On Languages.

This past weekend, Melanie and I challenged ourselves to speak French and only French for an entire week. We wrote up a contract and signed it (whoever loses has to pay for our next night out, and I'm cheap!), and we have been speaking French (to the annoyance of the English-speakers around us.. sorry!) constantly, omitting English and math class, and this blog post, of course. If you're thinking, well, what's the difference between you speaking French constantly and a regular day? You see, I go to a school with 59 other English-speaking students. It can be a lot easier to just speak English to each other, despite our French-based classes. Speaking French consistently - it's been incredible. My host mom even told me last night that I have made much progress (cheering over here by myself, woo)!

Speaking so much French is so little time, I've begun to notice things. French and English are different. The French language is a very precise language, and the English language is a very specific language. Those are two completely different things. French is a very literal language - English is not. Shall we look at some examples?

On precision vs. specificity: Colors
Let's use the color red. Picture red in your mind - just your basic red. Rouge, in French. Now, we want to get a little bit darker. Can you see it? Good, now let's name it. In French you would have rouge foncé (dark red), but we could delve a bit deeper. We could say rouge bordeaux. Bordeaux? It's a type of wine, and a dark shade of red! There's also rouge bourgogne, another wine, and another shade of dark red. Precision! In English you would have brick red, mahogany, rust. The French give you a precise shade of red, but the English are pretty specific.

French is literal. Literally.
Rainbows -
English: Bows of rain? No. Bows coming from rain? Still no. They come after rain, but bow?
French: Arc en ciel. Arc in the sky. Pretty self explanatory.
Eggplant -
English: Not of an egg, not resembling an egg, not the color of an egg, not coming from an egg.. Yes, it's a plant.
French: Well, aubergine. It's just a word, but at least it doesn't mention eggs.

And then there are the words and phrases that are the direct translation, from English to French, French to English, and it's just so silly when you think about it.
Honeymoon. We all know what that is - it has nothing to do with the literal moon, or honey. In French: la lune de miel, it is literally the moon of honey. In English, although it doesn't make sense, the French don't do any better, they just make it more literal. And from what I've heard, honeymoons have nothing to do with moons made of honey.

I found this link really funny, especially since I completely understand. It talks about how each word in French is either feminine or masculine, and sometimes without rhyme or reason. Then there's English, and all words are unisex - it's odd that dishes are feminine but bowls are masculine. What gives?

Living in France, living with a French family, being surrounded by the French world.. You pick up the slang terms. So.. swears. The thing about swearing is, when you don't know the full effect behind it, it's not quite as offensive. It's just a word! It has no negative connotation (that you know of) behind it, and therefore it may or may not be used freely in between English conversation because, well hey, only you know that you're swearing like a sailor! Last night at dinner we were having raspberries with fromage blanc and sugar for dessert. The whole family was there - even Frédérique's mother. I was adding sugar to my fromage blanc, straight from the box, when way too much came out. My first instinct? "Merde!"(Don't worry, it's not too bad). And then I slapped my hand over my mouth and started apologizing to everyone - the word meant nothing to me, but it did to them! I don't know what I expected, but I didn't expect them to all laugh and cheer and congratulate me - which is what they did. She's swearing in French, look at her go! I guess my lack of grace is a sign of my improvement. And I'm sure my parents will love that I'm using my best manners! :)

Then there is the really amusing, slightly awkward English-words-in-French fun. A couple of nights ago, I was eating dinner with my family, and we had salad with beets. My host dad pointed to the beets in the salad and asked what they were called, and I replied "beets". Everyone at the table started giggling, and Gabriel said that the Americans are funny. I was thinking, well sure, I guess beets is a funny sounding word. But then Nathanel, who was sitting across the table, was pointing down and yelling "Beets, beets, beets!". I started to get why they were laughing, but just to clarify, Jean Baptiste turned to me and said, "You know.. Penis." So if you're looking for a beet salad in France, be sure to skip the Franglais and just ask for "betterave", because you definitely don't want to order "bites".

...Speaking of "bites", guess what Melanie accidentally got for lunch on Tuesday! (It's true - we were deceived by what we thought was saucisson (sausage) and instead got the bite of a cow!). Oh, French cuisine, how you woe us with your diversity.