Languages

Comments

• AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  French pronunciation works by geological principles: over the years, what looks like an intricate arrangement of vowels and consonants gets eroded and folded down to what’s essentially a nuanced grunt.

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  • AnarchoEngineer@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I think you actually just described Danish.

    Why pronounce a consonant when you just can swallow it and use a glottal stop instead?

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    • bstix@feddit.dk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      “A g å a ø i a å” is a proper sentence where I come from.

      It means: A goat on an island in a river.

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  • TrickDacy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    That’s just called language

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  • teslekova@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Sounds like Australian. Or strayn, as I would say to a fellow denizen of this beloved wonderhell.

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• benjirenji@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I hate French like the next guy, but pronunciation rules are at least consistent compared to English. An English word’s pronunciation is everyone’s best guess. Sometimes depends on context or tense, even when written the exact same. With French you don’t really have that. It’s confusing, there are lots of letters, but at least it’s consistent.

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  • Flower@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    English pronunciation depends on the language they stole the word from.

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    • Phunter@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      It also depends who you’re talking to and/or where you are.

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    • IcyToes@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Stolen from? The English got invaded by the Romans, Normans, Vikings etc. Didn’t have much choice in that word adoption.

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    • nullify3112@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      And guess who they stole a bunch from? Yes, French. Blame the French. Blame the Franks and the Normans specifically for making the pronunciation weird.

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  • RaoulLeLapin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I’ve spoken French my whole life. The only consistent thing I can think of versus English is the prononciaton of “c” or “g” with the succeeding vowel. Otherwise it’s such a mess. “Eau” (water) has three vowels, but is pronounced like the one vowel that is not in it: “o”. Almost all words have letters that aren’t pronounced, but you can’t tell from any rules. You just have to know how the word is pronounced and written.

    English pronunciation and spelling is indeed also fairly inconsistent, but I still make a lot less spelling mistakes even though it’s not my first language.

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    • benjirenji@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Everywhere you see ‘eau’ or ‘eaux’ it’s pronounced ‘o’. Always, no exceptions. It’s crazy you never noticed that once you know the pronunciation rules of French you can say every word correctly.

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    • Evkob@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      As someone who has also spoken French their entire life; I disagree. Is French orthography messy? Sure, but it’s a consistent mess. Like the other commenter said, once you know “eau” is pronounced “o”, you know. Un beau bateau sur l’eau.

      Contrast with English, where rough & thorough thought is required throughout tough sentences such as this one just to figure out what the Fuck sound “gh” will make.

      I really came to appreciate the difference in English and French when I used to work in pharmacies; my first job was in a French place, and I intuitively knew how to pronounce drug names at first encounter.

      I later worked in a place with only Anglophones and I never got the prononciation on the first try. It was a guessing game.

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    • sem@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I learned French in school, but no one ever told me how modern French is a combination of divergent old French languages, “Langues D’oc” in the south where the word for yes was “oc” and “Langues D’oui” where oui was the word for yes in the North.

      From the former, we have L’Occitâne, and the Languedoc region of the south of France.

      I wonder what else i don’t know about French. /me reads Wikipedia.

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• stuner@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  English pronunciation is much worse than just silent letters. It doesn’t really make any sense and you need to learn tons of words by heart: fishofgold.net/…/english-pronunciation-is-stupid/

  Sometimes even the exact same set of letters are pronounced differently. The verb live vs a live broadcast. Read (present) vs read (past) and many more…. Are you kidding me?

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  • Blackdoomax@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    There are more than one word than I must pronounce badly xd

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  • bandanawearingbanana@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    French is actually quite regular with fewer exceptions to the rules of pronounciation.

    People like to use french words like “Oiseau” (bird) as an example of why french pronounciation is bad but they just do not know the rules of it!

    Take “Oiseau” for example “Oi” is usually pronounced [wa] like in “Oie” with a silent e, “Oise” or other words containing it. -seau is a typical suffix. So a french reader can easily know how to pronounce “oiseau” just from reading it. You just can’t because you don’t know the rules of French pronounciation!

    English is so much worse with pronounciations that ignores spelling: Take the word “colonel” for example. What’s worse is that in English there seemingly are no rules whatsoever with vocals being long or short depending on historical reasons and consonants appearing or disapering depending on whether Mercury is in retrograde.

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  • darthelmet@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I feel like we might as well just go back to symbol languages. What’s the point of an alphabet if the letters don’t actually convey consistent pronunciation? It’s just more confusing because the letters imply rules which don’t hold.

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• crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  French: oui paid for the whole alphabet and by God oui’re using the whole alphabet

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  • Sirius006@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    And we are going to use the almost all the alphabet to make exactly one sound.

    For instance eaux is pronounced o.

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    • StillAlive@piefed.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      > Heard my friend is going to ‘Bordo’

      > Look up Bordo

      > Mfw it’s spelled Bordeaux

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    • binarytobis@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I’ve always thought it was funny there is no “o” in “eaux”.

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• pedz@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  And when the letters are removed, French still lets you know there was a letter at some point by putting a little hat on top of the preceding letter. It makes learning it even funnier.

  Forêt and forest. Arrêt and arrest. Hôpital and hospital.

  As a native French speaker this may be the laziest part to me. We still say someone was hoSpitalisé, in a hôpital. People can be défeneStrés through fenêtres. Someone can be arrêté through arrestation.

  Lots of hidden pains and treasures. When I was a kid I thought learning all this shit was pointless. We should just reform everything and spell like we speak. But then I also learned to appreciate the evolution of the language and why wasp and guêpe have the same roots.

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  • Gutek8134@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    We should just reform everything and spell like we speak.

    Let me introduce you to slavic languages, where AFAIK it’s the rule, not exception

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    • boonhet@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Same for Estonian, which is why we need umlauts for letters that don’t exist in many other languages’ versions of the latin alphabet. But since we’re special snowflakes, we also have õ, which is such an uncommon letter in the world that we have a border sign on our biggest island to signify where the language border exists: On the mainland and most places we use õ, but people on Saaremaa people will use ö instead because they’re behind the times.

      We also have ž and š but they’re a bit less special, many european languages use them. Because how would you even know how to pronounce gelatine without writing it as želatiin?

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    • Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      It’s not a rule in Slovene but pretty much any word is spelled the way you would pronounce it.

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  • some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I’m curious where the ‘s’ was dropped first, in speech or writing? Written French is quite prescriptive with phonetics so I would guess it dropped from spoken language first? (And each little ‘hat’ is just a ‘tip of the hat’ to the lost letter? (Ok, I’ll see myself out lol))

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    • pedz@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Indeed. According to a literary website from Lyon’s library, the s was not pronounced in certain words well before we stopped writing them. Apparently it took a few centuries to introduce the circumflex.

      Bien que la graphie ait longtemps gardé la présence de ce /s/, on ne le prononçait plus depuis bien avant qu’on ne décide, au XVIIIe siècle (dès l’édition de 1740 du Dictionnaire de l’Académie française), de noter cet amuïssement par le recours systématique à l’accent circonflexe. L’amuïssement du /s/ en position appuyante date pourtant d’après 1066.

      Or in English

      Although the spelling retained the /s/ for a long time, it had ceased to be pronounced well before the decision was made in the 18th century (starting with the 1740 edition of the Dictionary of the French Academy) to systematically indicate this elision through the use of the circumflex accent. The elision of the /s/ in stressed position, however, dates back to after 1066.

      That would be very typical of French. Spoken French is well in advance on the written form. Hence the jokes at its expense.

      Maybe in a few other centuries we’ll have made a few other reforms to match what’s written with what we’re saying, but I think most of us kind of like that. The written form is the glue that holds all the varieties of French together and writing formal French also makes one feel a bit smug.

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• farmgineer@nord.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Is that seaux?

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  • username123@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Oué

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    • LillyPip@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      œufs.

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  • pedz@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Yes it is sceau

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• Furbag@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I haven’t had my coffee yet this morning. Read this and was like…

  “Spanis” 👁👄👁

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• Trex202@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Without reason, sure, but with a gender

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  • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Assigned with malice

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• Evil_Incarnate@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I’d put Finnish first. Every letter is there for a purpose and no tricks.

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  • Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Take it from the Serbs then. They have rule that states write as you say it and that means they even change the spelling of foreign words and such. Foreign names for people and towns are spelled as you would pronounce them. So New York is something like Njujork and Michael Jackson becomes Majkl Džekson or somethig similar.

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    • Evil_Incarnate@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      They do that sometimes in Finnish, less now than before. At least that’s what I read on faisbuk.

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    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I like the Serbian rule. It’s not unnecessarily complicated.

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  • Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I’d have put it at the end.

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• Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  French: Every living thing is born without meaning, but non-living things have a gender

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  • boonhet@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    German: Dogs are male, cats are female, kids are middlesex

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    • uniquethrowagay@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Dogs are male, cats are female

      There’s no way to disprove that! Have you ever seen a cat penis?

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  • faercol@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    And different words used to name the same thing can have a different gender

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  • Tiger666@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    No, the WORDS have a gender because it makes things sound better.

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• Etzello@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Meanwhile, Russian is 99% phonetic if you take the total of 5 hours to learn the Cyrillic alphabet (which by the way Duolingo was actually incredible at, just don’t use duo for actually learning the language)

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  • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I learned to read Cyrillic from reading Wikipedia. I got obsessed with Russian history and Russian entries in Wikipedia have the English name alongside the Cyrillic spelling. So, I read the Russian words alongside the English spelling to help me how to read in Russian. I also thought I could try reading Greek since Cyrillic is based from it, but for some reason I am struggling. I think I can quickly learn to read letters based from the shape and the sound they represent but Greek letters are a bit more complicated for me.

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    • Etzello@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I never even thought to look at Wikipedia, do you know which Wikipedia entry specifically? I’m curious

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  • cepelinas@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I still can’t read words longer than 10 letters even though I have known it for a few years, Am I stupid?

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    • Etzello@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      It’s not stupid, it’s a limitation you can overcome with practice but only if you actually care enough, not like you absolutely must

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• BenVimes@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Image

  Yes, I know some of those are technically pronounced differently, but the average English speaker can’t tell.

  But honestly, as someone who learned French as an adult, the biggest hurdle is knowing which combinations of letters make which sounds. Many are completely illogical - the 3rd person plural verb conjugations are particularly weird - but there is less inconsistentcy than English. The harder part is actually trying to get your English tongue to say words like “aéroport” or “heureux” or “accueillir” properly.

  There are always some outliers, like “oeuf” (egg) being pronounced “uhf” while the plural “oeufs” being pronounced “oo”, but you get used to those.

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  • Hadriscus@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I think I’d write oeufs as “uhh” in quasiphonetinglish

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• Kennystillalive@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  The funniest part of this meme is: English is worse than French.

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• angrystego@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  French and English is switched.

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• Tango@piefed.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Gaeilge: awww, you guys are adorable

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• xeno_the_warrior_prince@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  English: ghoti

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  • PapaStevesy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Do you like ghoti fingers? Then you’re a gay ghoti.

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• aeiou@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Tibetan: abject chaos

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• fartographer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  A meme format from one of the greatest movies of all time???

  Up down up down up down up down

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  • 5765313496@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    What movie is it? The guy looks like Aamir Khan to me, but I don’t recognize the scene.

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    • fartographer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      I’m pretty sure that this is 3 Idiots and that it’s the scene where he uses a zipper as an example of a machine.

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• uuj8za@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  In English, every letter is silent. Sometimes.

  https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/mums-the-letter-when-letters-dont-say-a-thing

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• resipsaloquitur@lemmy.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Bordeaux = bordo

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  • chaitae3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Les oreilles = laseray

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• TrickDacy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Letters still have lots of meaning in French. I love French spelling and pronunciation. Not understanding something doesn’t make it meaningless.

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• Etterra@discuss.online ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  The French word for bird is oiseau, which contains every vowel and none of them are pronounced correctly. It’s

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  • Tiger666@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Oi S Eau

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• LillyPip@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Accurate.

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  • stormdelay@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    It’s really not, if anything French and English should be reversed. You can generally know how a french word is supposed to be pronounced when reading it (assuming you know how to read French, of course), in English it’s a complete crapshoot

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• FishFace@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  French orthography is way more coherent than English. From the spelling you can pretty much tell how a french word is pronounced. Not the other way around, sure, but that’s a damn sight better than English which manages neither.

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