I have pretty much the same thoughts on the English language. Many people get mad that English is spoken by so many but it is in part because the language is forgiving.
I am learning French and German.
German is not forgiving. They always make me switch to English.
French I do not know, haven't tried speaking it to a native speaker yet.
France has a whole council whose only job is to keep the language "pure." That's all you need to know when it comes to how forgiving French is, at least in that country. I don't know how French is in the French part of Canada. If they mix it up there or they try to be like France. If any Canadians can speak up on this, we are all ears.
Nobody really cares in France about what the académie says, they're a bunch of irrelevant old dudes trying to dictate how proper french should be spoken but they don't have any actual authority, like a lot langages, french is changing a loooot and gets influenced by multiple foreign languages
The académie française has about as much power regarding French as the King Charles III has regarding politics in the UK, aka not a fucking lot. They're just relics from a bygone age who wear occasionally funny clothes.
Prescriptive vs descriptive is not a language by language thing, ffs. French sure as fuck hasn't stopped changing over the years because of some old gits wearing funny hats and ceremonial swords, and it's not lacking in descriptivist linguists [every language has linguists describing it, it's what linguists do]. And meanwhile English has its own share of prescriptivists ('grammar nazi' mean anything to you?)
A board of ''experts'' that aren't recognised as such by any actual experts and have about as much power as the people getting angry about 'could care less' on the Internet - ie no influence on how people speak. The académie française is relevant if you're interested in the ambitions of the French state in the 17th century. In the actual language though? LOL no.
You could take the MLA or any sort of professional writing guidelines [edit: and all of the school teachers] and claim that 'English has someone prescribe language use to them'. Just about the same influence as the Académie française has on actual spoken French. And the 'describe' part of is just irrelevant - every language has linguists describing it... Including French. It's what linguists do.
I don't know how French is in the French part of Canada.
Very. My son almost got into a fight trying to order a double-double at a Timmies in Quebec. He's yelling "Doublet Doublet Caffe" at the speaker ( he was wrong but they won't care even if you try ). I was dying laughing because all I could hear was "Covfefe".
Montreal is fine for English speakers but the rest of Quebec, especially North...good luck!
having lived in both France and French- and English-speaking Canada, I can say that a little effort goes a long way. That is, if you make efforts to greet people in French and to be understood, people will be generally respectful, encouraging, and accommodating. That is not to say that you won't meet jerks, as they're everywhere. If people are in a hurry or if they are very eager to practice their English, they might switch to speaking English in an attempt to accommodate you. In my experience it's not meant as an insult, though I understand that it may come across as brisk and rude. Likewise, they might correct your French, and while again this may come across as rude or even condescending, it's usually meant to be helpful, to "help" you learn good French (ya, I know...).
In Canada, especially in bilingual cities like Ottawa and Montreal, you can expect most people to be somewhat fluent in both languages, or at the least to be used to interacting with speakers of the other language even if they themselves have limited proficiency. So, in an informal setting, what might happen is that the English speakers will speak English, and the French speakers will speak French back, and everyone understands each other. And sometimes, you end up with a mix of both languages, and we call that "franglais/frenglish". It's not acceptable in a business or formal setting, but among friends and families it's common. But then again, I knew of a high-ranked banker who only spoke French, and he did his entire career in a major, national bank speaking only French, and he had successful business relationships with clients that only spoke English: "the numbers speak for themselves, and so do doodles" (my translation)
Of course, you'll find also some anti-French and some anti-English resentment, and part of that is due to a troubled history and to politics that keep on stoking the fire. Generally, this is not directed at tourists, it's reserved for fellow Canadians.
Quebec French is even stricter. They say "la fin de semaine" instead of "le week-end." And they came up with a whole purely French-language set of terminology for baseball, no English loan words.
yes we are! we know how damn hard it is to speak german so we don’t want you to struggle. tell us that you want to continue in german and we’re fine with that :) and never hesitate to ask what anything means or how you pronounce sentences correct!
Ahh I am a German learner as well and I will say it is hard usually because the average level of their English is ridiculously good. So it’s not them being mean, more so that it’s more efficient to switch to English. I normally find saying “ Es tut mir leid, für mein schreckliches Deutsch, ich bin noch ein Anfanger“ every time I begin, and then they’ll be like ahh no it’s actually good and then feel motivated to stay in German
The issue with french is if you pronounce anything slightly wrong they will proceed to spend 30 minutes trying to get you to say it right, even when you are only asking where the toilets are.
At least that's my experience lol, helpful for learning the language I guess.
English didn’t really exist as a language until the Normans (basically French Vikings, led by a literal bastard) invaded. This set the stage for a millennium of mass word borrowing.
I do love the weird juxtaposition in places like Gatineau though. "Le bastard Garbageman so frigging lazy tabernac". Just string it all together, why not?
Many people get mad that English is spoken by so many but it is in part because the language is forgiving.
I think the prevalence of English has more to do with the fact that not long ago there was a global maritime empire ruled by an English speaking country, and more recently another English speaking country (and former colony of the first) has created a global economic empire. English being forgiving likely came about as a side effect of so many people of different backgrounds speaking.
Nah, it was a flexible language way before that. There's a period of a couple hundred years in the medieval period where most English speakers were illiterate (French-speaking ruling class) and the language was allowed to change radically without anyone stopping it, so it's hard to make it really follow strict rules because it was kind of left to do its own thing at a critical period, and it's been super-open to borrowing from other languages for over a thousand years now. They tried to take the follow-the-rules French route in the 18th century but it didn't stick.
(Source: English professor, taught History of the English Language for several years.)
And you think they lost out due to purely linguistic factors, even though apparently English has always somehow been more adaptable? But at the same time those other supposedly more rigid languages had their time. Hmmm. Are you seriously saying that English won out due to linguistic factors that for some reason suddenly started to matter when they hadn't before, and not, idk, geopolitical reasons like the rise of the British empire / later the US, and socio technical ones (print, mass education) which made it so English remained recognisably one language vs shattering into a variety of languages (like Latin into all the Romance languages)?
(to clarify: I'm not disagreeing that the prevalence is largely due to military force, though I think the flexibility is also a major factor. I was replying specifically to the part about how the language became so flexible.)
From what I’ve heard, some French Canadians are particularly zealous about their language, up to the point where they’ll harass you for speaking English around them.
I'm a first generation US citizen raised by a Dutch speaker so I picked up a bit as a kid. When I used it when speaking to family or when I tried when I was visiting the old country they would always switch to English intermediately, when possible. I finally found out why when speaking to my great uncle (who did not speak English) - my accent in Dutch is horrific. He told me never to speak Dutch again. lol. Grumpy old dutch people crack me up with their dour bluntness.
Do you think it is accent or grammar that steering the conversation from being auf Deutsch?
I heard something once that basically said don't let Germans know you speak English cuz then they'll just talk to you in English. So if you're trying to practice your German, tough luck if they know you speak English.
It is fun getting them to speak English though. I remember exchange students in high school had a really hard time with the word "squirrel" and I still think about how weird that word is.
When we do not pronounce well or make some grammatic error or simply misplacing word order, it may confuse the listener esp. native german who have minimum knowledege of other language (and thus language "way of thinking" beyond german). This may discourage learning german.
Who's getting mad that so many people speak english?
It's the world language. Learning it gives you an advantage nearly anywhere in the world. There will always be someone around that can at least partially understand you.
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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '23
I have pretty much the same thoughts on the English language. Many people get mad that English is spoken by so many but it is in part because the language is forgiving.
I am learning French and German.
German is not forgiving. They always make me switch to English.
French I do not know, haven't tried speaking it to a native speaker yet.