Whoui Spik Inglish
Whoui Spik Inglish!
The other day, we went to see Kiss & Kill, a U.S movie. You may have heard of it: the English title is “Killers”. Why did the French bother changing the original English title to another English title? No idea. Similarly, “The Spy Next Door” is “Kung Fu Nanny” here. Go figure!
We sat in the Gaumont’s tiny seats with no cup holders (French don’t eat or drink during movies) and watched the commercials. Two minutes later, I burst out laughing when I heard that the ice-cream advertised was “as good as gold” – it sounded like “has goude has golde”, pronounced with the worse French accent you can imagine. Yes, I know, some of you find it sexy. But it doesn’t mean it’s not ridiculous.
When you sit in the T.G.V, you hear loud and annoying announcements to encourage passengers to talk to the “rail team” (the “rele teeme”?) should they have any questions. It’s only after the third announcement that I actually understood they meant “the rail team” – that bad.
Okay, don’t get me wrong. I know I have an accent. I must have one anyway even though apparently I don’t really sound French. Yet I can’t help wondering why French are obsessed with English words they can’t pronounce correctly.
French already use a certain number of “English” words: le parking (for parking lot), le pressing (dry-cleaner), les baskets (running shoes), le pull-over (sweater)… These words, like many other foreign words (Kalashnikov, pesto…) came to be part of the French vocabulary and are pronounced with a normal French accent. Similarly, English people say “déjà-vu” and “maître d’” after all. I personally don’t have any problem with that and I do find Quebec’s tendency to come up with a translation for every single word of English origin a bit annoying at times. I mean, “le chien chaud” for “hot dog”? Come on!
Now, what I truly dislike is the current trend of using English words or sentences just to sound cool. First, I don’t see why English would be cooler than French, and second, the accent is just laughable at best. If I hear one more person saying they study “business” (“bouzinez”) I’m gonna laugh. Various media use a lot of English words as well, presumably to sound modern and cool. The slogan of one of the leading radio stations, NRJ, is “hit music only”, pronounced “it mousic only”. They have their “top vidéo” (why the accent??), a “music store”, and a “people” section — in French, “people” means famous people, as in stars and jet-setters.
The hardest thing for me is to revert to pronouncing these words with a French accent, to drop the “h” for instance. Otherwise, people don’t understand. And yes, it’s harder than it seems!
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- Lost In Translation
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I hate when people pronounce ‘deja-vu’ as in ‘deja-vous’. Urghhhhh…it’s so irritating.
On another note, many Taiwanese people think it’s cool to throw in one or two English words in a sentence. But they often don’t make any sense and it makes me want to laugh as well.
French-speakers may find English words cool, but English-speakers may also find foreign-sounding words cool. Consider these: el cheapo, adios…
Many things are sold in different markets with different names. Canon’s low end DSLR, for example, are sold in North America with the names of Rebel something. Elsewhere, they are simply given a 3-digit number, such as 400D, 450D, 550D.
The ones that really get me are the English words with different meanings in French. I think I know what’s being said, and then it turns out I don’t!
The pronunciation that drives me INSANE is “shampoi” for “shampooing.” Drives me up the freaking wall! If you’re going to turn a verb into a noun, please at least TRY to pronounce it correctly!!!
@Vanessa — Thank you for visiting and taking the time to comment!
@Cynthia — I like to translate too but sometimes in Québec translations just don’t make any sense. Like translating the movie Trainspotting by “ferrovipathe”, or Pulp Fiction by fiction pulpeuse.
@Bill Miller — Thank you! Well, enjoy the traveling, still a few posts and back to Canada next week.
@Linguist-in-Waiting — HK pop music is the same if I remember correctly, And yes, it is annoying, especially when like you said foreign words are just thrown in and don’t make any sense!
@Jennie — It’s just super hard to know what people are talking about sometimes. Honestly, even as a French, because I got used to the proper pronunciation.
@Poem — My personal pet peeve is “maître d’”. Maître de quoi???
@khengsiong — I guess American English does have a lot of Spanish words, but Canadian English doesn’t.
@Soleil — Gosh, I can’t even spell shamppoing correctly! Why not use “shampoo” then? I agree with you.
you’d probably laugh at me trying to sound out all of the words and phrases from your post with a faux-french accent. and i’m terrible at accents because i never practice them. really, it takes practice (just like your experience in not sounding the h sound).
prok-tees make perr-fikt <== see, i told you i was bad at accents.