Peut-être que ça existe mais moi je me fais un honneur de ne jamais l'utiliser..... Pour moi c'est Bonjour.... tout comme le: ça la pas de bon sens (ça n'a pas de bon sens), ça l'existe, etc.... tout le monde disent ça (dis ça) mais pas moi !!!
Sorry I can't write in French yet. But i just posted a similar comment..i was wondering why good morning can't be BON MATIN..So your comment just made me feel like I am learning a little 😂😂.. Thanks/ merci
Actually French also borrowed tons of words of from all the european languages : latin, greek, german, spanish, italian 👌 But modern words beeing borrowed tend to be 90% english borrowed (IT & technical terms). Some of the remaning 10% are mostly slang borrowed from arabic.
@@cescargot Who said anything about borrowing? You'll notice I used quote marks. We don't borrow shit. We straight up take it. Just ask the Indians. Both kinds. And the Africans. Need I say more?
Yeah, I've often noticed that "sibling(s)" is missing in French. It's a bit awkward to say frère(s) et soeur(s) each time you want to express that concept. I guess there are lots of missing terms in English too. I like this one: l'esprit de l'escalier (stairway wit). It’s said when you think of the perfect reply too late, after the fact...when you're halfway down the stairs.
@@leslienassar6829 Sort of, but the French term implies after the fact...when it's too late: "I wish I had said this or that, but I didn't think of it in time." A comeback is a timely response.
Pure anglicisim. At the very beggining "jour" is the light and the morning (attendre qu'il fasse jour, l'Aube = "le petit jour") and if you really whish a good whole day you can leave him with a "bonne journée " That's why i think "bon matin" will never grow in european french.
The french word I miss the most in english is "chez". Chez moi" or "chez ma tante" is much more practicle than saying "At my place" or "at my aunt's place".
That is almost like saying that English does not have a word for "souffle". English does not just borrow words, it rapes and pillages entire languages and takes what it wants. Admittedly and English speaker saying "chez moi" is going to sound pretentious.
@@leod-sigefast haha, when did I get pretentious??! All I say is that for me to say for ex "at your grandmas" or at your oncles, pronouncing the s is difficult that's why I miss "chez". I was never pretentious.
Creepy is not scary, and you can appreciate something but not enjoy it. Example, I appreciate the work but do not enjoy it. Example 2. The old man in the house did not scare me but I found him very creepy.
@@thetruth156real3 "Flippant" works perfectly but I think that in frenc se have many other words that are more precise for "enjoy", or you could use "s'enjailler" or "s'enjoir" except they are both not really used, because old or vulgar
@@alexandrelct826 To English speaker that sounds like a pair, which means 2 similar objects or persons that usually comes by 2. Where 'both' means 2 no matter matching, the same, or not.
@@Voltaireooooo You have taught me a new word! I have always taught English speakers that the French “r” is just a gargle. If one can gargle one can say a French “r”. Uvular does sound a bit like medical speak to me.
And the closest thing in Spanish is "gosarse" but you can't say "gosarse" without saying what you're trying to enjoy specifically. And I'm pretty sure no one says "gosarme".
When I was living in France, an English teacher I worked with said she loved the connotation of “will” as a future-tense auxiliary in English. English and French both have ways to say “I will” or “I'm going to” (future antérieur et futur proche), but she felt that “will” in English carries more of an intentionality to it, as if the person is more determined to do something. That connotation comes from Old English, when “will” and “would” were used as action verbs meaning “to wish”, which no one says anymore (“I will that my mother is well”/“I would that she leave me alone”). You'd only ever hear that in Shakespeare plays and other classic literature from centuries ago. You very occasionally see “will” as an action verb meaning “to bequeath” (“My late grandfather willed me his war medallion”) but that's a different usage. Anyway, back to the idea of “will” and “going to” talking about the future: I'd guess that most Anglophones would say the two are interchangeable. It might be something very subtle that we don't notice, something we think is the same but that actually makes us think someone is still learning the language if they choose the wrong one. I'm not sure. I just thought it was an interesting observation.
@@pyral514 "bon matin" makes perfect sense to me! I have cousins in Montreal and they certainly say that. I'm not sure this is about grammar nazis - its really just a question of different uses in different places - not about right or wrong.
Excited! As in “I’m excited to go to the park” or something like that. It’s such a common mistake for English speaking students to say “je suis excité” and not realize that that does NOT mean what they think it means. I’ve not heard a word that can concisely sum up the feeling of being excited in a non sexual manner-does anyone else have a translation for this word?
My French teacher always told me to say “enthousiaste” instead; not sure how common it is, but apparently it doesn't have a sexual connotation like “excité(e)” does.
I just finished the 4th french class i take in university and I just found your channel and I’m learning so much in this one hour of me scrolling through youtube at 3 am, and maybe it’s even more than I’ve learned in class. I’m going to France in spring break and I’m so exciting now that I’m learning more spoken french! ❤️
One word that my Parisian friend and I were talking about is skyline. Because in French you would say « l’horizon », but that doesn’t really get at the artificial nature of the word. So we came up with « le découpé de gratte-ciels » :)
Il existe cependant plusieurs traductions aux mots que tu as mentionnés, en voici quelques unes: Good morning: Bon matin Cheap: Bon marché, abordable, économique Sleepy: Somnolent Successful: Fructueux, prospère, efficace Creepy : Sinistre, Glauque To Cringe: Grimacer Enjoy: Apprécier, jouir, aimer, bénéficier, savourer, déguster, profiter Est-ce que vous êtes d’accord ?
The one that really bugs me is "brittle". You're stuck with "fragile" which doesn't describe things that are strong but can snap. Whereas fragile things are necessarily not strong at all.
@@ludoviclagouardette7020 Not quite, brittle is only saying things can break. But even bullet proof body armor can be described as brittle (if you push it over its limit, the metal will break instead of bend or tear). I don't see how "Friable" can say the same.
@@leoren5128 Don't know French, but looking at the formation I'd guess that "Friable" is either fragile or breakable. As typically used in my experience "fragile" means something is easily broken while "brittle" means that something is prone to cracks and coming apart rather than deforming. Glass can be described as both. A Hard Drive or postage stamp sized doll house is fragile, very little force is needed to break them/cause them to stop functioning as intended. Cast iron or thick ceramics are brittle, the force may be little or big but when the strength of the material is exceed cracks will propagate turning a single piece into many.
yeah it comes for French but we just stopped using it. and I don't know if it had the exact same meaning. but it is odd you're right about that^^it's interesting to see languages evolve!
I've been told it's funny we don't have a word for ''to bake'' since we (french people) bake a lot^^... cuire au four? faire des gâteaux? ''hang out'' ?? passer du temps avec quelqu'un ? se voir? ''design''... il a bien ''concevoir /conception'' mais il y a moins cette idée d'esthétisme ''cheekbones''.. euuh des os de joue? des pommettes? mais les pommettes c'est pas les os en tant que tels ''to ride'' ... chevaucher ? lol.. ça marche pas pour un vélo ou une moto..
These are so true! Both English and French were my first languages, but because most of the people I speak French with also speak English, we jump back and forth between them, so it's hard to notice these 'missing' words. I wish there was an English word closer to démodé. Like you can say 'oh that shirt was so last season' but it's not really natural to say that a shirt is outdated/old fashioned in English, especially if the shirt isn't at least 10+ years old. My mom and I always use démodé, even if the rest of the conversation is in English.
Thank you for the pertinent video. Since you asked.... American hippie slang sometimes features the adjective "heavy," which can be understood to mean "serious" or "important" (or "consequential"). Soon after I moved to a Francophone society, I learned that trying to communicate the American hippie adjective "heavy" by saying "lourd" is awkward and misleading. Still slightly awkward--but, likely, not misleading--could be to say, "avoir des conséquences," or, "à ne pas ignorer."
I think it's so funny that enjoy is such an English word now, and there is no modern French equivalent, when Middle English borrowed the word "enjoy" from Old French enjoier/anjoier/enjoer and also the word "joy" from French "joie."
@@Street_French The word enjoy, as a stand alone word, is relatively new in English and has only come into use in the last 20 years or so. Up until about 2000 we would say "enjoy yourself" or "have a good time". Never just "enjoy".
How about the word "full" as in "I'm full" after eating? I've always said it "j'ai bien mangé" which translates to "I have eaten well" which sounds more polite than "I'm full".
I've had many foreigners say to me"Je suis pleine" after a meal, never say that! This is what you said of a pregnant dog for exemple "Elle est pleine".
I am full after eating in English is wrong. Better still say am feed-up. I am full comes from Africa and is a kind of childish way (mostly used by children).
I'm not surprised, as I've struggled with some concepts when speaking French. 'Enjoy' is one, and 'profitez bien' to me doesn't carry the same sense of fun. FUN! There's no exact noun or adjective 'fun', as in 'did you have fun, let's go somewhere fun, etc. It was fun. He's a fun guy. I guess you'd use 'amusant/amusé'. A French colleague had already pointed out that there's no word 'sibling' in French. So is the phrase 'sibling rivalry' from psychology translated as "la rivalité des freres et des soeurs?" Thanks for your video - really enjoyable.
Tu m’as bien surpris avec des mots qui existent en anglais, mais qui n’ont pas d’équivalent en français. J’ai trouvé ce sujet vachement inter. Merci beaucoup encore une fois...
Hey, great video but just so you know: - "it sounds like" --> "ça sonne comme" is generally accepted for songs and music - "to cringe, cringy" --> grimacer, grimaçant Also, "bon matin" should exist and I even say it all the time :)
J'ai réfléchi à la remarque sur ressembler. En effet on utilise ressembler dans toutes les situations mais c'est parceque la définition du mot nous le permet. Tu as donné les exemples des situations visuelles et sonores mais c'est valable pour tout ! On va dire ça ressemble à du poulet (alors qu'en anglais it tastes like chiken) ou ca ressemble à de la fourrure (pour le toucher) etc. Encore une fois il s'agit d'une façon de s'exprimer. Il y a des qui utiliseraient d'autres mots exemple: ça à le même goût que du poulet, etc.
this reminds me of my French colleagues when I asked them what the word for "food" is in French and it took them a good five minutes to figure it out, because "nourriture" is used so rarely compared to "to eat" etc.
If you want these, you can have them. That's what makes English so powerful: if it wants a word, it just takes it. The pronunciation and spelling are slightly modified, and that's it; new word. French should start doing this too.
Spanish still has more verb tenses and less figurative words so more accurate than English and French. As in English but with more extent we can also create new adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs from any word. It's not showing off but I wanted to share it its really awesome. I speak 4 languages.
English also has a very bizarre orthography with only minimal rules for spelling and unlike most languages, you can end a word in english with every single letter except for q and j and there a lot more sounds that can end a word as well. And due to vowel shifting English has such a different sound In general that pretty much any word can be adapted and the original spelling is often kept. The confusing amalgamation of different languages that is English is a credit to how easy it is to adopt loan words. In many other languages the sounds and orthography are quite strict and its not as easy.
@@hughmungus99 I'm learning a little Japanese, and they are downright obsessed with making any new word Japanese-ified. I'm glad they're acquiring new words, but it does seem like a lot of effort for something quite simple.
@@leod-sigefast you my friend would be very interested in the Anglish Conlang. It aims to replace all latin/french loan words and loan words from other languages (i. e. safari from Swahili safari, gauze from arabic قزّ "qazz", etc.). Its pretty neat and while all it really does is replace vocabulary there are a couple of other changes that make it more germanic
Holy crap, you're the second French channel that I actually like. You're up front about modern french terms that exist and don't exist. Unlike some other channels.
All this was fascinating, but I happened to glance to the right and saw the cushion cover which is exactly like the two I have in my little bungalow in England. Ikea? Incroyable!
A couple of English universal words that don't seem to exist are "off" and "on". Every context for "off" and "on" seem to have a different word. The save with the verb "to get". "Get" is kind of a "catch all" word. I've also seen where English words are adopted into French, like "Stop, Parking, Weekend, etc." Once on a French cop show a cop was talking on the radio and she said, "Ok, standby". And when chasing a suspect the cop yelled "Stop!" instead of "Arrêtez!"
In Bourgogne, people say "Bonjour" when you go into a baker's or other shop at 7 am and then say "Bonsoir" as you leave 2 minutes later. I've never understood why but it is a regional trait.
There are French words that don't exist in English. eg--- Terroir. Associated primarily about wine. In English it requires a long sentence or even a book. LOL
@@Street_French I think your piece on these English words was very good. I like the selection of "cringe" and "creepy". They are words of "sensation and feeling". I wonder why they exist in English....LOL Must be a reason.
The word I hoped would make the list, that I can not find an equivalent for in almost any other language is "care". As in "I care about you" or "I don't care about that"
in french it's "se soucier de": Je me soucie de toi: I care about you. but it's not used that much. You can also sais: the tient à toi: I care about you. Tient come from the verbe tenir (the hold/keep). The first one with soucier is more about I worry about you, I care about your happiness/wellbeing etc.. The second one is more "You are important to me".
yeah I guess we say these 2 sentences with different words and verbs and you can't translate directly with "care". but thanks for the example i'll talk about it in the part 2 :)
My French teacher told me in the past that French doesn't really have the word "food", which is really interesting considering that France is so well known for their cuisine. :D
1:39 want to sleep = somnolente 2:57 A word used by young = Flippant (idk why) 3:25 In French we used a word “not specific” but “specific” idk how to describe it >~< Avez vous des proches ? Do you have some family/friends ? Pour Cringy a new word is used by young (yes French use/create actually new word) It’s too cringy now C’est trop malaisant (This word is used to say you don’t feel good ;-;) And yes we need to create a word for Enjoy but I don’t feel it will create because people love variety in there word then if you have 1000 ways to say enjoy it good ? That stupide 😅 Pour répondre à certain mots qui n’existe pas ou n’ont pas de précision précise on utilise dés expressions (que je déteste toujours autant >~
J'aurais pas dis mieux ! En effet j'ai déjà entendu quelques personnes utiliser le mot "malaisant", du coup on l'adopte aussi. Même si ce n'est pas un mot présent dans le dictionnaire, je pense qu'il y fera son apparition d'ici quelques années.
As a French learner this video definitely helped me a lot when It comes to these words especially “enjoy, sounds like and shallow” . Merci pour cette vidéo pour que les mots ne me dérangent plus!
@@SuperLn1991 Hmm, yes but what about "jouir des connaissances" for example, or "jouissance". Enjoy is "Jouir de" something. I don't know why the word has been sectioned off nowdays by pornography and solicitors, but it does indeed exist, just that it's not used correctly.
@@paranoidrodent Agreed, sometimes usage makes a language poorer by restricting a words meaning. Right now gay and jouir have left gaps in their languages. It would be interesting to discover how in the past similar gaps were filled later on in the evolution of the language.
Many years ago, my sister found a full book just on words unique to various languages, a collection of untranslatables that were exquisitely explained. Anybody heard about it?
As an American living in France, the thing I struggle with is the fact that French doesn't really have a way to express excitement. There's d'être ravi(e), but it's not really the same thing. My friends and I joke that the French are too cool to get excited.
haha yeah it's interesting because that's where you see how culture and language go hand in hand. we just don't express our excitement so much here haha it's more subtle I guess compared to the US
In french, there's no word for "quaint." It's such a weird mix of traits that makes something quaint, and it's frustrating to try and describe a quaint thing with synonyms
Springxnich21 I just heard yesterday that “quaint” in Middle English could mean clever, attractive, well made by someone who knew what they were doing. (Ref.: podcast “The History of the English Language.)
I also like your "it sounds good" example. In Québec I have heard the anglicisme "ça sonne bien." Mais it's wrong, of course. "Sounds good" has no really French equivalent, it's true.
That's right - "bullying" is increasingly being rendered as "harcèlement" in the media. Harcèlement au travail, harcèlement à l'école… but I haven't heard 'harceleur' much, if at all.
@@nicoc6387 harceleur is either harasser or stalker. Bully is a general attitude and behavior not included in french language. There is word to describle aspect of it, but bully as a societal entity ins't french.
Thank you for this video! I think this kind of words are really bothering the non-native speakers. Having spoken different languages before, I just can't get my mind around the fact that - no, sometimes there REALLY is no french word for that! By the way, is there a correct way to say "top management" in French? Of course, one can say "cadres supérieurs", but it feels much broader than "top management"...
-Pour cheap il y a un mot en français mais on ne l'utilise plus depuis trèèès longtemps car il a une double signification péjorative , c'est "vil" qui signifie , à l'origine, avoir peu de valeur morale OU marchande "acheter à vil prix" mais personnes ne dit ça à moins de faire partie de l'académie française haha. -"sleepy" c'est somnolent en français ;) -pour "successful" il peut y avoir prospère ou fructueux (une fructueuse carrière) mais dans le parlé de tous les jours c'est très rarement utilisé (par contre utilisé à l'écrit dans les livres/journaux etc... ) -"siblings" c'est le mot "fratrie" en français (probablement vouer à disparaître ou être modifier avec l'écriture inclusive) - "enjoy" vient d'un ancien verbe français "enjoir" qui a été remplacé par "apprécier" au fil du temps , on a tout simplement supprimé de notre vocabulaire ^^ (bien que ces derniers temps un dérivé de ce mot ai fait sont apparition : "enjailler" lui même argot ivoirien emprunté de l'anglais, emprunté du français puis récupéré par certains . Inception)
Good evening. Thanks for your instructive and funny video. I have deep (ha ha ha) conversation with francophone and anglophone relatives - being francophone myself. I'm looking for an exact and accurate french equivalent for hug. "Câlin", "étreinte", "accolade"... not so bad, but not exact. One suggested "embrassade" ; that's a good suggestion but too long, too heavy, too scholar... and related to "embrasser", a verb that everyone hears as to kiss nowadays (do see what I wrote about "jouir", too). Well. The quest for a french hug goes on.
Dear and cher are clean translations in both senses (dear in cost and dear to one's heart). The version ending in e is just the feminine form. Mon cheri translates literally to "my cherished" but figuratively to "my dear" or "dearest".
We do not have cringe in Czech either, it is so weird, it is one of those words that are used quite often in English, it always make me wonder how many ideas and feelings cannot be expressed because we have not develop the language to describe them...
My favorite words in any language is the words I love you. Happy feelings are the best. I enjoy those from other places. How close is it still to creole?. I found a Cajun dude on my cb radio at home. Live the life folks.
"profiter" literally means "make the most out of something, take advantage" so it can have a negative connotation. but we also use it positively to say "enjoy"
Aaahhh these Latin-based languages!! I am Brazilian and we do not have most of these words either, though we do have the Portuguese equivalents to "cheap" and "successful". But no "creepy", "enjoy", "taste like", "sound like" and "smell like" either!! I guess that's why I love the English language so much, it is very lexically rich!! :)
clnre I noticed the same thing when I lived in England. We use “siblings” or “family” much more often in Western Canada; there's a lot more liberal attitude towards gender here so it's considered a bit awkward not to use inclusive language (especially if you are, or know someone who is, non-binary). It's next to impossible to use inclusive language in French, though. We have a “sad face” on the classroom wall that my students sometimes point to when I tell them they have to use a gendered pronoun or gendered job title, because they were all raised to use gender-inclusive words in English. I have one student who is making it her mission to convince the French to adopt neutral third-person pronouns. I don't think she realises the enormity of that task, but power to her!
I think in French there isn’t an equivalent for the word _available_ as in when a product is in stock and can be bought. It seems like a pretty useful word.
What about rejouir? And I would say home is an English word that gets at something specific that isn't easy to capture in French. Chez soi/moi/etc. maybe, but when we get into constructions like "he has no sense of home" it gets awkward to translate
Actually most if not all the romance languages lack a word for 'siblings' , but in spanish we take the plural word for "brother" and use it generally to replace it. "Mis hermanos tienen hambre" that would be equivalent to "My siblings are hungry" et en français ça se dirait: Mes fréres ont faim.
@@Syl75 'Maison' That is very close to 'mansion' which is english for a large rich home on a large piece of land covered in gardens. No french word for that? 'Home' in english is very general and could mean anything from a tent to a mansion. 'domocile' is the english legal word for where you live, same thing. Usually used in forms and applications and such. House number, street address, country. etc. 'Domicile' has a more french origin sound, not english. Having a legal element it's origin maybe latin or roman law.
Je suis en retard pour la fête mais on dit "bon matin" en louisiane depuis longtemps. Le #1 mot en anglais que j'ai du mal à traduire c'est AWKWARD. Bonne continuation !
@Sandra A I can't tell you you're wrong, but gênant is "embarrassing", which is not the same feeling as "awkward" to me. It definitely comes close, though.
@Sandra A I'd say "ça m'a mis mal à l'aise" is the most accurate translation. The others don't really fit the feeling of "awkward" or have other words already. Like I said before, "embarrassant" and "gênant" have "embarrassing" as a translation. However, "mal à l'aise" describes the person. That's why we have "malaisant", to describe the situation. I don't think any of these are bad translations. I just think they're not as accurate as they could be; which is why we kinda made up this new word; to be more accurate.
@Sandra A Yeah, "malaisant" is not recognised by most dictionaries. Also, I did say that those were not bad translations, just not as accurate as "malaisant"
Nom d'un pipe c'est n'importe quoi : Cheap = économique (en fait non) Shallow = superficiel Enjoy = profite (tu le dis toi même !) Edit : tant qu'à faire je rajoute deux autres mots pour enfoncer le clou Cringe = grimaçant Sleeply = somnolent C'est de traductions qui transmette exactement la même chose qu'en anglais
Hmm..... économique...... But does that word convey the idea that the object is of low quality and possibly not worth the lower price? (Google Translate, human help appreciated) Mais ce mot traduit-il l’idée que l’objet est de mauvaise qualité et ne vaut peut-être pas le prix le plus bas?
L'eau est "superficielle" par ici?? non, clairement "shallow" n'existe pas en Français. Économique, en anglais = economical, clairement, l'équivalent de "cheap" = pas cher, 2 mots.
je pense que je me fais mal comprendre dans la vidéo. quand je dis que les mots n'existe pas, c'est qu'il y a pas une traduction EXACTE, mais bien sûr qu'on a des équivalents. perso, je ne dirais jamais "cette robe est économique". je dirais "cette robe est pas chère". superficiel, j'ai écrit un true dans la vidéo. oui on dit que quelqu'un est superficiel. mais on dit pas que la mer est superficiel quand on est à la plage par exemple. et enjoy et profite c'est un peu différent quand même. quand quelqu'un dit "enjoy your meal" on dit pas "profite de ton plat." on va dire "bon appétit". bref voilà, ce que je dit c'est qu'on a d'autres manières de dire les choses mais on a pas les mots exactes.
@@Street_French je suis désolé mais c'est faux - je ne sais pas si personnellement tu dirais " économique" mais pourtant c'est la définition du mot. Cela paraît très arbitraire de faire en fonction de ce que tu dis. Je vais donner un exemple ou on peut l'utiliser sans que ce soit bizarre : "Des moyens de transports pratiques et économiques" - on ne dit pas une mer superficielle mais on peut tout à fait dire "des eaux superficielles" ou encore "une blessure superficielle". Ce n'est pas parce qu'on ne peut pas faire du mot à mot que le concept n'existe pas en francais. Ou alors aucun mot n'a de traduction exacte en français. - Pareil on peut pas faire du mot à mot mais ça ne prouve rien. Tu as juste pris une tournure qui sonne mal, mais si je dis "profite de ton dernier repas" bah tout de suite ça se dit (j'ai rajouté l'adjectif dernier pour que ca sonne mieux mais ça ne change rien fondamentalement)
@@raphaelpaulian si on dit tout à fait "des eaux superficielles". Non pour économique ouvre un dictionnaire français et regarde la définition. Exemple " des moyens de transports pratiques et économiques"
Numa Numa FanBase YS1 I’m not a higher person to judge on this by French was always my first language and like it doesn’t rly fit, somnolent would be like so tired that you’re not behaving right and is almost sleeping standing, sleepy really isn’t translatable yet I hope
that word exist but no one says it. that's what we like to focus on with on street french :) how we speak in real life is so different from words you find in a dictionary or sentences you find in a text book :))
Il n'y a pas un mot pour "pets" en français. On peut dire "les animaux domestiques" peut-être. En anglais on dit souvent "Do you have pets? A cat or a dog?" Aussi, les mots pour "son-in-law" and "step-son" sont les mêmes. Beaucoup de malentendus sont possible. Est-ce qu'il y a un mot pour "twee" ou "overly sweet, cloying, sappy, ou shmaltzy".
The biggest gap in translation I find is always "get." For example, I am going to get my shoes. Can you get me a glass of water? In English, we use "get" as a catch-all. Maybe it's our lack of vocabulary, but this idea doesn't exist in French! Usually I have to find some combo of donner, avoir, obtenir to better express my idea of "get."
I grew up in New England, a few years after the end of WW2 and was taught both French and English in elementary school and beyond. I was a little guy, and when I had my first communion, all I remembered of it, was how big the cup was. So, I said, "Ohh, la-la! La gross challese!" Yup, it didn't go well for me, after that, either. Then, as I got older, the Sister Tomas-"Marty-Comb," told us the story about how an Angel of the Lord, knocked on Lot's door, and told him to take his family and flee, from the city, and to never look back, or that person would be turned into salt!" And, I then learned that Lot's wife was in fact, turned to salt, because she looked back! Damn, I was scared to death listening to all of these stories about large communion cups and women turned into salt!!! The Nun noticed me moving around in my seat, and asked me, "Jean-Michel, what is the problem with the story, didn't you understand the true meaning if it, or, are you confused by it!?" I told her that I was confused, and when she asked why, I said, "Because I want to know what happened to the "flea?" If you don't speak French, English, or Spanish, STFU! I'm just an elderly gentleman having his fun for the day. I'll just go down and take a nap, now, choke my chicken for a little bit (I grew up on a farm in Northern Maine) while remembering all the fun I used to have at the Jean Baptiste Festivals (QC & Montreal) used to go to as a child and young adult, pretending that I did not speak or understand French! But, those stories are for another time, like the situation I was in 2 hours after my arrival in VN, while waiting in line to check-in at the replacement battalion, where I heard an older man having a conversation with a younger man (both day-laborers) about the size of their "pencils." So, I'll get to those stories another time. For now, "Bite me"!
Thanks for this. A mistake that many Anglophones (including me) make is to use awkward translations for words that don’t exist in French. To speak speak French authentically, you have to use the pallet given.
Good analysis. Of course languages are definitively not like mathematical bijections (where you can always link one and only one item of a group to one and only one item of another group). However, in all rich languages, you can always find an adequate way of expressing anything, even sophisticated.
What about "speeding", as in driving faster than the speed limit? Is there a word for that? Like "I got a ticket for speeding" or "I gave up speeding for Lent".
Is there an exact word for "bored" other than "ennuyé"? The way most of the French bilinguals explain to me does not really convinces me. Any suggestion? Thanks
There is no "enjoy" in French? No problem. Let's make it do ourselves. *Enjoyer* it is.
haha xD
@@TheZwyz ;)
@@Street_French Il a été remplacé par "kiffer" :))
@@Kevtia Haha ouai carrément ;)
Je m’amuse
Bon matin existe au Québec malgré le fait que c’est un anglicisme
Ah cool :)
Pas seulement anglicisme on dit "Guten Morgen" en allemand
Peut-être que ça existe mais moi je me fais un honneur de ne jamais l'utiliser..... Pour moi c'est Bonjour.... tout comme le: ça la pas de bon sens (ça n'a pas de bon sens), ça l'existe, etc.... tout le monde disent ça (dis ça) mais pas moi !!!
Sorry I can't write in French yet. But i just posted a similar comment..i was wondering why good morning can't be BON MATIN..So your comment just made me feel like I am learning a little 😂😂.. Thanks/ merci
@@IAmFat1968 L'allemand n'a aucune influence sur le français parlé au Québec.
This is why English has so many "loan words". If we don't have our own word, we just use someone else's.
That would be American “english”. Dollar, Deli, etc... all non english words.
ah interesting :)
@@sfertonoc That's sorta my point. And where the hell do you think American English comes from?
Actually French also borrowed tons of words of from all the european languages : latin, greek, german, spanish, italian 👌 But modern words beeing borrowed tend to be 90% english borrowed (IT & technical terms). Some of the remaning 10% are mostly slang borrowed from arabic.
@@cescargot Who said anything about borrowing? You'll notice I used quote marks. We don't borrow shit. We straight up take it. Just ask the Indians. Both kinds. And the Africans. Need I say more?
Yeah, I've often noticed that "sibling(s)" is missing in French. It's a bit awkward to say frère(s) et soeur(s) each time you want to express that concept.
I guess there are lots of missing terms in English too. I like this one: l'esprit de l'escalier (stairway wit). It’s said when you think of the perfect reply too late, after the fact...when you're halfway down the stairs.
ah yeah interesting :)
Siblings : fratrie
@@ablc2007FR "Avez-vous une fratrie?" 😄
Jamie You mean a “comeback”?
@@leslienassar6829 Sort of, but the French term implies after the fact...when it's too late: "I wish I had said this or that, but I didn't think of it in time." A comeback is a timely response.
I'm a french acadian and we do say ''Bon matin''
ah ok cool, I guess I'm talking more about the French in France, where I'm from :)
Yeah we have bon matin in Québec too, mais genre il y beaucoup d'anglisismes au Québec haha
I do that too, and it seems that everyone accept it :)
@@yan_afrukh Yes :D
Pure anglicisim. At the very beggining "jour" is the light and the morning (attendre qu'il fasse jour, l'Aube = "le petit jour") and if you really whish a good whole day you can leave him with a "bonne journée "
That's why i think "bon matin" will never grow in european french.
The french word I miss the most in english is "chez". Chez moi" or "chez ma tante" is much more practicle than saying "At my place" or "at my aunt's place".
ah yeah interesting!
That is almost like saying that English does not have a word for "souffle".
English does not just borrow words, it rapes and pillages entire languages and takes what it wants.
Admittedly and English speaker saying "chez moi" is going to sound pretentious.
@@leod-sigefast haha, when did I get pretentious??! All I say is that for me to say for ex "at your grandmas" or at your oncles, pronouncing the s is difficult that's why I miss "chez". I was never pretentious.
@@leod-sigefast At what moment I was prententious? Don't be so insecure.
Oh yes! “Chez” is a great word.
I'd say "enjoy" is "apprécier" and "creepy" is "flippant" personally 🤔
:)
Creepy is not scary, and you can appreciate something but not enjoy it. Example, I appreciate the work but do not enjoy it. Example 2. The old man in the house did not scare me but I found him very creepy.
@@thetruth156real3 "Flippant" works perfectly but I think that in frenc se have many other words that are more precise for "enjoy", or you could use "s'enjailler" or "s'enjoir" except they are both not really used, because old or vulgar
"Malaisant" est un équivalent de cringy, en tout cas en ce moment.
Sauf que le mot "malaisant" n'existe pas
@@IcedFingers Le mot existe dès lors que les usagers l'utilisent
@@IcedFingers C'est pour cela que j'ai bien precisé "en ce moment"
oui c'est vrai, ce mot est nouveau et les gens commencent à l'utiliser.
J'aurais plutôt dit "flippant" étant donné que le mot "malaisant" n'existe pas.
Another one, in French we don’t have a word to say « both », you just say « les deux » which means « the two of them »
:)
Old French had the word "ambe" though, but it disappeared
"both" = "la paire"
@@alexandrelct826 To English speaker that sounds like a pair, which means 2 similar objects or persons that usually comes by 2. Where 'both' means 2 no matter matching, the same, or not.
@@ricoltmetric8156 Yes you absolutely right, thank you to help me in my english level 😉🙏😊
Prospère sounds more like prosperous just by the sound of the word.
Whenever i do the french R pronunciation, my acid reflux worsens lol. But I really like their R .
hahaha xD
That's funny... Ahahaha..
It is a uvular R.
🤣🤣
@@Voltaireooooo You have taught me a new word! I have always taught English speakers that the French “r” is just a gargle. If one can gargle one can say a French “r”. Uvular does sound a bit like medical speak to me.
It sounds like a mean joke: "There's no word for 'enjoy' in French." No, really! 😄
For enjoy and successfull. Could explain something about us.
We can actually have a simple word too depending on the way you use the "Enjoy". We can say "Profite" (or "Profite bien").
And the closest thing in Spanish is "gosarse" but you can't say "gosarse" without saying what you're trying to enjoy specifically. And I'm pretty sure no one says "gosarme".
haha
Wait nevermind. Spanish does have a word for enjoy. It's "disfrutar".
When I was living in France, an English teacher I worked with said she loved the connotation of “will” as a future-tense auxiliary in English.
English and French both have ways to say “I will” or “I'm going to” (future antérieur et futur proche), but she felt that “will” in English carries more of an intentionality to it, as if the person is more determined to do something.
That connotation comes from Old English, when “will” and “would” were used as action verbs meaning “to wish”, which no one says anymore (“I will that my mother is well”/“I would that she leave me alone”). You'd only ever hear that in Shakespeare plays and other classic literature from centuries ago.
You very occasionally see “will” as an action verb meaning “to bequeath” (“My late grandfather willed me his war medallion”) but that's a different usage.
Anyway, back to the idea of “will” and “going to” talking about the future: I'd guess that most Anglophones would say the two are interchangeable. It might be something very subtle that we don't notice, something we think is the same but that actually makes us think someone is still learning the language if they choose the wrong one. I'm not sure. I just thought it was an interesting observation.
"Bon matin" doesn't exist in France? It's as ubiquitous as "good morning" in Canadian French...
It doesn't exist in France though...just "bonjour". Interesting she doesn't say that it means "good day".
In Quebec province, we do use BON MATIN (and also use bon après-midi ou bonsoir) and it is pretty common to say that!!!!!
@@cameleonfleuri It's common but you always get grammar nazis telling you it's not proper French. lol
@@pyral514 "bon matin" makes perfect sense to me! I have cousins in Montreal and they certainly say that. I'm not sure this is about grammar nazis - its really just a question of different uses in different places - not about right or wrong.
@@pyral514 Bonsoir is a french word and bon matin is also a French word
I us it a lot in Switzerland
Excited! As in “I’m excited to go to the park” or something like that. It’s such a common mistake for English speaking students to say “je suis excité” and not realize that that does NOT mean what they think it means. I’ve not heard a word that can concisely sum up the feeling of being excited in a non sexual manner-does anyone else have a translation for this word?
no but we can say it differently like "j'ai hâte d'aller au parc" : I can't wait to go to the park
My French teacher always told me to say “enthousiaste” instead; not sure how common it is, but apparently it doesn't have a sexual connotation like “excité(e)” does.
Christian Kramer That was going to be my choice! No good way to say excited....
I just finished the 4th french class i take in university and I just found your channel and I’m learning so much in this one hour of me scrolling through youtube at 3 am, and maybe it’s even more than I’ve learned in class. I’m going to France in spring break and I’m so exciting now that I’m learning more spoken french! ❤️
aw cool thanks for you comment! it means a lot to know that we're helping ! :)
One word that my Parisian friend and I were talking about is skyline. Because in French you would say « l’horizon », but that doesn’t really get at the artificial nature of the word. So we came up with « le découpé de gratte-ciels » :)
haha interesting :)
Paysage urbain
Il existe cependant plusieurs traductions aux mots que tu as mentionnés, en voici quelques unes:
Good morning: Bon matin
Cheap: Bon marché, abordable, économique
Sleepy: Somnolent
Successful: Fructueux, prospère, efficace
Creepy : Sinistre, Glauque
To Cringe: Grimacer
Enjoy: Apprécier, jouir, aimer, bénéficier, savourer, déguster, profiter
Est-ce que vous êtes d’accord ?
The one that really bugs me is "brittle". You're stuck with "fragile" which doesn't describe things that are strong but can snap. Whereas fragile things are necessarily not strong at all.
You have "Friable" for brittle
@@ludoviclagouardette7020 Not quite, brittle is only saying things can break. But even bullet proof body armor can be described as brittle (if you push it over its limit, the metal will break instead of bend or tear). I don't see how "Friable" can say the same.
@@leoren5128 Don't know French, but looking at the formation I'd guess that "Friable" is either fragile or breakable. As typically used in my experience "fragile" means something is easily broken while "brittle" means that something is prone to cracks and coming apart rather than deforming.
Glass can be described as both. A Hard Drive or postage stamp sized doll house is fragile, very little force is needed to break them/cause them to stop functioning as intended. Cast iron or thick ceramics are brittle, the force may be little or big but when the strength of the material is exceed cracks will propagate turning a single piece into many.
« Fragile » means that something is easily breakable, strong or not
Une statue est fragile tout comme un vase est fragile ;)
Cassant
The word I miss in English is a gender specific word for cousin.
Or friend
Or everything
Au Québec, en plus de “bon marché”, nous utilisons le terme “abordable” pour dire “pas cher”.
Mais abordable se traduit mieux comme "affordable" , non ?
"Pas cher" existe en Québec.
Carpe Linguae C’est vrai. Mais la différence entre “pas cher” et “abordable” est mince.
Jeff Kardos Jr. Biensûr que ça existe. Je parlais des alternatives à “Pas cher” pour dire “cheap”.
Abordable s'utilise aussi en métropole
1:06 We only have "cher", "pas cher". That explains the prices in France and Switzerland XD.
haha :)
"creepy" peut se dire flippant je pense ? idk
Malaisant?
Glauque?
Nous les Franco-Ontariens on dit c'est cringe.
Je me demande qu'il soit traduire comme: c'était louche et un peu menacent
Creepy c'est effrayant
You don’t have the word “ to like”. In French we can only love everything, lol!!! What a good strategy, way to think positive, France!
haha yeah I guess it's true^^
We can say "j'aime bien" which is different from "j'aime", so when you "like" something, tu "l'aime bien" :)
I love you = je t'aime
I like you = je t'aime bien
@@lucasdkdkdj3526 there is j'adore as well, keep it complicated:)
There is a word for "to like" in French. It's "apprécier".
The odd thing about not having a French word for 'enjoy' is that basically it IS a French word :-).
yeah it comes for French but we just stopped using it. and I don't know if it had the exact same meaning. but it is odd you're right about that^^it's interesting to see languages evolve!
I've been told it's funny we don't have a word for ''to bake'' since we (french people) bake a lot^^... cuire au four? faire des gâteaux?
''hang out'' ?? passer du temps avec quelqu'un ? se voir?
''design''... il a bien ''concevoir /conception'' mais il y a moins cette idée d'esthétisme
''cheekbones''.. euuh des os de joue? des pommettes? mais les pommettes c'est pas les os en tant que tels
''to ride'' ... chevaucher ? lol.. ça marche pas pour un vélo ou une moto..
for cheekbones I think they say os malar or os zygomatique
These are so true! Both English and French were my first languages, but because most of the people I speak French with also speak English, we jump back and forth between them, so it's hard to notice these 'missing' words. I wish there was an English word closer to démodé. Like you can say 'oh that shirt was so last season' but it's not really natural to say that a shirt is outdated/old fashioned in English, especially if the shirt isn't at least 10+ years old. My mom and I always use démodé, even if the rest of the conversation is in English.
ah that's a good one! thanks for sharing :))
Thank you for the pertinent video.
Since you asked.... American hippie slang sometimes features the adjective "heavy," which can be understood to mean "serious" or "important" (or "consequential"). Soon after I moved to a Francophone society, I learned that trying to communicate the American hippie adjective "heavy" by saying "lourd" is awkward and misleading. Still slightly awkward--but, likely, not misleading--could be to say, "avoir des conséquences," or, "à ne pas ignorer."
I think it's so funny that enjoy is such an English word now, and there is no modern French equivalent, when Middle English borrowed the word "enjoy" from Old French enjoier/anjoier/enjoer and also the word "joy" from French "joie."
yeah interesting right? it's cool to see how languages evolve :)
@@Street_French The word enjoy, as a stand alone word, is relatively new in English and has only come into use in the last 20 years or so. Up until about 2000 we would say "enjoy yourself" or "have a good time". Never just "enjoy".
Enjoy: late Middle English: from Old French enjoier ‘give joy to’ or enjoïr ‘enjoy’, both based on Latin gaudere ‘rejoice’.
How about the word "full" as in "I'm full" after eating? I've always said it "j'ai bien mangé" which translates to "I have eaten well" which sounds more polite than "I'm full".
Yes that totally works :)
Yes, full is kind of vulgar. (Im my language you are _mätt_ = saturated after a meal. To us, that sounds better than full.)
I've had many foreigners say to me"Je suis pleine" after a meal, never say that! This is what you said of a pregnant dog for exemple "Elle est pleine".
I am full after eating in English is wrong. Better still say am feed-up. I am full comes from Africa and is a kind of childish way (mostly used by children).
"J'ai les dents du fond qui baignent"
I'm not surprised, as I've struggled with some concepts when speaking French. 'Enjoy' is one, and 'profitez bien' to me doesn't carry the same sense of fun. FUN! There's no exact noun or adjective 'fun', as in 'did you have fun, let's go somewhere fun, etc. It was fun. He's a fun guy. I guess you'd use 'amusant/amusé'. A French colleague had already pointed out that there's no word 'sibling' in French. So is the phrase 'sibling rivalry' from psychology translated as "la rivalité des freres et des soeurs?" Thanks for your video - really enjoyable.
ah yeah I don't know about the psychology concept name, probably :)
Tu m’as bien surpris avec des mots qui existent en anglais, mais qui n’ont pas d’équivalent en français. J’ai trouvé ce sujet vachement inter. Merci beaucoup encore une fois...
ah cool ^^
Hey, great video but just so you know:
- "it sounds like" --> "ça sonne comme" is generally accepted for songs and music
- "to cringe, cringy" --> grimacer, grimaçant
Also, "bon matin" should exist and I even say it all the time :)
J'ai réfléchi à la remarque sur ressembler. En effet on utilise ressembler dans toutes les situations mais c'est parceque la définition du mot nous le permet. Tu as donné les exemples des situations visuelles et sonores mais c'est valable pour tout ! On va dire ça ressemble à du poulet (alors qu'en anglais it tastes like chiken) ou ca ressemble à de la fourrure (pour le toucher) etc. Encore une fois il s'agit d'une façon de s'exprimer. Il y a des qui utiliseraient d'autres mots exemple: ça à le même goût que du poulet, etc.
Omg, Bonmarché is a clothes shop in UK. Lol.
ow cool :)
this reminds me of my French colleagues when I asked them what the word for "food" is in French and it took them a good five minutes to figure it out, because "nourriture" is used so rarely compared to "to eat" etc.
I was looking for someone that teaches french like you and finally I found you 😌 thanks ur way is really good.
Happy to help!☺☺
If you want these, you can have them. That's what makes English so powerful: if it wants a word, it just takes it. The pronunciation and spelling are slightly modified, and that's it; new word. French should start doing this too.
Spanish still has more verb tenses and less figurative words so more accurate than English and French. As in English but with more extent we can also create new adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs from any word. It's not showing off but I wanted to share it its really awesome. I speak 4 languages.
English also has a very bizarre orthography with only minimal rules for spelling and unlike most languages, you can end a word in english with every single letter except for q and j and there a lot more sounds that can end a word as well. And due to vowel shifting English has such a different sound
In general that pretty much any word can be adapted and the original spelling is often kept.
The confusing amalgamation of different languages that is English is a credit to how easy it is to adopt loan words. In many other languages the sounds and orthography are quite strict and its not as easy.
@@hughmungus99 I'm learning a little Japanese, and they are downright obsessed with making any new word Japanese-ified. I'm glad they're acquiring new words, but it does seem like a lot of effort for something quite simple.
@@leod-sigefast you my friend would be very interested in the Anglish Conlang. It aims to replace all latin/french loan words and loan words from other languages (i. e. safari from Swahili safari, gauze from arabic قزّ "qazz", etc.). Its pretty neat and while all it really does is replace vocabulary there are a couple of other changes that make it more germanic
Holy crap, you're the second French channel that I actually like. You're up front about modern french terms that exist and don't exist. Unlike some other channels.
All this was fascinating, but I happened to glance to the right and saw the cushion cover which is exactly like the two I have in my little bungalow in England. Ikea? Incroyable!
haha yeah everyone has a little bit or a lot of ikea stuff in their house haha ^^
A couple of English universal words that don't seem to exist are "off" and "on". Every context for "off" and "on" seem to have a different word. The save with the verb "to get". "Get" is kind of a "catch all" word. I've also seen where English words are adopted into French, like "Stop, Parking, Weekend, etc." Once on a French cop show a cop was talking on the radio and she said, "Ok, standby". And when chasing a suspect the cop yelled "Stop!" instead of "Arrêtez!"
ah cool !
Je devine “recevoir” “comprendre” “avoir” ca depend la situation. We use get as future tense all the time too.
In Bourgogne, people say "Bonjour" when you go into a baker's or other shop at 7 am and then say "Bonsoir" as you leave 2 minutes later. I've never understood why but it is a regional trait.
ow ok never heard that either. yeah must be a regional thing
There are French words that don't exist in English. eg--- Terroir. Associated primarily about wine. In English it requires a long sentence or even a book. LOL
ah yeah great one!
@@Street_French I think your piece on these English words was very good. I like the selection of "cringe" and "creepy". They are words of "sensation and feeling". I wonder why they exist in English....LOL Must be a reason.
The word I hoped would make the list, that I can not find an equivalent for in almost any other language is "care". As in "I care about you" or "I don't care about that"
in french it's "se soucier de": Je me soucie de toi: I care about you. but it's not used that much. You can also sais: the tient à toi: I care about you. Tient come from the verbe tenir (the hold/keep). The first one with soucier is more about I worry about you, I care about your happiness/wellbeing etc.. The second one is more "You are important to me".
yeah I guess we say these 2 sentences with different words and verbs and you can't translate directly with "care". but thanks for the example i'll talk about it in the part 2 :)
Siblings = fraterie
J’avoue qu’on utilise très peu fraterie/sororité au jour le jour !
ah oui ces mots existent mais on les utilise jamais dans la vie courante c'est vrai ^^
@@Street_French Pas d'accord, on utilise fratrie assez souvent.
Nan c'est pas le même mot, personne va demander si tu as une fratrie :p
Another interesting video. I wish I knew about you when I was still teaching French. I'm now retired after 30 years.
ah thanks :)
Hi. I really enjoy :) your videos! And my question is: doesn't "jouir de quelque chose" means "to enjoy"?
Bonjour! Yeah it does, but no one really speaks like that anymore :) thanks for watching!
"jouir" is mainly used as a sexual term, that's why it feels really awkward to use it outside that context.
My French teacher told me in the past that French doesn't really have the word "food", which is really interesting considering that France is so well known for their cuisine. :D
yeah I guess we have the word "nourriture" but it sounds so weird and we don't really use it. It's like saying "nourishment" haha
There's also the word "bouffe", even if it's quite vulgar
I guess the best translation would be ''à manger''. example : I brought food. --> j'ai apporté à manger.
I guess your french teacher did not really speak french then.... :)
1:39 want to sleep = somnolente
2:57 A word used by young = Flippant (idk why)
3:25 In French we used a word “not specific” but “specific” idk how to describe it >~<
Avez vous des proches ?
Do you have some family/friends ?
Pour Cringy a new word is used by young (yes French use/create actually new word)
It’s too cringy now
C’est trop malaisant
(This word is used to say you don’t feel good ;-;)
And yes we need to create a word for Enjoy but I don’t feel it will create because people love variety in there word
then if you have 1000 ways to say enjoy it good ? That stupide 😅
Pour répondre à certain mots qui n’existe pas ou n’ont pas de précision précise on utilise dés expressions (que je déteste toujours autant >~
J'aurais pas dis mieux ! En effet j'ai déjà entendu quelques personnes utiliser le mot "malaisant", du coup on l'adopte aussi. Même si ce n'est pas un mot présent dans le dictionnaire, je pense qu'il y fera son apparition d'ici quelques années.
As a French learner this video definitely helped me a lot when It comes to these words especially “enjoy, sounds like and shallow” .
Merci pour cette vidéo pour que les mots ne me dérangent plus!
de rien ! :)))
But enjoy comes from old French 'enjoier' (to give joy)!
our word for enjoy is jouir, but now it only mean to cum so... we use other words for that
@@SuperLn1991 Hmm, yes but what about "jouir des connaissances" for example, or "jouissance". Enjoy is "Jouir de" something. I don't know why the word has been sectioned off nowdays by pornography and solicitors, but it does indeed exist, just that it's not used correctly.
@@philipwittamore exactly, we don't use it a lot anymore because of that.
@@philipwittamore It's a bit like how gay has faded out of use in English as a term to mean happy. Meanings can change or get added over time.
@@paranoidrodent Agreed, sometimes usage makes a language poorer by restricting a words meaning. Right now gay and jouir have left gaps in their languages. It would be interesting to discover how in the past similar gaps were filled later on in the evolution of the language.
Many years ago, my sister found a full book just on words unique to various languages, a collection of untranslatables that were exquisitely explained. Anybody heard about it?
As an American living in France, the thing I struggle with is the fact that French doesn't really have a way to express excitement. There's d'être ravi(e), but it's not really the same thing. My friends and I joke that the French are too cool to get excited.
haha yeah it's interesting because that's where you see how culture and language go hand in hand. we just don't express our excitement so much here haha it's more subtle I guess compared to the US
@@Street_French Peut-être c'est à cause de la pudeur! :)
In french, there's no word for "quaint." It's such a weird mix of traits that makes something quaint, and it's frustrating to try and describe a quaint thing with synonyms
Springxnich21 I just heard yesterday that “quaint” in Middle English could mean clever, attractive, well made by someone who knew what they were doing. (Ref.: podcast “The History of the English Language.)
"Curieux" would be the closest I can think of for "quaint."
I also like your "it sounds good" example. In Québec I have heard the anglicisme "ça sonne bien." Mais it's wrong, of course. "Sounds good" has no really French equivalent, it's true.
Il n'y a pas de traduction pour le mots "bully"
un Intimidateur?
@@nobodyinterestingyou nope, c'est un autre terme qui existe pour celui-là.
That's right - "bullying" is increasingly being rendered as "harcèlement" in the media. Harcèlement au travail, harcèlement à l'école… but I haven't heard 'harceleur' much, if at all.
@@nicoc6387 harceleur is either harasser or stalker. Bully is a general attitude and behavior not included in french language.
There is word to describle aspect of it, but bully as a societal entity ins't french.
non, sometimes we say "la brute", like a brutal person
Thank you for this video!
I think this kind of words are really bothering the non-native speakers.
Having spoken different languages before, I just can't get my mind around the fact that - no, sometimes there REALLY is no french word for that!
By the way, is there a correct way to say "top management" in French?
Of course, one can say "cadres supérieurs", but it feels much broader than "top management"...
ah cool glad you enjoy our videos :)
and sorry I wouldn't know the exact translation to that. cadres supérieurs is a thing though^^
-Pour cheap il y a un mot en français mais on ne l'utilise plus depuis trèèès longtemps car il a une double signification péjorative , c'est "vil" qui signifie , à l'origine, avoir peu de valeur morale OU marchande "acheter à vil prix" mais personnes ne dit ça à moins de faire partie de l'académie française haha.
-"sleepy" c'est somnolent en français ;)
-pour "successful" il peut y avoir prospère ou fructueux (une fructueuse carrière) mais dans le parlé de tous les jours c'est très rarement utilisé (par contre utilisé à l'écrit dans les livres/journaux etc... )
-"siblings" c'est le mot "fratrie" en français (probablement vouer à disparaître ou être modifier avec l'écriture inclusive)
- "enjoy" vient d'un ancien verbe français "enjoir" qui a été remplacé par "apprécier" au fil du temps , on a tout simplement supprimé de notre vocabulaire ^^ (bien que ces derniers temps un dérivé de ce mot ai fait sont apparition : "enjailler" lui même argot ivoirien emprunté de l'anglais, emprunté du français puis récupéré par certains . Inception)
We have the word "siblings" but we usually say the same thing you do. "Do you have any brothers and/or sisters?"
ah interesting :)
If there was some way to check, I bet in general usage more than half the time "sibling" is followed by "rivalry".
Good evening. Thanks for your instructive and funny video.
I have deep (ha ha ha) conversation with francophone and anglophone relatives - being francophone myself.
I'm looking for an exact and accurate french equivalent for hug. "Câlin", "étreinte", "accolade"... not so bad, but not exact. One suggested "embrassade" ; that's a good suggestion but too long, too heavy, too scholar... and related to "embrasser", a verb that everyone hears as to kiss nowadays (do see what I wrote about "jouir", too).
Well. The quest for a french hug goes on.
"étreinte", "accolade" are way too old fashioned and not used anymore. It's "Câlin" :)
In England the word "dear" also means expensive, like "chere" which is almost "cher".
Dear and cher are clean translations in both senses (dear in cost and dear to one's heart). The version ending in e is just the feminine form. Mon cheri translates literally to "my cherished" but figuratively to "my dear" or "dearest".
We do not have cringe in Czech either, it is so weird, it is one of those words that are used quite often in English, it always make me wonder how many ideas and feelings cannot be expressed because we have not develop the language to describe them...
ah yeah interesting :)
traduction i miss you : c'est inversé : tu me manques
Je me souviens que j'avais tellement de mal au début haha ;)
Thanks very much. Yes, I'll subscribe. Your content and presentation is very good.
ah cool glad you like it :)
My favorite words in any language is the words I love you. Happy feelings are the best. I enjoy those from other places. How close is it still to creole?. I found a Cajun dude on my cb radio at home. Live the life folks.
Bon matin se dit au Canada ;)
Ah cool :)
@@Street_French Il y’a même une émission matinale qui s’appelle « Bon Matin » lol
Does profiter not mean enjoy? I always thought it did
"profiter" literally means "make the most out of something, take advantage" so it can have a negative connotation. but we also use it positively to say "enjoy"
Aaahhh these Latin-based languages!! I am Brazilian and we do not have most of these words either, though we do have the Portuguese equivalents to "cheap" and "successful". But no "creepy", "enjoy", "taste like", "sound like" and "smell like" either!! I guess that's why I love the English language so much, it is very lexically rich!! :)
In British English most people would ask 'do you have any brothers or sisters?', we could use the word siblings, but we rarely do.
ah interesting^^
clnre I noticed the same thing when I lived in England. We use “siblings” or “family” much more often in Western Canada; there's a lot more liberal attitude towards gender here so it's considered a bit awkward not to use inclusive language (especially if you are, or know someone who is, non-binary).
It's next to impossible to use inclusive language in French, though. We have a “sad face” on the classroom wall that my students sometimes point to when I tell them they have to use a gendered pronoun or gendered job title, because they were all raised to use gender-inclusive words in English. I have one student who is making it her mission to convince the French to adopt neutral third-person pronouns. I don't think she realises the enormity of that task, but power to her!
"Siblings" is commonly used in America as well.
I think in French there isn’t an equivalent for the word _available_ as in when a product is in stock and can be bought. It seems like a pretty useful word.
there's is, it's "disponible" :)
What about rejouir?
And I would say home is an English word that gets at something specific that isn't easy to capture in French. Chez soi/moi/etc. maybe, but when we get into constructions like "he has no sense of home" it gets awkward to translate
A French citizen told me that 'brasserie' has no exact English translation.
What about breweries ?
First time I saw that word, I thought it meant a Bra!
Yes, brasserie means brewery, but brewery in english doesn't mean a tavern, bistro or pub
Actually most if not all the romance languages lack a word for 'siblings' , but in spanish we take the plural word for "brother" and use it generally to replace it. "Mis hermanos tienen hambre" that would be equivalent to "My siblings are hungry" et en français ça se dirait: Mes fréres ont faim.
ah interesting :) but "mes frères" doesn't work to say brothers and sisters like in spanish ^^
The word "Home" is also not found. This world is my home. It feels like home.
domicile
Home = maison
@@Syl75 I don't think 'domicile' is of english origin.
English of 'maison' is 'mansion' which is an aristocratic large home. I think.
@@MrBonners I didn't understand your reply. "Maison" is the French word for "Home".
@@Syl75 'Maison' That is very close to 'mansion' which is english for a large rich home on a large piece of land covered in gardens. No french word for that?
'Home' in english is very general and could mean anything from a tent to a mansion.
'domocile' is the english legal word for where you live, same thing. Usually used in forms and applications and such. House number, street address, country. etc.
'Domicile' has a more french origin sound, not english. Having a legal element it's origin maybe latin or roman law.
Is there a word for "home"? I think "chez" is the closest, but there doesn't seem to be a noun as it is in English
no we don't have a noun to say "home" you're right!
Interesting how there's no French word for enjoy, but enjoy comes from French.
yeah true! languages evolve all the time, it's interesting^^
Is there a noun for "fun" that you would use in the phrase, "Have fun!"?
nos but we have the verb "amuser"
"amuses-toi bien!" or we would say :
"profite!" (kind of like enjoy)
I thought enjoy in french was apprécier.
yeah we have that word but it's sound kind of formal, I never use it
Apprècier= appreciate which is far from enjoy.
Je suis en retard pour la fête mais on dit "bon matin" en louisiane depuis longtemps. Le #1 mot en anglais que j'ai du mal à traduire c'est AWKWARD. Bonne continuation !
ah cool^^
In Québec, we sometimes say "malaisant" to translate "awkward"
@Sandra A I can't tell you you're wrong, but gênant is "embarrassing", which is not the same feeling as "awkward" to me. It definitely comes close, though.
@Sandra A I'd say "ça m'a mis mal à l'aise" is the most accurate translation. The others don't really fit the feeling of "awkward" or have other words already. Like I said before, "embarrassant" and "gênant" have "embarrassing" as a translation. However, "mal à l'aise" describes the person. That's why we have "malaisant", to describe the situation.
I don't think any of these are bad translations. I just think they're not as accurate as they could be; which is why we kinda made up this new word; to be more accurate.
@Sandra A Yeah, "malaisant" is not recognised by most dictionaries. Also, I did say that those were not bad translations, just not as accurate as "malaisant"
Nom d'un pipe c'est n'importe quoi :
Cheap = économique (en fait non)
Shallow = superficiel
Enjoy = profite (tu le dis toi même !)
Edit : tant qu'à faire je rajoute deux autres mots pour enfoncer le clou
Cringe = grimaçant
Sleeply = somnolent
C'est de traductions qui transmette exactement la même chose qu'en anglais
Hmm..... économique......
But does that word convey the idea that the object is of low quality and possibly not worth the lower price?
(Google Translate, human help appreciated) Mais ce mot traduit-il l’idée que l’objet est de mauvaise qualité et ne vaut peut-être pas le prix le plus bas?
L'eau est "superficielle" par ici?? non, clairement "shallow" n'existe pas en Français.
Économique, en anglais = economical, clairement, l'équivalent de "cheap" = pas cher, 2 mots.
je pense que je me fais mal comprendre dans la vidéo. quand je dis que les mots n'existe pas, c'est qu'il y a pas une traduction EXACTE, mais bien sûr qu'on a des équivalents.
perso, je ne dirais jamais "cette robe est économique". je dirais "cette robe est pas chère".
superficiel, j'ai écrit un true dans la vidéo. oui on dit que quelqu'un est superficiel.
mais on dit pas que la mer est superficiel quand on est à la plage par exemple.
et enjoy et profite c'est un peu différent quand même. quand quelqu'un dit "enjoy your meal" on dit pas "profite de ton plat." on va dire "bon appétit".
bref voilà, ce que je dit c'est qu'on a d'autres manières de dire les choses mais on a pas les mots exactes.
@@Street_French je suis désolé mais c'est faux
- je ne sais pas si personnellement tu dirais " économique" mais pourtant c'est la définition du mot. Cela paraît très arbitraire de faire en fonction de ce que tu dis. Je vais donner un exemple ou on peut l'utiliser sans que ce soit bizarre : "Des moyens de transports pratiques et économiques"
- on ne dit pas une mer superficielle mais on peut tout à fait dire "des eaux superficielles" ou encore "une blessure superficielle". Ce n'est pas parce qu'on ne peut pas faire du mot à mot que le concept n'existe pas en francais. Ou alors aucun mot n'a de traduction exacte en français.
- Pareil on peut pas faire du mot à mot mais ça ne prouve rien. Tu as juste pris une tournure qui sonne mal, mais si je dis "profite de ton dernier repas" bah tout de suite ça se dit (j'ai rajouté l'adjectif dernier pour que ca sonne mieux mais ça ne change rien fondamentalement)
@@raphaelpaulian si on dit tout à fait "des eaux superficielles". Non pour économique ouvre un dictionnaire français et regarde la définition. Exemple " des moyens de transports pratiques et économiques"
I looked up sleepy on Google Translate and it says "Somnolente". Is this not correct?
Numa Numa FanBase YS1 I’m not a higher person to judge on this by French was always my first language and like it doesn’t rly fit, somnolent would be like so tired that you’re not behaving right and is almost sleeping standing, sleepy really isn’t translatable yet I hope
that word exist but no one says it. that's what we like to focus on with on street french :) how we speak in real life is so different from words you find in a dictionary or sentences you find in a text book :))
StreetFrench.org exactly, c’est les registres de langues lol
Il n'y a pas un mot pour "pets" en français. On peut dire "les animaux domestiques" peut-être. En anglais on dit souvent "Do you have pets? A cat or a dog?" Aussi, les mots pour "son-in-law" and "step-son" sont les mêmes. Beaucoup de malentendus sont possible. Est-ce qu'il y a un mot pour "twee" ou "overly sweet, cloying, sappy, ou shmaltzy".
oui animaux domestiques c'est correct mais on dit plutôt animaux de compagnie.
hm I'm not sure for the last word, I don't think so haha
The biggest gap in translation I find is always "get." For example, I am going to get my shoes. Can you get me a glass of water? In English, we use "get" as a catch-all. Maybe it's our lack of vocabulary, but this idea doesn't exist in French! Usually I have to find some combo of donner, avoir, obtenir to better express my idea of "get."
ah yeah we say things differently that's true^^
same with grab.
Shallow can be translated by surface or superficiel
there won't be "enjoy" and "successfull" in French for foreign learners
Oh, so that's why I has been suffering so much
haha :)
I grew up in New England, a few years after the end of WW2 and was taught both French and English in elementary school and beyond. I was a little guy, and when I had my first communion, all I remembered of it, was how big the cup was. So, I said, "Ohh, la-la! La gross challese!" Yup, it didn't go well for me, after that, either.
Then, as I got older, the Sister Tomas-"Marty-Comb," told us the story about how an Angel of the Lord, knocked on Lot's door, and told him to take his family and flee, from the city, and to never look back, or that person would be turned into salt!" And, I then learned that Lot's wife was in fact, turned to salt, because she looked back! Damn, I was scared to death listening to all of these stories about large communion cups and women turned into salt!!! The Nun noticed me moving around in my seat, and asked me, "Jean-Michel, what is the problem with the story, didn't you understand the true meaning if it, or, are you confused by it!?" I told her that I was confused, and when she asked why, I said, "Because I want to know what happened to the "flea?"
If you don't speak French, English, or Spanish, STFU! I'm just an elderly gentleman having his fun for the day. I'll just go down and take a nap, now, choke my chicken for a little bit (I grew up on a farm in Northern Maine) while remembering all the fun I used to have at the Jean Baptiste Festivals (QC & Montreal) used to go to as a child and young adult, pretending that I did not speak or understand French! But, those stories are for another time, like the situation I was in 2 hours after my arrival in VN, while waiting in line to check-in at the replacement battalion, where I heard an older man having a conversation with a younger man (both day-laborers) about the size of their "pencils." So, I'll get to those stories another time. For now, "Bite me"!
Thanks for this. A mistake that many Anglophones (including me) make is to use awkward translations for words that don’t exist in French. To speak speak French authentically, you have to use the pallet given.
Good analysis. Of course languages are definitively not like mathematical bijections (where you can always link one and only one item of a group to one and only one item of another group). However, in all rich languages, you can always find an adequate way of expressing anything, even sophisticated.
:))
And don't forget *"Please"* isn't available in french as a 1 word
Ah yes that's true :)
S'il te plait
What about "speeding", as in driving faster than the speed limit? Is there a word for that? Like "I got a ticket for speeding" or "I gave up speeding for Lent".
I guess not. we say "j'ai eu une amende pour excès de vitesse"
I find you really engaging to watch!
oh great to hear that :)
"J'ai sommeil", "c'est flippant", "c'est malaisant"...
*En effet, on les a pas en Français, ni même dans l'argot*
Malaisant ? C'est du vieux français ?
@@stephanestephane4291 C'est de l'argot, et probablement pas du vieux Français, vu que les gens qui l'utilisent sont plutôt jeunes...
oui c'est vrai que maintenant on dit de plus en plus malfaisant. je pense que c'est même un nouveau mot dans le dictionnaire. à vérifier :)
@@Street_French Malaisant est un néologisme, oui. Ce n'est pas considéré comme du bon français, pour l'instant. Ce n'est pas de l'argot non plus.
Pour "Good morning", on utilise courramment "Bon matin" ici au Québec.
ah cool :)
Do you have the word pervert? Or a slang in America would be ‘ he’s a perv’ or ‘he’s a little pervy’.
we don't have "perv" but we say : "un pervert"
It's originaly a French word :) we just don't pronounce the "-t" at the end of the word.
The direct translation of sleepy is somnolent(e), even though we use « j’ai sommeil » every time, it doesn’t mean that this word is off the grid
we never say "somnolent"
StreetFrench.org it’s not commonly used but it’s still here and I do use it sometimes
Is there an exact word for "bored" other than "ennuyé"? The way most of the French bilinguals explain to me does not really convinces me. Any suggestion? Thanks
Creepy is heavily overused in English (in reference to people at least) and is borderline slang anyway.
I guess so yeah
@@Street_French Slang is good!
@@leod-sigefast WTF
Hi is there an equivalent of excited in French
try saying 'Ninety-Seven' in french. LOL
:)
Is it "quatre-vingt-dix-sept"?
@@melplayssims2812 which literally translates to 'four-twenty-ten-seven'
Muzzammil Jummun Which mathematically means four x twenty plus ten and seven!