Ambidextrous
While thinking about the best way to come up with this word in relation to a language or a country, I thought of French in different francophone countries. If one is serious about studying French, you would probably come across the difference of the accents throughout the francophone countries. One that is most notable to me is the French accent from France (or the general French accent, if that is possible to say) and the Canadian accent.
We don't have to get into the fact that I like one more than the other, but the Canadian accent is just crazy for me. I've studied French for almost 20 years, and for some reason the Canadian accent is still hard for me to always understand. Personally, I like to show my students the difference in the accent and see what they think. Here at the U of A, we have both a study abroad program in Chicoutimi, Quebec, as well as multiple cities in France such as Besançon and Le Mans. I have posted two videos, one showing the Canadian accent and one showing the French accent. The Canadian video is quite long and the French one is a movie I love! I just want you all to see the difference in between the two.
Canadian Accent
French Accent
As we have discussed multiple times throughout the semester, although the language itself is what we want our students to focus on, the culture is a great part of the language as well. The difference in these two accents is a wonderful example of how French is seen and used around the world.
Although I doubt I'm teaching anyone anything really "new" with this post, I still think things like showing the difference in the accents is very much apart of learning the language. Enjoy!
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you put it that way. (Also at some point, if you so feel the need to try out this "redneck French accent", I'd love to hear it!!!) I also love the fact that you related it to Boomhauer in the way that it is spoken. It just seems so different from any French I have really come across (and I don't just mean French from France either). I loved your input on that!
Great point about the different accents. Whenever someone questions me about why I study French and not something 'practical' like Spanish, I can usually counter with the fact that it's spoken in so many countries. However, I'm definitely far off from being able to understand all of these different dialects and accents.
ReplyDeleteLittle funny story... Two men from Quebec came to the restaurant where I work, and they told me I had a 'Parisian accent.' I said thank you and they looked at each other and started laughing. Their French Canadian accent was hard for me to understand and sounded funny, but I guess it goes both ways!
I think it is truly amazing how people can speak the same written language but when it comes to speaking, the language can sound like two different languages. I also have had people ask me why I would take French in a place that is so landlocked, like we are here in Arkansas, or when I was growing up Oklahoma.
DeleteIn my opinion, just because it may be useful here, like you said French is very useful in multiple countries on the majority of continents! I think we all would agree that any language learning is only going to help you and would never really a hindrance to anyone. Thanks for you input!
Great post Randi.
ReplyDeleteWe can also relate the different accents to the Suisse accent. Since I lived about 20 miles from the Switzerland border (Basel) , it was very interesting to compare the way the Swiss pronounced certain words. However, what really surprised me was the fact that they counted differently from 90-100.
0 nonante 90
91 nonante et un 90 and 1
92 nonante-deux 90 + 2
93 nonante-trois 90 + 3
94 nonante-quatre 90 + 4
95 nonante-cinq 90 + 5
96 nonante-six 90 + 6
97 nonante-sept 90 + 7
98 nonante-huit 90 + 8
99 nonante-neuf 90 + 9
100 cent 100
It's interesting that you posted this Nii because I came across the same new thing in high school with this counting. My teacher was from Brussels and she taught us to count this way also. She was used to doing that because that is how she learned, so we also learned the "septant" (70) as well. It is so interesting how many different ways one language can differ, especially when placed like France and Switzerland share a border but can have such linguistic differences. I guess the same thing could be said though about different places in the United States. Thanks for sharing this Nii!
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Delete(Once again, terrible typos! What is wrong with me today??)
DeleteYes! I was going to say I learned the septant/huitante/nonante way in Belgium as well. The French counting system is so odd. I've been looking on the internet for an explanation of how and why their system evolved but so far I haven't found anything definitive. For our German friends, the French words for seventy, eighty and ninety translate to "sixty-ten," "four-twenty" (woot!) and "four-twenty-ten" respectively. Seventy-one is "sixty-eleven," etc.
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ReplyDeleteRandi,
ReplyDeleteI had so many typos in my original post that I had to delete it. Pathetic! Anyway I agree with you that the Quebecois accent sounds really strange if you're used to hearing the French one. I don't think I could mimic it very well. Have you watched the whole video interview with the Quebecois woman? The part where she talks about cursing in the Quebecois dialect is really interesting. She was saying that after the "Quiet Revolution" against the Church, many curse words entered the vernacular that come from church vocabulary. For example if you say the French words for "tabernacle" or "consecrate" etc, you're saying a really bad word in Quebecois. Talk about undermining the Church as an institution! That was just fascinating to me.
This video makes me more interested in visiting Quebec. I have to agree with what the guy says about the French having limited patience for people who don't speak perfectly. (Not always true but it can be unfortunately.) I'd much rather go somewhere where people are happy to talk with me and share their language and culture.
Kate,
DeleteFirst off, I find it funny that you had to delete your first post. Mainly because I feel like I should delete everything I do these days because I can no longer thing correctly, but that is beside the point.
I'm glad you found the video interesting! It can be quite difficult to understand her at times because normally I can just listen to what someone is saying in French and not put too much effort into translation but with her, it's almost like I'm learning a new language. I also have to agree with your point that some French people do have limited patience for people (namely Americans) who don't speak French well.
I do have to say, luckily I have had more positive experiences with this than negative ones. From what I have gathered from having this discussion with multiple French people, I think the biggest thing is that they want us (foreigners) to at least ATTEMPT to speak French and for us not to expect that they will speak English to us. On the other hand, I have heard (more times than I would like) people comment about how US citizens find it annoying to not understand the foreigners we have here. (I hope I'm not using foreigners as a bad thing!) Wouldn't it be nice if people would love language and culture as most of us seem to?