French

[kizolk]

While we're at it, what would you consider the most common "mistakes" that French people make. In American English, for example, you almost never hear people distinguish lay and lie correctly, and nearly everyone answers the question "How are you?" with "I'm good," rather than "I'm well." It's also really common in my region for people to have different past tense forms of some irregular verbs, something I've noticed in some rural dialects in English as well.

Makes me think of a discussion I had with an Australian studying linguistics years ago. He was telling me native speakers had trouble dealing with grammatical number at times, to which I replied something like "I'm not sure I see what you mean but I think this kind of things happens in French too". To which he replied that I'd just made such a "mistake", and he thought "this kind of things happen" was more correct.

In French I think it is commonly accepted that both are possible depending on what noun you think the verb has to agree with ("kind" or "things"), but both usage and norm favor the singular I think; what would you say regarding this in English?

As for French, using the fuzziest definition for "mistakes", there's the à/en difference with regard to vehicles, or à/chez wrt places for instance. According to the norm you should say "en voiture, à moto" (the reasoning behind it being that "en" is used for enclosed vehicle) and "à la boucherie, chez le boucher" (supposed to use "chez" with business places that are described using the person's job), but in practice, you very often hear "en moto" (but I think "en vélo" is relatively rarer for instance) and "au boucher".

Something that's becoming very common among youths primarily but not only, is the omission of "que" in sentences such as "je pense (que) je vais le faire, j'espère (qu') il lui a déjà dit". Possibly coming from the Paris region suburbs originally, but I'm not entirely sure.

"Si je pourrais" instead of "si je pouvais".

A weird one is the use of "si il(s)" both in spoken French and in writing. The norm is to make the elision, "s'il", and to me it certainly is nicer to the tongue and ear (especially considering the French language's dislike for hiatuses), but nope, a lot of people prefer "si il".

I'm sure there are many more and probably more common ones, but this is what I can think of at the moment.

 

[Clemens]

Makes me think of a discussion I had with an Australian studying linguistics years ago. He was telling me native speakers had trouble dealing with grammatical number at times, to which I replied something like "I'm not sure I see what you mean but I think this kind of things happens in French too". To which he replied that I'd just made such a "mistake", and he thought "this kind of things happen" was more correct.

In English, the standard form in a phrase like "this kind of" is that the verb agrees with "kind." (I would say "this kind of thing", not "things," but that's a separate issue.) A very common mistake in English, which I am guilty of, is saying, "None of them are here" when it should be "None of them is here."

One that I hear a lot in English is "on accident" rather than "by accident;" probably by analogy with "on purpose."

I make plenty of mistakes in French but the ones you mention are not ones that I do.

 

[kizolk]

In English, the standard form in a phrase like "this kind of" is that the verb agrees with "kind."

I might have remembered our dialogue wrong then.

I would say "this kind of thing", not "things," but that's a separate issue.

Ah! I tend to alternate between "things" and "thing"; I was under the impression that the singular was a more colloquial way to say it, but it seems I was wrong.

Regarding "on accident", prepositions are a notorious area of variation in languages that have them, so I'm not surprised!

 

[interprete]

I mean, according to the rule, it should be peuve, except that it isn't. There are a number of irregular verbs in English that are in the process of regularizing or have recently regularized in English, but I still use the older irregular form because of the region I grew up in.

It does look a lot like a perfectly legit subjunctive, another frequent one is que je croive.

 

[kizolk]

It does look a lot like a perfectly legit subjunctive, another frequent one is que je croive.

Yeah, and there's also the indicative "ils croivent", perhaps due to the influence of verbs like boire.

 

[interprete]

Silly sentence edition. Of course, a more natural way of speaking, and having actual sentences makes it harder to focus on words individually, but I think it still shows there's no substantive length distinctions.

Wow Kizolk you sound exactly like TV anchors from the 60's! It's like your voice and pronunciation came right out of a black-and-white movie I hope you don't take offense, I actually find this really nice!

 

[kizolk]

Wow Kizolk you sound exactly like TV anchors from the 60's! It's like your voice and pronunciation came right out of a black-and-white movie I hope you don't take offense, I actually find this really nice!

I definitely don't take it as an offense but it's a... suprising comment lol But that's interesting that you would take it that way!

 

[kizolk]

I think I can see what you mean, something with my intonations also maybe?

 

[interprete]

Silly sentence edition. Of course, a more natural way of speaking, and having actual sentences makes it harder to focus on words individually, but I think it still shows there's no substantive length distinctions.

Here:

Starting from 0:23

 

[interprete]

I think I can see what you mean, something with my intonations also maybe?

Yes I think it's mostly the intonation, maybe because you were trying to read a nonsensical script in a matter-of-fact tone, I guess you probably don't speak like that naturally.

 

[kizolk]

Weeell, I guess there might be something to your comparison You know, I've always liked those voices/styles-- not to the point of listening to this kind of recording more than the average guy, let alone of trying to mimick them, but maybe it still influenced me, who knows ^^ They were super classy after all.

 

[kizolk]

Yes I think it's mostly the intonation, maybe because you were trying to read a nonsensical script in a matter-of-fact tone, I guess you probably don't speak like that naturally.

It was definitely rather artificial yeah, though I don't think I sound hugely different from that in some more formal, real life contexts.

 

[Gregorius Textor]

A very common mistake in English, which I am guilty of, is saying, "None of them are here" when it should be "None of them is here."

I'm not so sure that's a mistake. What is the 'number' of 'none'? Is zero singular or plural? Couldn't it be both, depending on the context? "Which of those crows nest here?" "None do." Sounds very natural to me.

(I hope I'm not derailing this French thread too much!)

 

[kizolk]

(I hope I'm not derailing this French thread too much!)

Next time, try to add a random French word somewhere in your post, that way no one can accuse you of derailing this thread

 

[Pacifica]

I'm not so sure that's a mistake. [...] Couldn't it be both, depending on the context?

I was thinking the same.

 

[Pacifica]

The Arabic thread derails into French, the French one derails into English... C'est la vie ! (To put some French in there.)

 

[Pacifica]

By the way, it feels like French speakers have been taking over the forum recently. There used to be just me and one or two others popping in from time to time. Now I, kizolk, interprete, and Clemens (not a native but virtually as good as) are responsible for a large part of recent contributions.

 

[Gregorius Textor]

Vive les francophones!

 

[kizolk]

By the way, it feels like French speakers have been taking over the forum recently. There used to be just me and one or two others popping in from time to time. Now I, kizolk, interprete, and Clemens (not a native but virtually as good as) are responsible for a large part of recent contributions.

I don't remember when, sometime in the past two-three weeks maybe, the latest member was a Frenchman and had asked a question with some French in it IIRC; I remember jokingly thinking it was pretty much a French-based forum that happened to be written mostly in English

 

[interprete]

Time to rename it Discussion Latine