As some of you know, Shufitz and I are going to Paris after the Wordcraft convention in October. We bought a travel book on Paris, and I immediately went to the section on "books to read." Guess what the first book was? The Grolier Encyclopedia!

I think you can do better than that with recommendations, right? I'd especially like to read about the French people. Ideas?

This Wikipedia link looks like a good starting place for what you want, Kalleh.

("french people" gets four hundred seventy-two million google hits) (You probably already knew that)
~~~ jerry

PS: Some Americans visiting France claim it's a good idea to deny American citizenship and pretend to be Canadians. But then, Canadians might be expected to speak French.

I am prepared to be hated. I don't know French at all, and I know they hate that. I bought a book with pronunciations, but Shu says they aren't so good. For example, for "thank you" (which I figure I must be prepared to say!), the pronunciation is: seel-voo-PLAY. Shu just laughed at me when I was practicing; apparently the "l" isn't as dominant as I had made it. I can speak some Spanish and Italian, but I am useless with French. Thankfully, Shu has a working knowledge of it.

You're better speaking English than trying to speak French badly in my experience.

Unless you are good with accents, avoid the language; its pronunciation is tricky and the transliterations do not really work. In particular there is no UK or US English equivalent of the Franch "r", which is very well back in the throat - almost 100% opposite the the Spanish "r". The English "r" is somewhere between the two although not so heavily sounded as either.

Compare the words for "formidable" - spelt the same in each language. In English the "r" is lost; in Spanish the "r" is amost trilled; in French it is swallowed.

The pronunciation of the French r varies regionally in France. The (perceived) standard is centered around Paris and is a uvular fricative. (See the Wikipedia article for more information.) If you want to communicate, you should always try French. If their English is better than your French they'll usually switch languages to accomodate you. Learn a few phrases as close to their pronunciation as possible and they'll stand you in good stead. Above all, remember to have fun.

quote:

You're better speaking English than trying to speak French badly in my experience.

Interesting, Richard, because people have been telling me just the opposite. They've said to at least try in French.

Well, I always try to learn a few words of every langauge wherever I go - which I why I now know the Arabic for "A beer please. Thank you" ;-)

I have a shocking memory for words but an almost faultless memory for pronunciation - which can get me in trouble when I speak since the response from the native is often gushing and quite incomprehensible! So I have learnt, in many languages, the phrase, "Oh, you speak Arabic/Portuguese/Serbo-Croat/Norwegian/German/whatever".

In France I do use my modest French and I know that my accent is good (Parisian, I suspect). However, I am speaking of the attitude I have sometimes encountered (mainly in Paris, it must be said) of a somewhat condescending response to my efforts, typically manfifested by my respondent switching rapidly to English. But, on consideration, this might just be a "big-city" response rather than a French response.

Obviously, as zmj has said, there will be regional differences in every country, although they are often lost on the non-native. I recall when I was in Austria speaking to a young lady and her response to me was, "Oh, your German is perfect!". And I knew (and her next sentences confirmed it) that she came from Vienna. Because my German teacher was a very high-born Viennese lady who had immigrated to England just before the War. So obviously I had adopted her accent.

I remember that for a year when I was at school our French assistant was from the Camargue. He had quite a pronounced local accent, quite a lot different from the Parisian. In particular, when he said "yes" (oui), he said what sounded like "hwee", instead of the more usual "wee". Sundry other words had a stray aspirate added to the front, as well.

I have a handy little book on phrases and pronunciations that I am reading on the train. The author made an interesting point. He said that Americans think it rude to be too formal and that the French think it rude to be informal. So, when an American is informal, the French think he is rude and vice versa...and yet they each are trying to be respectful of each other!

Anyway, the author also stressed the importance of trying to speak French, and, more importantly, of going to France confident that you can communicate at least minimally and of having a positive attitude that the French will like you. That I will do!

I have a French question...

I have been trying to write to hôtels in France, and I have wanted to be polite and use some French, along with their circumflexes and the like. However, it is not easy pulling up the character map and copying each one, especially when lots of words have those accent marks. If one lives in France, is it easier? Do their letters already have the circumflexes and other accent marks on them? If not, it would take me an age to write in French.

I have noticed when I use hotel computers in different countries that the keyboards are slightly different, so I'm sure that this is a common thing.

I can't believe the French wouldn't have special Gallic keyboards. What? Use another country's keyboad in La Belle France? Non!

It's especially dificult on Turkish keyboards where the symbol on the "I" key looks like an "I" but isn't and the real "I" is hidden away on one of the punctuation keys. (I forget which one)

French Keyboard

Note the different sequence of letters and the euro symbol as well as the inclusion of accented lower case on the number keys.

Turkish keyboards

The Turkish alphabet has two is: one with a dot and one without. The dotted variety keeps its dot in its uppercase form, too.

French keyboards

Toughest thing to find is the @ symbol (for email addresses). There's a special "shift" key, the Alt Gr on the right side of the Space bar, that you hold down while you press the Q key. Enough of the keys are in different places to hinder the touch typist.

On a German keyboard the big difference, besides the @ symbol is that Y and Z keys are swapped. On Windows machines and Macs, you can usually install these alternative language keyboards and play around with them.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
...I have wanted to be polite and use some French, along with their circumflexes and the like. However, it is not easy pulling up the character map and copying each one, especially when lots of words have those accent marks.

That's not even guaranteed to work. They don't necessarily show up properly on people's emails, appearing as some code sequence like %a{ instead, making things even less readable. I just omit the accents entirely. French is redundant enough that people won't get confused.

Symbols don't even work properly between US and UK keyboards. The pound symbol on US keyboards is often rendered in emails to the UK as the hash symbol. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the same thing happens in reverse with the dollar symbol.

The $ symbol should work on any computer as it is part of the standard 128 character ASCII set. Hardly surprising, considering it stands for "American Standard Code for Information Interchange".

ASCII

... which ironically enough was invented in the UK ...

I wasn't going to say anything...

quote:

... ASCII
... which ironically enough was invented in the UK ...
—Ceci n'est pas un seing.

The same can be said for the English language.

!Viva Inglaterra ¡

~~ Esto no es ninguna firma.

quote:

Note the different sequence of letters and the euro symbol as well as the inclusion of accented lower case on the number keys.

Bob, thanks for posting that keyboard! I glanced at the keys briefly and I thought I saw an American flag on one. That would be a miracle!

If the key you refer to is the one in the bottom row, between the control and the Windows keys, then we have this on UK keyboards.

It brings up a dropdown menu.

The same can be said for the English language.

I agree with Whorf-Sapir on this one: the English language created the English and then it created the rest of the anglophone community.

Vivat mortuus!