How English and French differ

[Edena_of_Neith]

French is different from English in numerous ways, and I have learned some of them. I thought people might be interested in these differences, so I wanted to talk about them.

We do not use gender in English, except for people, animals, insects, and other rare instances. In French, objects are always him or her.

In French, possessive pronouns refer not only to the possessor, but to the possessed. There is no equivalent of this in English.
In English, we say My, Your, His, Her, Our, Your, and Their. (It's MY house, do you hear? MY house, and MY rules go in MY house!)
In French, the possessive pronoun agrees in gender or singular/plural to the possessed. It's like adding an ending to My, Your, His, etc. in addition to the base word.
This means that when you use a possessive pronoun in French, you think half about the possessor and half about the possessed ... sometimes. (It's MY house (how you say my defined by the gender and singularity of house), and MY rules (my defined by the plural of rules) go.)

Thus: Mon/Ma/Mes (referring to the possessed if masculine, feminine, or plural.)
Ton/Ta/Tes (Your)
Son/Sa/Ses (His/Her)

-

In French, adjectives typically come after the noun they modify, not beforehand. There are exceptions to this rule, but typically they come after.

In English, we say:

A long sword
A beautiful woman
A manly man
A wondrous possession
Hard work

In French, they say:

A sword long
A woman beautiful
A man manly
A possession wondrous
Work hard

-

In English, we have a particular sentence structure defined by Subject + Verb + Object.
In French, they use Subject + Verb + Object, but if the Object is a pronoun (him, her) they use Object + Verb + Subject.

So in English we say:

I like him.
I hire him.
I leave her.
I desire her.
I find it (it is used commonly in English to refer to nouns, but never in French unless it is an unknown.)

In French, they would say:

I him like.
I him hire.
I her leave.
I her desire.
I it (if it is used) find.

The French put the pronoun together with the verb (if the verb starts with a vowel.) There is no equivalent in English, but if there was, it would be:

I h'like
I h'hire.
I h'leave.
I h'desire.
I i'find.

Thus, you see sentences in French like:

je l'entends (I hear him.)
je l'écrise (I read her (the book))
je l'apprends avec (I learn about him.)

In French past tense, such a pronoun would go before the modal verb as well.

je la ai mangé (I have eaten her (the food!))
je la ai dancé avec (I have danced with her.)
je la ai lutté avec (I have fought with him.)

[Lisa Nadazdy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGqxb3vLL1A

[The Winslow]

We do not use gender in English, except for people, animals, insects, and other rare instances. In French, objects are always him or her.

I'm gonna nitpick. English does use a gender for everything. EVERYTHING. It's just that English uses the "neutral" gender ("it") a lot more than other languages with a neutral gender (like German, which has "es").

French, however, does not have a neutral gender, so everything is either feminine or masculine.

(Not female or male -- gender is a purely grammatical notion, don't go put biology in it! For example, the German word for "little girl" is das Mädchen -- it's neutral, not feminine, because it's a diminutive form of "die Mad", and diminutives are always neutral in German. Little German girls are, of course, female! But they're still "das" rather than "die".)

In French, possessive pronouns refer not only to the possessor, but to the possessed. There is no equivalent of this in English.

Yes, but on the other hand, the agreement is made with the possessed, as you noticed; which means it's not made with the possessor. Example:
"It's her dog." In this English sentence, we know the dog belongs to a woman (or a girl, maybe), because the pronoun agrees with the possessor.
"C'est son chien." In the French translation of that sentence, the information has disappeared. We no longer know whether the dog's owner is a gal or a guy.

In English, we say:

A long sword
A beautiful woman
A manly man
A wondrous possession
Hard work

In French, they say:

A sword long
A woman beautiful
A man manly
A possession wondrous
Work hard
Bzzt! Une épée longue, alright, but une belle femme. The rules for the place of the adjectives are not easy to explain. Often, both can be right, depending on the context.

For example:
"C'est un grand homme." -> He's a great man. ("Grand" is here a moral/symbolical value.)
"C'est un homme grand." -> He's a tall man. (Here "grand" is only the physical quality.)

"C'est une belle femme" -> She's a beautiful woman.
"C'est une femme belle" -> She's a woman who is beautiful.
Here the difference is in the emphasis. The latter sentence insists on her beauty.
"C'est une femme belle et intelligente" -> She's a smart and beautiful woman.
Here the difference is just because you had to put two advectives together, so they were better placed together after the noun than before.
"C'est une belle femme intelligente" -> She's a smart, beautiful woman.
Practically the same as the previous, except you wanted here to avoid putting the adjectives together.
"C'est une grande femme, belle et intelligente" -> She's a great woman, smart and beautiful
"C'est une femme grande, belle, et intelligente" -> She's a tall, smart, and beautiful woman
Okay, do you get it?

je la ai mangé (I have eaten her (the food!))
je la ai dancé avec (I have danced with her.)
je la ai lutté avec (I have fought with him.)

And you did the contractions so well in your previous examples. "Je la ai" -> "Je l'ai".

That said, while you can say: "J'ai mangé la soupe", you'd say "je l'ai mangée". The participles have to agree with the object, and it's subtle, when the object is before the participle.

Also, you'd never say "je l'ai dansé avec" -- if you have to use a conjunction word like "avec", then you have to use the object properly. So, "j'ai dansé avec elle." However, if you absolutely want to say "je l'ai dansé", then it's possible but the "l'" won't refer to a person, it'll refer to a danse! "La valse ? Oui, je l'ai déjà dansée."

[Edena_of_Neith]

Well, the idea of putting le or la together with the word starting with a vowel is still something I'm struggling with, Helga, and I often forget to do it. Obviously, it is proper and necessary to do it.

I'm not criticizing French. Merely commenting on the differences between French and English.
I find it fascinating that you said c'est une belle femme, versus c'est une femme belle.

In English, we would put emphasis on 'beautiful' (She is a beautiful woman! Have you no sight, man?)
In French, you can do the same thing by simply switching the word order.

Which is why you must learn the rules of a language.
If you don't know the rules, you might just say 'you're a lucky guy' and accidentally replace the l with an f ...

[Dacke]

French, however, does not have a neutral gender, so everything is either feminine or masculine.
I always found it ironic that "fraternité" (brotherhood) is feminine.

[The Winslow]

In English, we would put emphasis on 'beautiful'
And that brings an important point. English puts a lot of importance on stress in pronunciation -- stressed syllables in a word, stressed words in a sentence -- but French is kinda monotonous in comparison. Every syllable, theoretically, is fully pronounced. (Of course, in practice, that's not true, especially for weak words such as pronouns and conjunctions. Which is why "le" and "la" get replaced by "l'" in those sentences. Still, this joke (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1140) couldn't have been made in French, because there's no way one would confuse "Sauron" and "Saruman" when pronounced as French words.)

Since intonation doesn't change as much as it does in English, then emphasis is shown by word order and sentence structure. Of course, if you speak louder when saying a word, it does work too; but it's not a standard of the language. And for this reason, you won't find emphasis in written texts. You often see italicized text in English books, to show the emphasis. You won't see them in French books, the only italics will be used to quote people or use foreign words.

I always found it ironic that "fraternité" (brotherhood) is feminine.

It's an abstract concept. Ideas are feminine. All words in -té are feminine. As I said with my German example, don't try to seek biology-related logic in grammar, it obeys its own rules, blissfully separate from the real world. Masculinité is feminine too. Same rule. Don't try to make sense out of it by thinking things like "it's related to guys, therefore it must be male, therefore it must be masculine" because it just won't work.

[Edena_of_Neith]

I have a question, Helga. Somewhere between the Battle of Hastings and the time of Henry the Eighth, gender was largely dropped in England (gender became as it is used in modern English, for the most part.)

Why did the English drop gender? Gender was retained everywhere else, but for some reason the English decided to drop it. Do you know why?

[The Winslow]

I think the answer is in the nature of English, as it is a sort of creole language. The British Isles have been invaded by all kinds of people -- Celts, Germanic tribes, Romans, Norses, French, etc. -- each bringing their own language.

Now, even in a single language, there are deviations about the gender of some things. For example, in French, "clope" (slang for cigarette) is feminine but for some reason, it's masculine in Lyon. Some local, slight dialectal difference make them change the gender of that word.

let's look at what happens when you have people talking about the same thing, except some (influenced by a Germanic or Nordic language) will think it's feminine, and other (influenced by French or Latin) will think it's masculine. (Or vice-versa. Doesn't matter.)

"Can you fix that table? Her leg is broken."
"Yeah, I can replace his leg."
"Her leg."
"His leg."
"Oh whatever. Its leg."

"Honey, you gotta buy new butter. She's rancid."
"The butter, rancid? But he's brand new!"
"Well, she's not as new as you think, 'coz she's barftastic."
"I guess I won't buy him again from the same shop, then."
"Buy her."
"Fuck that noise. Buy it. Doesn't matter anyway."

If English did not have, through its German roots, a neutral gender, it would eventually have been settled, one way or another, for each word. But the neutral gender allowed to settle the issue across the board.

That, at least, is my theory. Creole language often have a simplified grammar so that learning it is easier, and I think you'll agree -- when you'll learn French verb conjugation, for example -- that English grammar is simpler. (I can tell you that German grammar is even more complicated that French grammar, so that relative simplicity is not just a trait inherited from the other parent.)

[Edena_of_Neith]

Hey there Helga. Thanks for the info. I agree with you: that's probably what happened.

The French, then, express emotion and power through manipulation of sentence structure and word order, picking and choosing their words to devastating effect without raising their voices.
In English, we use a large number of generic words, then pile various words on top of those and use intonation to convey emotion and power.

But what if you do both?

For example: 'you've been a bad boy' is a fairly common, colloquial expression in English. It is often said casually, for it is meant casually, and implies only a minor offense on the part of the boy.
In French, I am *guessing* that the equivalent of this would be, if translated: 'you have been a boy bad.'

Now, if so, then if in French you said 'you've been a bad boy' that would indicate a very serious charge indeed. It would be a very serious condemnation (the 'I'm ready to throw you out of my house' kind of thing.)

Now, imagine if you added English intonation to that *on top* of the French colloquial: 'You have been a BAD boy.'
I'm guessing the English equivalent of *that* would be ... well, something so awful I can't print it here. Let's just say that the situation would be potentially violent.

Do I have it right?

[The Winslow]

Do I have it right?

Not really.
"You have been a bad boy" would become, fairly literally, "t'es un vilain garçon". (Though French use lonely adjectives more often than English. While you can say in English "you've been bad", you're more likely to say "you've been a bad boy"; in French it's the reverse. "Tu as été vilain." Other possible variations include "tu t'es montré vilain" ("you've showed yourself as vilain", literally) or even "t'es un vilain", making a noun out of the adjective. Something very common in French, and quite rare in English as you're too tempted to add at least "one" after so that the adjective stays an adjective.)

If you were to say "t'es un garçon vilain", it would sound odd but it would be the stronger version of the sentence. A subtler way of emphasising would be by not contracting the subject with the verb. "Tu es un vilain garçon." In French as in English (compare "I don't lie" with "I do not lie"), when you distinctively pronounce all the words in a sentence, it marks it as a serious sentence where you really mean what you say.

On the other hand, if you're really angry, you're more likely to shout "sale gosse!" ("damn kid!") than construct full sentences. Unless your angers are cold and calculated, that is.

[Edena_of_Neith]

It does not seem that you can say that's quickly in French. Thus, you cannot quickly say: that's good, that's bad, that's ok, etc.. There may be a French colloquial that allows it, but not an English translation.

In French, 'that' is divided into multiple words.

As a conjunction, it is 'que.'
As a demonstrative, 'that' becomes ce, cet, cetta, or ces.
If you want to distinguish something (this tree, that tree) you add -ci or -l'a to the ending of the noun (-ci and -l'a denote distance, but work as metaphors.)
If you want to be very specific, you divide 'that/this' into a number of words, and which word you use depends on the subject.

celui-ci, celui-l'a.
celle-ci, cella-l'a.
ceux-ci, ceux-l'a.
cella-ci, cella-l'a.

So there is no singular, blanket, one-fits-all 'that/this/these/those' in French.

If you cannot get used to refer to EVERYTHING as him or her (and I mean, everything, in *every way*) you might as well hang it up. Because in French, all your descriptors and pronouns and whatnot (these, those, that, this, them, they, etc.) are based on gender and case (singular, plural.)

Can I get used to it? I don't know. The flow of thinking, the stream of consciousness, is very different in French.

[The Winslow]

It does not seem that you can say that's quickly in French. Thus, you cannot quickly say: that's good, that's bad, that's ok, etc.. There may be a French colloquial that allows it, but not an English translation.

In French, 'that' is divided into multiple words.

You're confusing this and that.

That : ça. C'est bien, c'est mal, c'est OK...

Celui-ci, celle-là, etc., they are more precise. They correspond to "this one" or "these ones"; while "ça" and its contracted form c' are generic and do not show an emphasis on specifying something in particular. It also corresponds to "it".

"It must not have been easy." is practically the same thing as "that must not have been easy." In French, "ça n'a pas dû être facile."

[Edena_of_Neith]

Thanks much, Helga. Cheers. :)

But some words, which are extremely common in English, are confounding me. I call them the -thing and -body words.

nothing
something
everything
anything
(and other words in this class)

nobody
somebody
everybody
anybody
(and other words in this class)

Words like never, rarely, usually, often, and sometimes I can't get.

Yet we use these words in English, and never think about it.

What are the equivalent of these words in French, Helga? Just asking.

[The Winslow]

nothing -> rien
something -> quelque chose (usually shortened to "kekchose" in pronunciation)
everything -> tout
anything -> n'importe quoi
nobody -> personne (note the ambiguity with the noun "personne", for person)
somebody -> quelqu'un
everybody -> tout le monde
anybody -> n'importe qui
never -> jamais
rarely -> rarement
usually -> habituellement
often -> souvent
sometimes -> parfois

[Edena_of_Neith]

Thanks. :)

[Edena_of_Neith]

nothing -> rien
something -> quelque chose (usually shortened to "kekchose" in pronunciation)
everything -> tout
anything -> n'importe quoi
nobody -> personne (note the ambiguity with the noun "personne", for person)
somebody -> quelqu'un
everybody -> tout le monde
anybody -> n'importe qui
never -> jamais
rarely -> rarement
usually -> habituellement
often -> souvent
sometimes -> parfois

I'm guessing, from what I know, that I can extrapolate from the above:

chose (thing) (le chose, les choses?)
le monde, les mondes (the person, the people)
rare (rare)
habituell (usual) :)

[The Winslow]

I'm guessing, from what I know, that I can extrapolate from the above:

chose (thing) (le chose, les choses?)
le monde, les mondes (the person, the people)
rare (rare)
habituell (usual) :)

la chose, les choses, yes.
Monde is world. By extension, it's people too but mostly in set expressions such as "tout le monde" or "du monde". Another word for people is "gens" -- it's never singular, always plural. "Les gens." To say "A person is smart, but people are dumb" you'd say "une personne est futée, mais les gens sont bêtes".
And it's habituel. French words usually don't end up with two l's, but the last consounant (if a l, n, r or s) is practically always doubled when you add a suffix starting with a vowel (and practically never if the consounant is something like a t or a p). (Contrarily to English where it's sometimes doubled, and sometimes not.) So, raison -> raisonnable; confort -> confortable.

[Edena_of_Neith]

raison -> raisonnable; confort -> confortable

(look of astonishment)

That's just like English. And then very like English.

In English: comfort, comfortable, comfortably
In French: confort, confortable, confortablement

In English: reason, reasonable, reasonably
In French: raison, raissonable, raissonablement

EDIT: Thus facile (easy) is also facilement (easily) and intelligent (intelligent) is also intelligentement (intelligently.) (Of course, that leaves ease and intelligence from which these words must have been derived, but that is another matter.)

EDIT:

émotif becomes émotifement (emotionally, masculine) and émotive becomes émotivement (emotionally, feminine)

[Ancalagon]

close...

intelligentement should be inteligement and emotifment doens't exist - it's always emotivement.

[The Winslow]

In French: raison, raissonable, raissonablement

No. :) Raison-nablement. One s (you don't change the root) but two n's.

Also, it's not exactly like English. For example, look at the English "fit". Gives "fitting" (two t's) for its present participle. If it existed in French (it doesn't), it would be "fitant", not "fittant".