How to speak and act in French? Easy tips and tricks | French Connection Plus • FRANCE 24 English

Some say it's the most beautiful language in the world, and yet it is notoriously difficult to learn. French, the so-called language of Molière, the language of love, was once upon a time the international language of diplomacy. It's still a very important language today, but just what does the future hold for French? Join us for this episode of French Connections Plus, where we explore la langue française. Linguists say that French is one of the most influential languages in the world, just after English. It's spoken on all five continents, and it's the native language of nearly 300 million people. It's also an official language in nearly 30 nations. France, of course, but also Canada, Belgium, and many countries in Africa. And remember, French is a living language, which means it's evolved a lot over time. Let's take a look at some highlights. The story of the French language begins in the ancient region of Gaul. With the expansion of the Roman Empire, local Celtic languages were replaced with vulgar Latin. But French is different from other Romance languages, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian, because it was also influenced by the invasion of the Franks. This Germanic invasion sparked a language divide. In the south, people spoke Languedoc, while in the north, they spoke Languedoile, which grew into Old French. In 1539, King François I made this the only official language in France. With time, it evolved into modern French. Its influence unfurled across the world during the 17th century, as French replaced Latin as the main lingua franca of international diplomacy. It continues to be one of the official languages of the United Nations, the European Union, and the International Olympic Committee. Meanwhile, following France's colonial expansion in the 19th century, French spread across the world. Today, 274 million people speak French, mostly in Africa. And experts say it's a language of the future. The number of French speakers continues to grow every year. In fact, they say that French is the second most learned second language, just after English. Which can be paradoxical, because French is so hard to learn. I spent years at dinner parties nodding and saying, c'est vrai? Really? I had no idea what people were talking about. You're absolutely right, Jeannie. When it comes to French, everything is complicated, whether it's the grammar, whether it's the spelling. Now, French kids learn this at a very young age, because in school, they're given something called la dictée, which is a spelling test. And it's a special kind of help. I'm not going to give you a dictée, because it's just cruel. And also, you guys would just change the channel and run away. But I do want to quiz you on one particularity of the French language, and that is accents. Unlike other romance languages like Spanish or Italian, spelling is not transparent in French. So what you see is not necessarily what you say. And that's where the accents come in. They're a visual clue to tell you how to pronounce the words. So how many accents are we talking about in all here? Well, there are four accents that appear on vowels. You have the accent aigu, you have the accent grave, you have the tréma, and you have the accent circonflex. And then there's the cédille, which appears under a c. It looks a little bit like a tail. And that tells you to pronounce the c, not k, but s, like an s. The cédille, okay, that makes sense, with the c like in sa. But how do you pronounce those other accents? Well, the tréma appears when two vowels are next to each other, and it tells you that you should pronounce both vowels. For instance, the word coïncidence. You can see there's a tréma over the i, and it means that you pronounce both the o and the i. Coïncidence instead of coïncidence. When it comes to the accent aigu, it's pronounced e, like été, summer. As for the accent grave, it's more, you pull down your mouth a little bit, grève, like a strike. Grève, as opposed to été. Eté. And then you have the party hat accent circonflex. Now, historically, this meant that there was an s after the vowel. For instance, forêt is the French word for forest, and so you pronounce it é. Okay, so if I've understood correctly, you have été, grève, and forêt, with the circonflex in the middle. You got it perfectly right, Jeannie. All righty, well, as you can imagine, though, even with these visual clues, French is still pretty difficult to figure out, and people do still get tripped up. I'm here on the Pont des Arts, in the very heart of Paris, to explore just how difficult the French language is to pronounce. Let's take a look. Can you guys pronounce these words for us? That's easy. Louis, Louis. Louis. Louis, Louis. Louis, Louis is pretty good. Louis, which means him. And Louis. It's the name. Like Louis, Louis. How do you pronounce the first two, well, the first word and then the second word? Oui. I don't know French, but... Ux. Oil. This one is very tricky. Oyeur. Close. Yeah, yeah. Oyeur. What does that mean? Well, it's like one I. Oh, one I. Oyeur, yeah, and two I's. Oh, yeah, this one. Here we go. This is... Have you ever tasted grenouille? No. French people take their language very seriously, Jeannie. There's even a special guard dog of the French language called the Académie Française. Created in 1635, the Académie Française, or French Academy, is the official authority on the grammar and vocabulary of the French language. These days, their main role is to defend French from English. Ah, the famous English invasion. But some English speakers might be surprised to find out they're speaking French without even knowing it. I'm here at the Bal Obon, which is a boat located near the Académie Française. So just a stone's throw from the guard dog of the French language. And I'm joined by Anthony Lacoudre, who's written a book about the English language. It's called The Incredible History of French Words in English, or How Anglophones Speak French Without Knowing It. Now, we tend to say that English is a hybrid language with roots in German and in Latin, but you disagree with that. You say that half of English words actually come from French. You're talking about 25,000 words. Tell us a little bit about how this happened. What's the history behind this? The linguistic invasion, let's say, started in 1066 when William, Duke of Normandy, invaded England. At that time, people in the fields and Harold, the king, the aristocracy, spoke Old English. And Old English was a Germanic language entirely. And William spoke Norman, but at that time Norman was basically French with a strong accent. And so French became the official language of England. Among the very first words that were brought in by the Normans, if you want, you find words like art, cardinal, crime, cousin, prison, age, cruel. So basically everyday words. Yeah, everyday words, table, everyday words. You mentioned this example, car, which is the English word for a vehicle, which comes from the French word char. But there's something about the pronunciation. Yeah, exactly. We just mentioned that the Normans spoke French with a strong accent. And one of the characteristics of this accent was that the French letters ch, pronounced ch in Paris, were pronounced k in Normandy. So just to give you an idea, during the Middle Ages, 10,000 French words were incorporated into Old English. And then during the Renaissance, we have even more than that, 12,000. And one author who contributed massively to the import of French vocabulary was William Shakespeare. So he introduced words like pedant, obscene, monumental, or bandit, or frugal. And most people thought they were in vengeance, but they were not in vengeance. They were clearly French import. And you have some everyday examples as well. In fact, you have a Facebook page where you put snapshots of everyday examples. So this is actually a sign. It's written in English, but you say a lot of these words actually come from French. So no trespassing, postal employees only, do not enter. Absolutely. Trespassing, postal employees enter are French. Trespasser, postal, employer, entre. And only no and only and do are Germanic origins. So yeah, it's a good example. So many words in English come from French. Does that mean that English is a more sophisticated language? Yeah, some could argue that. And indeed, there are more words in English than in French. And one of the reasons for that being that you have a coexistence into the English language between words of Germanic origin and French words. For instance, you can say shy and timid. You can say big and immense or monumental. And so thanks to this coexistence, you have a richness of vocabulary in English that is unique. So I guess English speakers should thank French speakers for their language. Absolutely. Well, thank you very much, Anthony Lacoudre. Merci. And just to remind you, this is his book, The Incredible History of French Words in English by Anthony Lacoudre. Thank you so much. Thank you. The French language is beautiful and also beautifully complex, as many of you told us. And thank you so much for all your great questions and comments. Conrad had a really interesting comment about non-verbal language and how in French you can say so much without using any words. And it's true, Jeannie. There are so many facial expressions and noises that you can make to communicate. And I want to quiz you on some of my favorite body language. For instance, what does this mean? That means mon oeil or my eye, which means I don't believe you. And then there's a very important sound that you hear everywhere. As in you forgot the baguette again. And this one. That means let's get out of here. You also sent us in many questions about the difference between tu and vous. Now, Angel wanted to know if tu and vous is similar to Spanish. And I must admit I don't speak Spanish, but it's very important to talk about tu and vous. Traditionally, tu is the familiar form. It's the form that you use with your friends and with your family and with people who are younger than you. While vous is the polite form. It's the form that you use with people you don't know, figures of authority, people you respect and people who are older than you. Now, don't worry if you don't understand the difference between tu and vous, especially if you're just learning French. Most people will hear your accent and they'll give you a break anyway. They'll probably even think it's charming. And there was one last question about the most common mistakes that French learners make. I'd say that after pronunciation, it's mixing up masculine and feminine. Now, this is definitely a tricky thing in French because remember, pronouns, nouns and adjectives all refer to the gender of an object. But why is something masculine? Why is something feminine? There's no real logic behind it. It's just something that you have to learn. In fact, sometimes it can be quite confusing. For instance, the word bicycle. It's une bicyclette, so feminine, and also un vélo. It doesn't really seem like there's much logic there. Unfortunately, that's all we have time for. But thank you so much and please keep sending us your questions at FloVilleMineau on Twitter or just send us a message on Facebook. And we'll see you very soon for the next edition of French Connections+. Come on, Jeannie. On y va!