché lorsqu'elle m'a annoncé qu'elle était enceinte" -> "I was speechless when she told me she was pregnant").
In UK English we use 'sellotape' as both a noun and a verb 😅
Same for 'hoover'
same with bluTack, cock (cola) and several others.
Oh, interesting! Those don't exist in American English, to my knowledge 😝
glennismade you mean *coke*
jjwp 88 yeah. My bad. Auto correct would be my defence but not sure I can claim so hahaah
About "un parking", we went so far that we also use "une place de parking" for a parking spot and we use the verb "se parquer" to say to get on a parking spot.
Hey, I had trouble while I was un the US : for "cheerleader" we say "Pom Pom Girl". So I thought it was the way to say it X)
Camille Erbstein I'm English and have heard that said here too (pom pom girl)
Some say that in the UK but it's dying out because of American influences so now people just say Cheerleader most of the time
lol, it is so true. I still pronounce "sweet" for a sweat. I indeed own a talkie-walkie, and the name of the StarWars Robot was D2R2 in 80's.
As a native French speaker, I find this quite interesting.
C'est même passionnant !
Fascinant !
Pull is from Pullover ...
Un pullover ça moule et une moule, ben ça pue l'ovaire (la cité de la peur)
In italy is the same for "scotch", "smoking"(I didn't even know that was not how english speaker call it) , "pull-over" and I think also "planning". Very similar, didn't expect that :)
It's only fair to butcher this language, their users have been butchering romance languages for a thousand years.
the fact is that "scotch" just comes from the brand which first began to sell tape (at least in France) and they've been known so much that the name of the brand replaced the real word (ruban adhésif in french)
Pullover is an actual English word, although it's not as common as sweater (AE) or jumper (BE).
Yeah that's clear, there is an italian word as well for scotch: nastro adesivo
and the "sweat" (pronounced "sweet") is an actual way to say sweat-shirt in French
In american college, I have seen the french word 'Entrée' used for a main dish while it literaly means a starter. One's like using fancy exotic word even without knowing its origins.
Guillaume Graftiaux | I just commented the same thing!
sweat (sometimes you'll hear "sweet", and yes it hurts" ) is definitely used in french, most of the time for a hoodie.
Some of these are because in French the noun comes before the adjective so the French borrow Scotch Tape, Jogging Suit, Parking Lot and Smoking Jacket and use the first word as if it is the noun.
Larry F agreed. Its about the languages sentence structure. English follows mostly subject, verb,object. French is different whether its noun,pronoun, or a question
Im french and I use scotch instead of tape but this made me think of what it's supposed to be called and well.... I dont know. I looked on translation devices and its the same. Wtf im confused 😅
On appelle ça du ruban adhésif ;)
Krankar Volund Aha😅 mercii
OMG my bf also says talkie-walkie
I've always wondered why we went from walkie-talkie to talkie-walkie. I've never met a French person calling that a walkie-talkie.
I'm french and i did'nt know for the "walkie-talkie" things xD i only know talkie-walkie
simply easier for us to pronounce it. we dont have words starting with W as it doesnt exist in latin. but lots starting with T. so i think that during WWII, french soldiers remade the word so they could be understood but could pronounce it easily.
cute/mignon xD
On a importé wagon, on aurait pu faire de même avec walkie-talkie.
Interesting.... thank you for sharing
Tennis and Baskets are two different types of shoes. The first are the low cut types typically used by ... tennis players and the latter are the ankle-high trainers that ... Basketball players use.
I get confused whether in English there's even a difference between Trainers, Sneakers and Running shoes.
Jean-Loup Rebours-Smith Sauf que le mot basket est souvent utilisé avec un sens beaucoup plus large aujourd'hui et a presque remplacé l'utilisation du mot tennis. Ça doit bien faire 15 ans que je n'ai pas entendu quelqu'un dire qu'il va "s'acheter des tennis" !
Florence Lelieur au Québec tu l'entendrais. Plusieurs des anglicismes mentionnés ne sont pas utilisés ici.
Oui possible. Je parlais seulement de la France, ne connaissant pas le vocabulaire francophone utilisé au Québec. Mais je sais que vous avez tendance à franciser tous nos anglicismes ! Les Québécois sont "plus royalistes que le roi" en somme. :-)
Bonjour, je confirme que "acheter des tennis" est moins utilisé chez les moins que 40 ans, mais toujours cependant en France ;), et les deux expressions viennent effectivement du sport du même nom ;)
Un pull comes from "Pullover" which is also itself commonly used = Sweater or hoodie, a piece of clothing "pulled over" the head instead of buttoned or zipped-up
Primarly, the word "baskets" in french refers directly to "basket shoes", the one used to play basket-ball, exactly like for "tennis". By extension, baskets is used to refer any shoe that is sporty. A "tennis" is therefore considered as a basket, but if you say basket talking about your tennis, you're wrong, you must properly use the word tennis when you reffer to your actual tennis shoes.
There is a french expression : "être bien dans ses baskets" means to be at ease with yourselves.
actually we use "tennis" AND "basket" to refer to sneakers
^ This. Indeed we use the 2 words. "Tennis" would mainly reffer to small "cloth" shoes. As the "Basket" is the more "sporty" and modern sportt shoes, the one you use to run, play basket etc...
Baskets cover the ankles tennis does not
French speaker here. +1 with pasteqman, "baskets" are actually high tops while "tennis" are low tops
jspingau agreed. French here too.
In fact "brushing" is not just blowdrying your hair but when you blowdry your hair with a round brush to give them some kind of natural curls! But it is really hard to do it by yourself, usually it's done at a hair salon!
Very interesting and funny! For the word "fast food", actually when it is countable "un fast food", you are referring in French to a fast food restaurant, and not the meal itself. If you refer to the meal, you would use the word as an uncountable same as in English "je mange du fast food". You would not really say "je mange un fast food"...
The correct forms are "countable" and "uncountable". "Accountable" and "unaccountable " mean something entirely different.
I say "Je mange un Mac Do"
Yep sorry!
Yep sure. I was just saying I never say "Je mange un fast food". But of course I also say "je mange un macdo, un big mac, etc."
We do use it for the meal as well, such as "on se fait un fast food?"
When I was younger we used 'baskets' for high ankle sport shoes and 'tennis' for the regular ones but 'baskets' became a more popular word and apply to both of them now.
The funny thing is that parking (parquer), brush(ing) (brosser) and many other English words that got "frenchified" actually come from old French :) About dressing (French dresser ;) ), it's actually a "misinterpretation" of the meaning of "dressing room", where the word room is mostly skipped but not always. "Dressing" with the meaning of wardrobe came relatively recently.
It's only fair we frenchifise English as the English has done the same for over a millenia. ;) About "wardrobe", that is an old Englified word. Well the Normand conquerers of England were not good at pronouncing the French G, so garde-robe --> wardrobe. They liked making war though (guerre--->wehr--->war). But I'm way off topic now! :)
Nicolas Martinez actually old-norse has a pronunciation between "g" and "w". And many Norman words were frankyfied turning "w" into the frankish "g".
The most famous being " Wilhelm ", in Frankish it turned " Guillaume ", and in English " William "...
Norman bad pronunciation was (and still is) more about " Ch" pronunced "Q", and " S" pronunced "Tch" :')
Thus chêne=> quesne , pêcheur=> pesquet , chemin=>quemin, saoul=>choul , etc.
Jà það er satt, pretty much what I meant but I decided to keep it short ;) Although, maybe not many but - some - Norman words! Words related to boats and navigation mostly -duh ;) (babord/tribord, quai, écume, vague...). Yeah, and ch'timis seem to have the same problem hehe.
omg just realised that "esmoquin" (Spanish) comes from the English word "smoking" 😂😂
I am a French nerd myself! :) - RE is a prefix in French so makes all sense to me as per Relooking, such as reloading, rebooking...etc. Fastfood when refered to it as countable it's not type of food but referring to restaurants such as Mcdo and burger king, those places are what we refer to as fast food, but it's not countable as a type of food in French too. Brushing is just straightening your hair if you have wavy or curly, nothing to do with a hairdresser at all. Smoking is from the British English word we took as they invited the style. The talkie-walkie is a speaking device so for French as per having adjectives after words it makes more sense to start with the main purpose which is talk then followed by walk... my opinion there. :)
The verb _scotcher_ even goes beyond tape: _Je suis scotché à l'écran_ means "I am glued to the TV or computer screen."
Regarding "parking", we actually do have a verb to say to park: "se parquer". It's rarely used, though, since people will rather say "se garer".
I'm also surprised you didn't add "shampooing" to your -ing list!
And great video :D
Interesting, I've never heard "se parquer" before, only "se garer" :) I can't believe I forgot about shampooing! That one cracked me up the first time I saw it...
To be fair, I'm not sure I've ever heard "se parquer" either. But I know it does exist. Maybe people use "parquer" (like "parquer sa voiture")? I can't remember.
I asked around, and I've been told it may be something used in Quebec, too...
Bedumbah se parquer c'est utilisé au Quebec :)
Anne Salomé C'est donc bien un mot français... mais pas de France ! Quoique ça se dit peut-être aussi à certains endroits. Merci pour la précision :)
Bedumbah haha oui sûrement! En tant que française j'ai appris ce mot au Quebec, mais ça peut être utilisé dans certaines régions de France, qui sait!
Another good one I had trouble with in New York is when I asked for a "pressing" which actually doesn't even exist, it will be dry cleaning or wash and fold.
You should come to Montréal, there is a lot of those expression that have french word, like a pull is un chandail or a tricot, a parking is a stationnement, scotch is use but we also use papier collant. Basket is running shoes... not really better then the french! But word like relooking, brushing, smoking, dressing are only use in bad movie traduction.
Papier collant, vous dites pas ruban adhésif ?
Nope, je confirme, j'ai jamais utilisé ruban adhésif (ni entendu de québécois utiliser ce terme) de ma vie :P Papier collant ou scotch tape!
The thing I recognized immediately was the STOP sign. In Québec you people still using the french word "Arrêt". How interesting.
Because it's a francophone province :P Some stops have both "arret" and "stop" written on it though!
Je confirme aussi :) J'ai seulement vu ruban adhésif à l'écrit. J'ai été enseignant pendant plus de 15 ans et jamais je n'ai pris mon ruban adhésif!!! Je prenais mon papier collant ou mon bon vieux scotch tape!
I also like how some short English words don't have actual translations but are translated as some sort of an expression, like _fermeture éclair_ for "zip" or _envoyer un radiomessage_ for "to page." Arguably the reverse is also true, but far less common, it's usually English that is a more concise language.
So funny! There's even funny ways English people use English worlds similarly. Like "joggers" being used for sweat pants! Or hoover (a brand name) for vacuuming your house! Moving from 1 English speaking country to another I didn't think any of these would be an issue but I was confused for a while! Ha ha. Another great video!
I totally know what you mean from my year in England! I also have an Australian co-worker now, so I'm constantly comparing NA English, UK English, South African English, and Australian English now :D
Joggers are a special type of sweatpants, with more of a synched cuffing that are elastic/flexible
All very true and very funny. Once again as a Frenchman living in the UK these are words I am probably too used to.
You are very right with all of them and your accent is amazing so you shouldn’t apologise so much!
Des tennis mean tennis shoes, des baskets mean basketball shoes. French always cut the word ball from the sport so they play basket, foot and hand! -ewww! 😉 So the shoes are also baskets.
Scotch: in the UK we use hoover for vacuum cleaner and we “hoover the room” so that similar.
Un fast food is indeed the restaurant. We don’t eat fast food in France we eat in a fast food! :)
And about brushing, it is used a lot actually in France!!!
I’m a grammar freak too so I hate these words not used correctly, but that video is so funny!!!
yes we eat" junk food dans un fast food". ok we say "mal bouffe" aloso but junk food is quite used. (lol)
Been years since I lived in Paris, I visit regularly but not up to date with the cool expressions, so I've never heard 'junk food' in France, and even less 'mal bouffe'!!! That sounds so French Canadian! God I'm getting old!
About "parking", it comes from the french "se parquer", it roughly means "to put yourself in a location", "parquer les bêtes", to assemble the animals in a location. With time, and cars, it went to the american word "parking lot", then parking as a location. And about "planning", the french word for "to schedule" is "planifier", so it was quite practical to adapt the english word planing as the "schedule object"
Funny thing : un jogging = sweatpants
Faire du FOOTING: going jogging
Scotch is a brand of adhesive tape, its common in French to use the name of a brand who is popular to indicate a type of object.
The weirdest Anglicism is German is "Handy", which is a noun and means mobile (phone, "cell phone" in American English).
"Un brushing" is when you blowdry your hair but giving it a certain shape or movement, not simply drying it, usually to give volume, to shape your bang etc ;)
how about une commode? I am French and when I referred to a commode in the USA, we had a lots of awkward moments ah ah !! Une commode is a dresser chest and a commode in the USA is a WC chair...
Esther Nwousi means both in England. Whether or not any people use those words these days, most people would know what they meant.
Je ne suis pas certaine que ce soit un anglicisme... L'utilisation française est peut-être antérieure à l'utilisation anglophone !
C'est d'origine latine, tu peux retrouver la racine dans accommoder, raccomoder, commodement, ...
ankhi3 Certes mais l'origine latine ne nous dit pas si le mot est apparu d'abord dans la langue française ou dans la langue anglaise...
Pratiquement tous les mots d'origine latine en anglais viennent du francais (avec Guillaume le conquerant). Donc si tu vois un mot d'origine latine similaire en francais et en anglais t'es quasiment sure que c'est apparut en francais d'abords . Les exceptions ce sont des mots qui viennent d'autres langues latines (conquistador, pizza, ....)
In french, we refer to tuxedo as "smoking" because originally, this particular clothing was made to be put when men goes on a place full of cigarette smoke (like smokehouse). The goal was to cover the daily shirt from the smell. Americans have used it later as a formal wear.
Did you know that about 70% of English words were taken from French ? Funny right ?
From old Norman French though, mostly.
Auctoria Mld I think us English did know already mate.
De ja vu
Carousel
Baguette
Brunette
Depot
Chic
Critique
Eau de parfum
Just making a point. We already knew
English is not the only language affected by French! My native language took that list above, plus words like _maskin, elektrisk, bomb, kapten, entré (entrance), ateljé (studio), sås (sauce), servitör (waiter), effektiv, person, brutal,..._ and thousands of others, quite literally. Mainly during the middle ages and the 1700s in this case.
Auctoria Mld | well they say English is just French pronounced badly ;)
The most *_frequently used_* everyday words are not french though, but north germanic or Scandinavian. So the roots are pretty intact, despite all those old french, latin and greek loans.
4:28 the other word for tape (scotch) in French is "ruban adhésif", which literally translates to "sticky ribbon".
I am a native English and French speaker (from a bilingual country) and have used all of these words in my day to day life, but I have never noticed these nuances since they all seemed natural or normal to me. thanks for pointing them out.
Marrant, j'ai jamais dit "chaussures de tennis".
Moi je n'ai jamais dit ni tennis, ni chaussures de tennis^^ si c'est pour trainer/faire du sport.être confortable, ce sont des baskets pour moi^^ ma mère un jour m'a dit qu'elle avait des "tennis" qu'elle adorait étant petite, quand elle m'en parlait je me disais "ahhhh ok, c'est des baskets.^^"
Des tennis sont des chaussures de sport qui ne montent pas jusqu'à la cheville. Des baskets sont des chaussures de sport qui montent jusqu'à la cheville, à raz ou qui la recouvrent. Là est la subtilité.
okay =) Donc dans mon cerveau de fille simpliste, des baskets = confort, des tennis = mal au pieds. ^^ merci =)
Here in Québec, we say "ruban adhesive" for tape but we also use "scotch (tape)" and "scother (to tape)"
Hey Andrea, toi qui est anglophone, t'as remarqué les nombres étranges (pour vous les anglophones) que l'on a. EX: 70,76,80 ect..
William Gilis Comment ça? Ces nombres sont bizarres pour les anglophones, pourquoi? 🤔
Sara belh Si tu écris ces nombres, tu t'aperçois qu'ils sont composés d'autres nombres voire d'opérations arithmétiques. Les français ont l'habitude d'utiliser ces appellations depuis l'enfance ; pour les non-francophones, c'est un casse-tête.
On dit soixante-dix, quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt-dix et les anglais ne disent pas "sixty ten" "fourthy twenties" et "fourthy twenties ten"
Je crois que ce sont les belges qui sont okay avec ça puisqu'ils disent septante octante et nonante (écrire en lettre au départ aurait été plus clair xd)
Hé bien, EX 80, c'est quatre vingts à l'écrit : 4x20. 76 c'est soixante seize à l'écrit : 60+16. (literaly speaking!)
Ce sont des anglophones qui en parle quand ils ont comptés en français la 1re fois!
Les Belges disent septante / quatre-vingts / nonante.
Ce sont les Suisses qui ont tout compris, avec septante / huitante / nonante.
Octante n’est plus utilisé.
And you also have "un camping" (campsite), "un camping car" (camper van) and "un mobile home" (caravan). You can also use the verb "scotcher" in a figurative way to say e.g. that someone has been absorbed in some activity for a long time, usually in a negative way (il est scotché devant la télé depuis ce matin - he's been watching TV since this morning).
My answer to "scotcher" would be "to google" xDDD
I just googled "scotcher" :o
TrakTv inception, mind blown !
Seriously ? I've never heard anyone use it that way xD "attends je vais googler" it sounds so weird !
The weird thing about "planning" is that we (french people) use this term to refer to the schedule ("un planning" with 2 "n"), but we also use the verb "planifier" (with only one "n") for the action of scheduling something... The two words seams to have the same origin, but may have been integrated in the french language at a different era...
As a Belgian french speaker, It's so funny to hear you talking about some words and expressions that I use on a everyday basis !
If you feel comfortable enough to move further on this topic, try to find some Belgian expressions :
it's called "belgicismes" and there's even a dictionary about it haha (you'll understand soon enough why) !
Actually, even from a country to another, you'll see some differences in this language. Some words/expressions are used in a "wrong" way for French people but makes sense to Belgian.
Example : "parking" is a noun in both countries but in Belgium, we would also use "se parker" as a verb in belgian french instead of "se garer" :)
Actually, "se parker" is a thing in France as well. Not as common as "se garer" but it's definitely used regularly.
Oh great, I didn't know that !
I took a word relatively understood by everyone because some terms would be so weird if you're not used to it :)
in trucking; drivers pickup or load the trailer, drive it to the destination, and then drop or unload the shipment. in french the proper words are chargement and décharment. many quebec francophone drivers and shippers/receivers now use the words pickupé and dropé. i don't know if that's how you 'should' spell them, given that's it's entirely a verbal creation, but it's pronounced exactly as pickup and drop with the extra é on the end to french it up.
Scotch is ruban adhésif in French :)
Tape in french is "ruban adhésif" literally adhesive ribbon
There's an alternative to " a parking lot" or " a parking" in French. We sometimes say "une zone de stationnement" ou " une aire de parcage" (less used). For smoking, we use it for a classy suit, otherwise we say "costume". I think that the origin of the word "smoking" in French is related to a particular suit that we put to smoke.
Very funny video for a French living in Montreal 😂
Anne Salomé Oui vraiment!
How can France have "STOP" sign but Canada still have "ARRÊT" sign?
we have both, since it's a bilingual country; Arrêt Stop
Only in new brunswick, in quebec its only Arret and its stop everywhere else
French from Mtl and I was thinking, we don't say many of those words, then I saw the European wall plug adapter on her desk and realized, Oh "France", well yes. Fun to watch.
1. The french name for tape is "ruban adhésif". It means adhesive ribbon. We say "scotcher" or "taper" because it's shorter and sounds better.
2. We also use parking as a verb. We will say "J'ai parké ma voiture (I parked my car)". we also use "place de parking", for a parking space.
C'est bien de voir des vidéos parlant du français dans le youtube anglophone
Pull (pull-over) term comes from USA, 1924 refered as sweaters “pull-over”. Previously, in English language pull-over was used to qualify a veil you pull over your hat (women’s hat) and then to qualify everything you pull over the top of your body, specifically the sweaters ;)
Je suis resté scotché toute le journée sur youtube en pull alors j'ai sorti mes basket et mon jogging de mon dressing pour faire un tennis. Je me suis ensuite permis d'aller manger un fast-food en smoking. J'ai parqué ma voiture dans le parking du fast-food.
Scotch was a brand of tape, so we used it as a verb "scotcher". It is also used in slang for "to be very surprised" : "ça m'a scotché!". We often make verbs from brands, example : "filmoluxer". Filmolux is a brand of auto-adhesive plastic you use to cover books or notebooks, and the action of applying that material to a book was dubbed "filmoluxer". Pretty popular in libraries were laminating books is a common thing.
Ho yeah Interesting how living languages are evolving from each other. Let see about Tape in English, translated as Scotch in France cause you are right. In France if you speak well you will use "Bande adhesive" which is literally "Adhesive Tape" as a name. But for the verb you got a issue as the world "bander" in french was existing and has the same meaning for medical bandage... But in common language the verb "Bander" strongly means to have a sex erection (get hard)! So whatever the verb "Bander" exist in French and mean also to bend/draw a bow, it is not used so much for that meaning; but of course a lot more for sexual purpose in everyday talks. I guess that would have been awkward to use it as varb for "to tape" then.... So to avoid the discomfort and misunderstanding while talking to a girl -" hey cherie tu peux me bander mon truc" = "Hey dear could you make me hard", hahaha, I think it's better than as French we decided to use the brand "Scotch" and the verb "Scotcher" to replace "to Tape".
The original french phrase for tape is "ruban adhésif", but that sounds so old-fashioned that no-one really uses it. In Belgium, people commonly use "papier collant" (which really says it like it is), but I think that most French people won't even have heard of it.
The way that most French words are pronounced in this video is pretty weird.
Okay so, more details hehe (french native here)
un brushing is basically hair drying your hair while styling it with a brush! different from just hair drying it hair straightening/curling it. it gives it a controlled volume.
the difference between un pull (we also say un pullover) and un sweat is that the pullover is more often made of wool, you know, fluffier
and sweat is more sporty? literally like a sweater!
cheers!
Bonjour. Je parle français sans raison dans ce commentaire. Je parle seulement anglais, donc j'utilise Google Translate pour faire ce commentaire
C'est marrant.
The funny thing with Scotch is the brand name origin. If I remember when adhesive tape began to spread, it was reusable and therefore cheaper than glue, so someone called it "Scotch-tape" (because of their reputation of being skinflint), the name stuck (like the tape) and was later use as a brand name.
As a french guy I can say everything was pretty accurate, but in my opinion the tone was a little bit condescending
We could easily find many french words that are used in a weird or silly way in the english language so there is no need to laugh at how we interpret and appropriate words from other languages :)
I don't think it was! It's your French pride taking over :P
Nah really, the mimics says it all
As a french guy too I didn't find her condescending I gess she just finds it weird and unnatural the way we use those words and that's why she is acting this way. Plus it can come from the fact that you know those words and she try to explain a lot you already know so it seems to you that she's condescending.
Funny how you guys are all taking me way too seriously x)
Theo Zamparo you're the one taking the video too seriously and saying that we should not "laugh about it" sooooo... :p
We use a lot of these in Flemish as well. A dressing is typically a walk-in closet. A smoking is widely used in Europe because the dinner jacket or tuxedo resembled a smoking jacket worn in Victorian times.
Seeing the English language used weirdly is something we British have got very used to thanks to America and it's influence *sigh*
Orange Pepe wants a hug Where is this "America" you speak of?
Regarding the "Pull" (for Pull-Over) it is used for Wool (or Acrylic) Knitted garments. Any Cotton or Poly/cotton piece will be considered "un sweat" or"un sweat-shirt" (a sweater) as you suggested.
This happens in other languages too. In Puerto Rico a hair dryer is called a “blower” even though in English nobody calls it that.
You can also say "papier collant" to tape. But that usually refers to the thinner, transparent tape.
In Québec we use a lot of english words and we conjugate these word but with a french way. For exemple: For the verb "to park", we say "je vais me parker" which means " i'll park my car.
"Planning" they probably got from "planner" which is like an appointment calendar.
For tape, in Belgium at least, you'll find the word "papier collant" (sticky paper) alongside scotch. May be used in France too, but won't claim with certainty, as there are differences in French from Belgium with the one of France that can be confusing too.
A parking lot comes from the french meaning of "to park trains in a specific area" (une "station de train"), (a stationary area for trains) or "a parking lot" ... Parking lot: comes from "a piece of land (lot) designated for parked waggons (stationery waggons)"
Im guessing you figured where "stationary" comes from at that point... (Une "station d'essence", une armée "stationnée" quelque part) A "Gas station", or the army being "stationed" somewhere, all come from the latin words "stare" (to stand) and "statio" (in position, or stationary). Put it together; "a regular stopping place on route, especially one on a railroad or military service road, with buildings surrounding it"
I find it odd that add_ing_ an ing is used to make a noun since we primarily use it for the verb form in English.
actually the verb to park does exist in french but it s only used in Switzerland, we say "parker" -> "se parker"
I remember in France during the 80s when sport shoes were called "tennis" because at that time, all sport shoes looked like tennis shoes. Then basket shoes became hugely popular, and progressively the term "basket" ended up being used for any shoe with a style approaching that of a basket shoe. (Including All Star shoes, for example) Note that in French, the gender of the noun carries useful information. Since "shoe" is feminine in French, "une basket" must therefore refer to the shoe, not the sport which would be masculine.
they are so many french word used in some time with not even the same sens une Jounée a DAY but the brits use to refert of their travel time taking days ... as the journey