7 English Words That Don't Exist in French
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ส.ค. 2024
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Despite the hard work of “l’Académie française”, French language is still incomplete.
And it’s hurting our ability to think and communicate! We have “flexisécurité” and “restructuration” - yet “that moment when you’re just walking in the street and you suddenly remember some shameful thing you did in middle school” doesn’t have its own word? That’s ridiculous!
For some concepts though, we can borrow words from other languages. Which English words is the French language missing?
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I also found it surprising when I searched up the translation for "sibling" and it just came up with "frère ou sœur". It seems quite inconvenient to always have to use that when you're saying how many siblings someone has or things like that.
I would translate "sibling" by "fratrie" in french.
But you're right, when you want to ask someone how many siblings he has, you ask : "Combien as-tu de frère et sœur ?" or "As-tu des frères et sœurs ?"
It's interesting in Hungarian there is a word for sibling (= "testvér" which literally translates as "bodyblood") but there is no word for brother/frère and sister/soeur. Instead we have individual words for older brother (báty), younger brother (öcs), older sister (nővér) and younger sister (húg)
Combien êtes vous d'enfants dans la famille ? can often be used
what about when they are the same age? (twins)
Plenty of languages don't have a word for siblings. In Russian for example you'd also have to say "брат или сестра" (brother or sister)
Very good video! Just a note in case you didn't know, gaslighting originates from the classic movie "Gaslight" with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer. Boyer is a thief who marries Bergman in order to get into her house and steal her famous jewels, but he has to be able to get away with constantly searching in the attic, so he tells her, "You didn't really hear those noises, you didn't really see the lights go out," etc., thus eventually making her believe she is going mad. That is where the term comes from.. it is a manipulation tactic of convincing someone that what they are experiencing isn't really happening and making them feel crazy as a result. The phrase has really hit the internet recently but it comes from this 1944 movie.
This 1944 film is a remake of a 1940 film with Anton Walbrook and is based on a play by Patrick Hamilton.
YES, indeed! Great film! And Charles Boyer was French too so I feel like this term needs to be adopted back into the French vernacular! Nowadays, this word has greater implications and can be applicable to any instances where someone is deliberately manipulating you psychologically, making you question your own reality and judgment.
What was the French title of that film? Maybe it could be made into a verb!!
In the film, Gregory (Charles Boyer) turns on the gaslights in the attic. --thus reducing the gas and dimming the gaslights in the lower levels of the house, where his wife is. He conviinces her that she's going mad. The French title of the. film is "Hantise," or awful, obsessive dread. Certainly, the wife is filled with fear --but that word doesn't recall the sharp image of the gaslights dimmiing, the villainous way the husband is trying to drive her mad. I was about to say the "vivid" image, but I'm thiinking there's no word for "vivid" in French either..
I think you forgot the most important one. As a french native, I can say that we don't have a equivalent for "successful" and it is very bothering sometimes because we have to say "who / which have success" or expressions like that. It is very weird that we lack this word !
There's no word for "cheap" in French too. We just say "moins cher" I found that interesting haha
We say "économique" ou "bon marché" ou "premier prix"
we even start to say "discount" ... :(
_Bon marché_ is the official translation but we actually use the phrase _pas cher_ not _moins cher_
I've often seen 'moins cher' in the bargain shop signs in France but have never come across 'pas cher.' In English, 'cheap' usually means of lower quality and not necessarily a 'good buy' or a bargain. But if you were to mean 'it's cheap for the price' ie. genuine sales, then it might be a bargain.
@@ecritvainclindoeil1806 ...even though English adopted the word from French "descompte" which, with an apostrophe after the d is still used in Canada (e. g., prix d'escompte).
Well done Géraldine! You've shown here that you have a good understanding of the subtleties of English. Some ideas and feelings are better expressed in English than French and visa versa."Snack" and "le snacking" are used for burgers, pizzas, sandwiches etc. but as you know, snacking Engish style with bags of crisps, sweets and chocolate throughout the day isn't the French way. This is the main reason why France has less obesity than the UK. There is no "French paradox" here as the British often claim, you just follow the good advise of your grandmothers
When she says Vanilla, I feel so weird. She pronounces it like how it would be in French.
Just moved to Paris for a few months so am finally able to practice all I've learned from your videos! :)
How'd it go?
We have a great expression for ”snack” in Swedish: ”mellanmål”, which literally means ”between-meal”. You can also say ”mellis” for short :)
We don't have that ”you shouldn't eat between meals”-culture here, snacking (in moderation) is even encouraged sometimes. Most people snack around 3 pm, either a ”mellis” or a ”fika”.
Almost two years ago I studied in Aix-en-Provence for a couple weeks. I actually saw plenty of shops that said "snack" out front; I guess it's a loan word. This made me laugh when I would pass by shop every day that was called "Pain & Snack".
Wizard of Kivul Hahaha yeah since there's no word in French, we stole it from you guys. BTW: No pain no gain.
They use "snacking" as well, as a noun!
Snack your Pain away.
Couple of weeks, pass by a shop…
I was talking to a Japanese friend recently (who has lived in the UK for many years) and she thought "self conscious" meant having a lot of confidence in yourself, whereas in fact it is rather the opposite. So I guess it is a peculiarly English expression.
i guess french people just don't get self conscious ;)
Oh yes, they can be... but you have to be more precise of what get you self-conscious.
I think it was at a cafe in Rocamadour that l asked for a cirtronade! After all a citron is a lemon. I got a puzzled look but soon established that l should have said limonade.
Thank you for the video, very interesting.
I think "gaslighting" must be a uniquely American English expression, because I am English and I have never seen or heard this expression before. I think for us English "gas lighting" just means what we had before electric lighting :-)
One thing though, I don't think "conventionnel" or "classique" are very close to the meaning of "vanilla".
"Vanilla" used like this means "basic", "plain", "with no added extras", sometimes, but not always, with an implication that the thing concerned is not very exciting. The derivation is from ice-cream, where once upon a time vanilla was the only flavour that you could have.
I am English and have only heard people use "gaslighting" as a verb quite recently. It comes from the 1940s film "Gaslight" of course :-) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslight_(1944_film)
In german we have the term "rabenmutter" which basically describes the opposite of a mother hen. It's a negative way to describe women who start working shortly after giving birth and bringing their kids to la crèche or the Kindergarden. Since living in France as a nounou I learned how normal it is to do that, and how normal it is for women to go back to work shortly after getting a baby. I guess that's why the word doesn't exists in french :)
The word "sassy" is one that neither I nor my French speaking friends have managed to translate into French. It's even difficult to explain in English. The dictionary definitions for "sassy" are also outdated.
Would you mean "effronté" by any chance, I just looked it up.
"Sassy" is very much an American word, although you sometimes hear it now in England (where I live) because people pick up a lot of Americanisms from films/television. Not me, I try to avoid them :-)
I've kind of assumed that it's an American pronunciation of the English word "saucy", which has a couple of related meanings: one is to describe something that is titillating in a light hearted sort of way - so for instance, the Benny Hill Show might be described a bit "saucy"; the other meaning is similar to the word "cheeky", so slightly insolent, but again in an inoffensive way. These days we use "cheeky" much more than we use "saucy".
So I think "effronté" is a pretty good translation.
Another one one maybe is "culot", although that is a noun, not an adjective. So we might respond to somebody by saying "You've got a cheek!", and the best French translation of that would be "Tu as du culot!"
_Insolent_ would be the French equivalent but that's not as slangy as "sassy."
Jim Smith Lol! No, sassy isn't saucy. It is a way to say someone who is being kind of sharp or rude. Bossy. Sassy. Definitely not a mispronunciation of saucy.
Jasmine, thanks for the clarification.As you've probably gathered, I don't have a good grasp of American, my mother tongue being English :-)
Je suis Australienne, I have taken French classes and et toi, (that was translated to me by my Welsh French teacher) is "and you?"
For example, when introducing yourself and then asking for their name you would say something like, "Je m'apelle ___, et toi?"
Really interesting! And it got me thinking about my own French dialect. I speak some New England and Acadian French, including a dialect called Chiac, that's sort of "half French, half English." (Lots of code-switching!) We tend to switch over to English when there's something that can't be perfectly verbalized in French, and vice versa. These words we would all just say in English instead of attempting to translate. Another category of words we almost always say in English are words expressing opinion or belief. Not to offend any Francophones, but that's something English is just better at, in our opinion, having both languages in our arsenal. Like for example you could translate "I guess" to "je suppose," or "j'imagine," but are they really the same?
Could "I guess" also be "Je crois" or "J'ai l'impression" ?
Au Canada, nous employons le terme "collation" pour définir un "snack" en anglais. Je ne sais pas s'il a la même signification en France.
une collation a un sens proche de casse-croute, avec en plus une idée de boisson avec de la nourriture. Alors que casse-croute est essentiellement du "solide". c'est hélas, un peu vieilli comme mot, mais je me souviens que j'avais de la famille à la campagne qui l'utilisait quand j'étais enfant, pour désigner le gouter, notamment.
Les seuls cas où j'ai vu le mot collation utilisé en France, c'est avec les diététiciens qui t'indiquent ce qut tu peux manger à qualle heure "Collation : une pomme aux alentours de 17h"
Tony Gallant je voulais dire la même chose. Le mot nest pas utilisé en france?
Rosetta K come je le disais, uniquement par les diététiciens.
Il est plus fréquemment utilisé en Belgique, par contre. ^^
I am English and I have to admit have never heard the terms 'gaslighting' or helicopter parent'. So I have learned something today. Thank you!
Gaslighting is a word that just came into trend recently for the last 10 years or so, usually used in political commentary.
"Don't try to translate it directly ever" so funny
Geraldine: say "Mother hen" not "mother chicken". That's the usage
Yep! There's not really a tidy idiom for a father of the same type. Overbearing would probably be the closest adjective.
a "nibble" can be used for a "snack" teehee 😊😇 et merci toujours, geraldine!
Also Brain Freeze. Quand j'ai dit "brain freeze" à un francais, il n'avait aucune idée... et même sur wordreference: "avoir mal a la tête apès avoir mangé de la glace".... ça fait beaucoup pour deux petits mots comme brain freeze o.o
April May Je dis juste "Brain Freeze"... C'est vrai qu'il n'y a pas de mot pour ça. Les gens bien te comprendront 😉
I didn't know "a snack" and "a date" did not exist in the French language. Great FYI.
Toujours aussi géniales vos vidéos Géraldine. Continuez a nous faire aimer notre langue simplement.
J'aime ton petit studio. Chaque fois que je regarde d'abord autour pour voir où votre petit téléphone est! En outre, j'aime vraiment votre sens de la mode douce.
Seagull Management was quite normal where I used to work. Team quietly getting on with their work. Manager arrives, understands nothing, makes a lot of noise, dumps on everyone then flies off leaving team to clear up the mess. Seagull Management, useful phrase.
Great video, keep up the good work! J'éspère de voir plusieurs autres dans l'avenir.
Thanks for the vid :) it was great!
A word that we have in Portuguese that I always struggle translating to english is "fazer musculação", which means to workout your muscles on strength building (kind of like 'muscleation"). In other words, the part of the workout that is not the cardio..the muscle work. In English you can say resistance training, but that is usually with the machines and wouldn't include weightlifting, etc. You also wouldn't normally say after doing some crunches and squats "Today at the gym I did some cardio and strength building".
Use "training" as a substitute for "building".
Muscle-building.
Please could you make a video about when to use 'on' and 'nous'? I am finding it difficult to understand. Thanks Xxx
Nvm just found your video about 'the dreaded on' hehe
'on' is used in place of 'nous' to refer to a group of two or more people that includes the speaker, so "we," but only in informal speech and mostly because conjugations for 'nous' have more syllables and are annoying to say out loud lol. in formal writing or speech, 'nous' is preferred. 'on' can also mean 'one' as in: 'one must not walk on the grass' or smth like that, except it's used much more in french than in english. 'on' can ALSO be used to reflect a passive form of certain verbs, for example: "on m'a demandé' means 'I was asked'
"Self conscious could" also be called feeling "conspicuous" in English, which apparently translates to "conspicuous" in French.
Interesting I've been wondering about these. It's better to learn translations this way from une française than from google translate (toujours tort) haha!
You don’t have a word for “cheap” in French. Probably because you would feel self-conscious about it :-p
A different English slang expression aligns best with une mère poule: "a mother hen." A mother hen is protective. She not only keeps a constant eye on her chicks; she tries to keep them close to her. A helicopter parent is protective and watches over her/his children, ever ready to swoop down to help. However, a helicopter parent is not necessarily possessive. Minor difference.
In some places, mother hen is the slang for an older lady who is the lady boss of a prostitution business and takes care of the girls.
I am addicted to these tutorials.
In Afrikaans we use "lekker" a lot. It could be translated as delicious (literally) but figuratively it is quite difficult to translate. The party was "lekker" (The party was nice.). She's a lekker girl. (She is a beautiful girl - used when you are interested in more than just friendship, but not that polite though.) We also use "ja-nee", directly translated as yes-no. It is used as a way to say "I heard you and I agree with you." For example: A: I heard that the crime rate is going up. B: Ja-nee, who knows where it will end? How would you translate that into French? > just sounds wrong.
Jacques Smit Same in Germany. It's called lecker here and you normally don't use it for people, but you technically could. But we do say ja nee as well in the same context :)
Dhjun that is very interesting. I remember learning German at the hotel I worked at before and they told me to never say "Ja ja"
Jacques Smit "Ja, ja" is considered a bit rude here as it sounds like you're showing no interest in what the other person just said.
"Cette fille est délicieuse" est vieillot, précieux, est parfois avec une connotation sexuelle grossière. Très 18ieme siècle... Mais cela peut encore se rencontrer dans la litérature.
This is a very old, precious phrase, with sometimes a gross sexual meanning. Can be found in literature, very XVIIIe century....
Jacques Smit
You could say "Cette fille est très jolie" ou "Cette fille est très belle"
Délicieux is almost always used only for food except in the older days or in a really pedantic way, like it has been said.
I also think "lekker" can be translated to "cool, chouette, and other synonyms" when you find any other situation "lekker".
I'm native French speaker from Belgium so I also know a little Dutch. I hope that helps you
For one, there's no equivalent of the verb 'feature' in Korean; as in " The show featured Matt Damon last night". We would get around it by saying "Matt Damon made a special appearance last night on the show" or "The show had a special guest last night, Matt Damon." But within the confinement of the Korean language, there's no way of saying with the same sense of 'the show being the doer of featuring'. I find it interesting. The closest one might be "The show specially invited Matt Damon last night to appear".
On the more vulgar side, we don't have the equivalent of 'f*ck' either, which I won't go into detail.
Merci beaucoup !
Je viens d'apprendre qqch
The one English word that I find in almost no other language is "to care". As in "I care about you" or "I care about something" or "I don't care about that".
I know you can use "Ça m'est égal" for "I don't care", but it's not quite the same, and I can't think of a word to express the positive meaning.
For "I care - about something" or "I don't care - about something" I'd use "j'aime / J'aime bien - ceci" or "Je n'aime pas - celà"
The contrary of "ça m'est égal / Je m'en moque" would be "ça m'interresse" I guess
Also, "se soucier" can express the fact of caring about something, like for example "- You don't care about it! - Of course I do!" translated in "- Tu ne te soucies pas de ça! - Bien sûr que si, je m'en soucie!", depending of the situation where you're using the verb "to care", it can either be in french the equivalent of "apprécier/aimer" or "se soucier". :)
Thanks!
You could try courting for a date or an evening out, a romantic or friendly outing might also work as well for a date.
I had never heard of this sense of "gaslighting". All I could think of was un allumeur de réverbères dans Le Petit Prince.
There is no word for "potluck" in Spanish. The closest I could come up with is "almuerzo/cena a contribuciones".
My French teacher taught me that snacks in French were "amuses-gueule."
That's actualy right ;)
but you can have amuses-gueules between major meals in a dinner... i'm not sure you can call these "snack"...
Hello. Not really. " Amuse-gueules " with an s is used ONLY for some little sandwiches or peanuts or chips etc we eat during the a""aperitif." It is not a snack. As Géraldine said, use the words " grognoter quelque chose".
*grignoter, just to correct it. :)
Wrong. Amuse-gueule are served with the appéritif. It’s not a snack you eat between meals.
The closest equivalent of "awkward" in French is gênant and embarrassant, but like your example "self-assured", it doesn't hold the same meaning, but it's what we're left with :\
Same thing with "creepy", don't you think ? What translation would you choose ? Effrayant, flippant, louche/chelou, à donner la chair de poule...
Louche is the closest to creepy / sketchy .
SallyLock103emeCaris I'd choose "Flippant" (but it's not formal) or "Glauque" or "malsain"
Zachary Hazen *Maladroit* is closer to clumsy in meaning, i.e. _un choix de mots maladroit_ a clumsy/awkward choice of words. You couldn't say -une situation maladroite- for an awkward situation.
What about 'fluffy'?
Not the same!
moelleux?
Erika Neemeyer h
It's true there's no exact synonym for fluffy in French.
"Pelucheux"?
Au Québec, "A snack" is "Une collation", alors tout dépend de la région dans laquelle vous vous trouvez.
I am enjoying your video series and have been sharing it with my son who is now learning French. How would you translate the phrase "[ it will ] ... knock your socks off?" I have never found a French equivalent that I like for the phrase, "knock your socks off." The phrase conveys the meaning that whatever event or thing that will or has happened was or will be so incredible enjoyable, that it it was or will be like you were lifted up so high by it in shear enjoyment that you left your shoes and socks behind you.
Bonjour Brooks, good question. I don't know exactly. Take a look at the forum on Wordreference: www.wordreference.com/enfr/knock%20your%20socks%20off. It's a great resource for precise cultural translations for this kind of expression.
@@Commeunefrancaise Not on their list. Something that knocks your socks off is epoustouflant!
First time I hear the expression 'helicopter parenting',
Toast! I known one can say "pain grillé", but in Britain it's important enough to have its own word :-)
How about "shallow"?
Merci
Salut Geraldine,
Comment diriez-vous "it's hump day" en français pour signifier que c'est mercredi, au milieu de la semaine? Comment diriez-vous "happy hour" en français? "heure heureuse"? Do you have happy hour specials in France?
Merci, Jessica
No hump day in French, we just say mercredi
Speaking of days/weeks another French word/expression that I don't know if there's an equivalent in English is "faire le pont" (literally "make the bridge")That's when you have a holiday on a Tuesday and you take the Monday off so you'll have your typical weekend (Saturday+Sunday) + le jour de pont (Monday) + the holiday (Tuesday) making a 4 days off long weekend
Happy Hour in France is ... Happy Hour, we just use your words :)
Just to be clear, if you said "hump day" in the UK, nobody would know what you are talking about - it's purely American. In England it's "Wednesday" - we don't call it anything else.
The only day of the week that has an Alternative name in England is Sunday, which is sometimes called "the Sabbath", but people who say that are generally bourgeois bores.
There is a newish (few years old now) saying that you hear in London these days, "Thursday is the new Friday". What this is about is that traditionally London commuters used to go to the pub and have a few beers on Friday evenings before going home, just to celebrate the end of the week. But these days they do it on Thursday, then work from home on Friday, so that they can have their hangover on company time and not ruin half of the weekend :-)
This is actually true!
"Happy hour" is ubiquitous in France. My restaurateur son-in-law says "heure heureuse" is never used. "Happy hour" is restricted to a couple of hours a day to discourage binge drinking.
In the UK I would take ‘hump day’ as meaning something rude ie naughty in a sexual way! It must be an American expression, I’ve never heard of it.
It's not that there is no equivalent, but honestly I don't like to use "bon prix/marché" or "peu/pas cher" instead of a single word- "cheap".
There is also the use "tant" ou "autant" to mean "both", but I think it's not as practical as using "both" in some sentences, i.e. "I like both X and Y" seems to me to be easier to formulate than "J'aime les deux: X et Y", "tant X que Y" or "à la fois X et Y".
Sena Saka cheap = économique.
Salut Géraldine. Une expression anglaise je peux pas trouver en français cest "to be whole" or "to be made whole." Il est une expression psychologique dont porte le sens d'avoir une personnalité complète. Par exemple, "One must be whole before they get married" or they will have problems in marriage. Ou "My wife makes me whole."
Hi Geraldine, just curious how about "butter someone up" in French? -- the act or behavior when sometimes children are extra cuddly to the parents in order to ask/beg for something. Some kids would say "puppy face/ make a puppy face" but apparently it's not exactly commonly used English either.
MrSchue You could say “lécher les bottes de [qqn]” (“to lick the boots of [someone]”). That's a common expression for sucking up to someone.
Can you do an episode talking about how to translate "been"? Quand j'ai étudié en France, ma prof me dit qu'il n'y a pas un mot pour "been" en français.
la prof a voulu probablement dire qu'il n'y avait pas une seule écriture, effectivement il faut faire l'effort de conjuguer le verbe être. mais c'est le même mot qui s'écrit différement. c'est comme si vous disiez en anglais : be, was , am, were, been, will, sont des mots différents.... non, c'est le même verbe conjugué.
What was your teacher talking about? Of course, there is an equivalent to "been" in French, it is the past participle "été".
There's one use of "been" in everyday English which, when you think about it, is strange:
We say, for example, "Have you ever been to France?" meaning "Etes-vous jamais allé en France?"
So we're actually using "to be" almost as a verb of motion. But you can only do it in the perfect/pluperfect tenses. You can't say "Are you to France?" instead of "Are you going to France?" and you can't say "Were you to France" instead of "Did you go to France?"
Maybe there is some logic to it, lost in the mists of time, but it seems completely illogical.
I struggle quite a bit to find a French equivalent to "whatever," in the sense of something that you're not specifying any further. For example: "do you want to have something quick before the movie? A hamburger, or whatever?" For a long time, I've been incorrectly using "n'importe quoi," which I now realize has pretty negative connotations that are not what I'm intending.
'quoi que ce soit' perhaps?
OMG, that's great--thanks! I keep running across "quoi que ce soit" in "Les liaisons dangereuses," but wasn't really sure what it meant. I'm going to try this out on my coworkers today!
Kevin B. Cohen That literally means "whatever is/that is". In an unformal way, I would just say "ou quoi"
I always figured "helicopter parenting" was a uniquely American phenomenon.
yeah I'm from australia and the first time I heard it used was by an american friend
Please could you make a video about when to use 'tu' and 'vous'? I am finding it hard to understand and I'm sure that many others are as well Xx
Freya Foster it’s the same difference in english between: ‘hello Mr Smith’ and ‘hi John’.
Based on observations in Druckerman’s book, I wonder if the French are less “self conscious” because they grow up being less overtly praised and interrupted whereas the French child might have been more encouraged to “live his life” without so much unnecessary interference. Growing up with someone making a comment about everything you do could give you a tendency to be self conscious. French culture and manners seem almost designed to avoid making others feel self conscious and to avoid ever needing to come up with a word for such a feeling.
What about "Does" or "Hold on". Are there French equivalents to these English words?
Harika bir video olmuş.
Here's an English one "Talking heads" that I had to explain to French friends: Experts like politicians on television discussing issues. Usually you just see their faces, and they talk ;)
In English we simply take whatever foreign word we need into the language. Not so much in French, I think.
merci beaucoup😊😊
even though its been proven that eating small meals all throughout the day and snacking is healthier i'll forgive france for this one
when i studied abroad in Québec, they taught us the phrase "casse-croûte" for a snack
Roadtrip!
vanilla doesn't just mean conventional. it's more like basic and unexciting
The adjective "shallow" doesn't exist in french. It is always translated by "peu profond". And there is a line in the Lord of the Rings that is impossible to translate in french without rewording it completely : "I think one of his spies would - well, seem fairer and feel fouler, if you understand.' 'I see,' laughed Strider. 'I look foul and feel fair. I that it ?". Such distinction between to look and to feel is impossible in french.
Je ne suis pas d'accord : si "shallow" n'est pas utilisé dans le sens "peu profond", alors c'est le sens "superficiel" qui fonctionne.
Par contre je dois admettre que "feel" est un casse-tête à traduire en français.
I do a lot of translation from French to English, but very little the other way round. I had never thought about this difficulty with "feel", but now that Iam thinking about it, yes, I can see how difficult it must be. If your talking about how you feel yourself, it's not so bad - I guess you would just say "je me sens...", but if your talking about how someone or something else "feels" to you then you're probably going to say "il me semble..."
No wonder that Lord of the Rings passage is so difficult - ouch!
the simplest example should be "cheap" - there's no simple equivalent in French; only "pas cher" or "moins cher" and "bon marché" is almost never used.
''Care''. Dans le sens d'' I don't care''. Soin?
Can you show me how to say " you can and you may " " you should, you have to and you must" in french? I study french for a while and this thing really freak me out
Je vous remercie
none of those translate very well. 'you can' and 'you may' would both translate to 'tu peux/vous pouvez' in most contexts, although imo there isn't really a satisfactory translation for 'may.' "you have to' and 'you must' in most contexts will translate to 'tu dois/vous devez' but sometimes the expression 'avoir besoin de' would be used in a longer sentence. 'you should' is the same verb but in the conditional, so: 'tu devrais/vous devriez'
yeah, I knew that, but the expression and emotion between" you have to" and" you must" are not the same, so when I speak, I feel unnatural
I mean, there's no way to get around it bc those are your only options. there's nuance in french as well, just different nuance. it's very context specific. "devoir" is almost always used for must and "avoir besoin de" is used more if it's ultimately a personal choice or need
Vuong Tran
You have to: Il faut/fraudrait que tu...
You must: Tu dois... (!)
Both can be switched. I dont know why but I'll translate it that way
Jools E
yeah I used to translate like that but It sound weird when I want to express something like "you should"
Et bien... How do you translate "a hoarder" or "hoarding?" I know it refers to one of the Greek gods, but I can't remember.
Why not "soi-conscient"?
merci beaucoup...déjà vu !
What word do you use in French to describe the flavor for vanilla in cooking?
Vanille
I finally found out what three of the English expressions meant. I ran into helicopter parents yesterday for the first time.
Est-ce qu'on pourrait utiliser le mot < maniaque > comme traduction du mot < anal > ?
Tout à fait brillant!
We also have that, "A Mother hen". Of course it's not the same.
Similar to the "vanilla" idea -- the concept of plain vs fancy -- Est-ce qu'il y a en francais?
can you write exemples... plain has so different meaning, depending on the context.
A *fancy* hat would have feathers, ribbons, sparkles, etc. But a *plain* hat has no decoration, no bright colors, no wide brim etc; it's only to keep your head warm. Plain is like "plain vanilla" except that that expression refers to standard or basic, even if the basic is not plain. For example, "The plain-vanilla Chevrolet includes air-conditioning and power windows".
Tracy Kingsley plain would be "sobre" and fancy would be "extravagant"
I'd use "sophistiqué" or "élégant" or "raffiné" for fancy et "simple" or" basique" pour plain
I have difficulties with translation of prases with "how often ..." to french. Avec quel frequence? Something else? I found out that the word "souvent" doesn't work at this context.
Sergey Sysoev "A quelle fréquence" or "Avec quelle fréquence" sounds about right to me. You could just ask "Tu fais... souvent?"
Thank you!
You can also say, if you want to ask for example 'how often do you visit your parents?' : 'Tu leur rends visite tous les combien ?'
Or "...tous les combien de temps?"
You can also ask " As tu l'habitude de ... ?"
Like bully and bullying. I could never find the right words to express these words.
Well, a "bully" could be translated in "un intimidateur/une brute", "to bully" in "intimider/brutaliser/terroriser/malmener" and "bullying" could be translated in "harcèlement" (it means harassment). ^^
et toi = et vous =你呢?ni ne°?(informal way)=您呢nín ne°?(formal way) in Chinese
Oh Geraldine! Please pronounce those L's in VaniLLA. Vuh-NIL-uh
J'ai entendu que le mot anglais "sidecar" n'existe pas en francais...
So weird to see how specific English words define our uses...
I would kindly precise this:
Vanilla is slang, do not use it by writing, and "Being Anal" is simply the concept synthesized in the language to go faster, but the concept exists in another languages, it’s not specific to english. And yes never translate it in other language, that would be weird.
“Helicopter Parents” looks like a authentic concept but it is not. We turned the concept of authority into moral judgment, being authoritarian with children is like being overwatched. But you never used those words in a high class english society, because that's obviously the way education is, and they just call it "education." Helicopter Parents is the result of our idiocratic evolution of language and its uses.
And Snack is a good example of idiocratic evolution, the word is coming from the sound of a bite, that could have been a “crunch”. We only have one idiocratic word, when in French they have many for precise concepts, it depends on the situation: "en-cas", "casse-croûte", "collation", "goûter" et "grignoter" " that becomes" grignotine "in French Canada “En-cas” is not rarely used, it's just a rare socio-cultural use of the word, because french society is becoming idiocratic too, but the word do exist. For example, many people do not use the word "embarrassé" to say "annoyed", but they will use "emmerdé" more often, it’s a slang word, it is the idiocratic evolution of society.
I would say that the idea that there is more words in English than other languages is the result of our excessive vanity to not recognizing that our european roots are denied. English is a language derived from a Norman patois (some of the many old-french), fed by modern French, German, Dutch and others. The words authentically English are very few. Because we do not have concepts that are specific to our culture, such as "dépaissement" in French, or 인연 in Korean or わびさび in Japanese and so on…
The question of the word is first of all the question of the concept. For example, “gaslighting” is not a word, it's a combination of word to describe a habit, in French they say “Mystifier”, but also “leurrer”, “pigeonner,"mener en bateau” = to lead by boat, but noone said a “menebateau" = leadboat. That's the way we make words in English, that's not exactly a new word, it's just our idiocratic use of language.
Most of the time we think we have a word that doesn’t exist in other languages when in fact, we only have one, and this word doesn’t exist in other languages because they have many to discribe it more precisely. So is an idiocratic concept a new concept?
To go further on idiocratic and wrong evolution of post-modernity, Foster Wallace is your guide. I would suggest the movie “Idiocracy” for those who don’t like to read…
Thanks so much for the videos!
I haven't been able to find french translations for Accountability and Awkward.
Awkward can be "génant", "embarrassant",... depending on the context. Accountability can be translated by "responsabilité".
Clockwise, and anticlockwise. The french equivalents are ridiculously long phrases.
I seem to recall hearing "le snack". Please don't be obsesse' about Academie Francaise rules.
What about you?
snack: grignotage, collation, amuse-bouche
My daughter is in French school and her teachers call snacks, collation?
In Canada
comme d'hab chouette
I've always found it interesting that there's no English word for antipathique.
Well, the word "antipathetic" exists but I kinda get the impression that the meaning is a bit different so you might be right.
Or "sympathique" which I know can be translated as "nice", but still...
Vanilla = "plein".
we say "collation" for snacks here!
sylvie Gagnon . In my childhood , i used that word for goûter (un normand).
i think the term helicopter parent came about because its the current rise of the overly obsessive, overly overbearing parents--to the point where the child doesn't learn to solve problems themselves, or do anything themselves. has this phenomenon come about in france as well?
These are English words that come from French. Are they still used in French? laissez-faire, aide-de-camp, and noblesse oblige
Some Person The Wikipedia article for “Glossary of French expressions in English” is worth a read. It surprisingly includes a large list of French phrases that we use in English but the French use differently or not at all!
I'll never forget one of my first experiences helping kids learn English in a classroom in France. They were making party invitations, and the teacher asked them to provide “RSVP” information, but none of the students knew what the “R” stood for. It wasn't until several minutes later that one of the students realised it was an acronym for French words and not English!
Likewise French has several English loanwords that they use in different contexts, such as “un smoking”, which is a blazer. My favourites are French words that are invented to look like English, such as the French for makeover: “un relooking”.
This video reminds me how annoying it is to say "My pet" in French (literally "Mon animal de compagnie"). I want to make "Mon 'pet'" a thing; bust out a little Frenglish.