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Politics and the English Language
I’ve been working all week on a very, very serious article about the upcoming French election and its significance to the world. I was planning to share the highlights of my week’s worth of Deep Thoughts About French Politics with you this morning, but a) The article’s still not finished; b) It occurred to me that maybe you aren’t anywhere near as interested in this election as I am, which would be quite understandable; c) It’s the weekend; and d) I just found these videos and they’re hilarious.
So: The newsroom at France24, which I assume is staffed by native English speakers, is very smug about how much better their English is than France’s politicians. To the horror of the Académie française, I’m sure, young French people tend to think speaking English is really cool, and those who can lord it over those who can’t — and that’s most of them. This by the way is for real linguistic reasons that it would take me too long to explain in detail; it has to do with the narrowness of the French phonetic target — by the time he or she is an adult, a native French speaker’s oral musculature is just too weak to make a wide range of the very strange sounds English-speakers make; it’s not because they’re lazy; they do try hard, but if you don’t get them young, they’ll just never be able to pronounce words like “they.” It’s not their fault: The “θ” sound really is the linguistic equivalent of a Flying Disco Drop three-ball juggling cascade:
Anyway, today France 24 ran an article about the “ongoing dialogue in the FRANCE 24 newsroom on the challenge of translating French presidential hopefuls’ slogans and party names into the language of Shakespeare.” Those of you who are actually interested in the French language or French politics may consult it at your leisure. But those of you who just want to laugh at the French may skip directly to the video:
They saved the best for last. “In the newsroom,” they explain, “we’ve been referring to this video as Macron’s ‘Vagina monologue.'”
I have a message for you guys. #ScienceMarch pic.twitter.com/ZnkFIIksdx
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) February 10, 2017
The rest of the article is funny too, but I wasn’t sure it conformed to our Code of Conduct, so to be on the safe side, I’ve redacted all the punchlines:
The race’s other leading candidates, Les Républicains’ scandal-plagued conservative François Fillon, the Socialists’ Benoît Hamon, and the National Front’s Marine Le Pen haven’t struggled as much in translation as they have to stay on message.
Fillon’s primary slogan: “Le courage de la verité” or “The Courage of Truth,” started to ring a bit false once the news of alleged fake jobs, in which his wife and children were allegedly paid for work they never performed, broke in late January.
Quietly changed to “Une volonté pour la France”, “Willpower for France,” the new slogan can be seen on street posters, which vandals and political activists have delighted in defacing so that they read, “Un vol pour la France”: “Theft for France.”
The extreme right’s Marine Le Pen has kept it simple with “Au Nom du Peuple!”, “In the Name of the People!” taking a cue from the Macron campaign by using that funky exclamation mark.
Socialist Hamon, meanwhile, has gone with a message that not only warms the heart, but makes it beat again: “Faire battre le Cœur de la France”, “Make the Heart of France Beat [Again].
It all brings back fond memories of former president Nicolas Sarkozy, who confounded the English-language press back in 2012, after a man attending the annual Salon d’Agriculture refused to shake the then-president’s hand, to which Sarkozy replied, “[Redacted]!” [Warning: Video contains strong language.]
There’s no soft way to translate the conservative politician’s phrasing: “Get lost, you [redacted].”
But as this story went to press, another debate was launched in the newsroom: “No, it’s closer to ‘[redacted]!’ “The original meaning is actually ‘[redacted]’, but that seems a bit harsh.” “Ok, how about [redacted]?”
It was funny before I made it family-friendly, trust me.
And just so we here on Ricochet don’t come across as total snobs: What’s the most embarrassing mistake you’ve ever made in your efforts to speak a foreign tongue? I’d tell you about mine — it was in Turkish, on Twitter — but I’m afraid that story doesn’t conform to our Code of Conduct. A concerned Turkish citizen, realizing I clearly had no idea what I’d just said, sent me a DM that very gently explained that I must never, ever, ever use that word again. It took me a long time for me to find someone who wasn’t too embarrassed to tell me what it meant. I’m still embarrassed when I think about it now.
As for the very, very serious article about French politics, I’ll post the link to it when I finish it. I reckon it can wait. Enjoy the weekend.
Published in General
I am so glad you wrote this. I shall ponder this post all weekend. Great fun. (I do miss your Sunday morning posts that were just pure fun.)
And when you are done with this assignment, can you take a few minutes out of your day and take some pictures of the flowers in bloom in springtime in Paris? Thank you. :)
Yes! They’re gorgeous. I’ll take some tomorrow, in fact.
I have to say this quickly: It works in reverse too. I think French is hard for Americans to pronounce as they get older.
My oldest child, my daughter Kate, was so gifted in speaking (and reading and writing) French that it pretty much pushed her along in her academic life. To people who spoke French as a first language, her pronunciation was astounding coming from an American. She spent her junior year in Dijon in the oldest foreign study group that our nation’s universities have established overseas. Kate had some frustration understanding people sometimes, but they understood her. There is such a thing as talent. That said, she was (is) an extraordinarily gifted flutist. And I’ve always surmised that the two sort of went together. The embouchure needs were the same for both. (Thus we human beings are complete packages. God gave us all of the things he knew we’d need in order to fulfill the purpose he had in mind for us when he made us. “I need you there, in that spot, at that time. Take these things and go!” :) )
I appreciate the effort but without the punchlines this doesnt make much sense.
Not my own, but…
A gal I know dated someone from El Salvador and was visiting with his family when she exclaimed, “Soy mui caliente!” The family burst into hysterics.
The proper expression is “Tengo calor” (literally “I have heat”, but essentially meaning “This summer heat is killing me”), rather than the prima donna “I’m so hot!”
I’ve probably embarrassed myself many times with bad Spanish but remain oblivious.
Cute post–I kept thinking of Peter Sellers.
This is really a post about how insular and corrupt the French political class is. It’s outrageous that affluent people growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s (or more recently) never felt obliged to learn to speak and pronounce the world’s dominant language better, particularly with the United Kingdom next door. Yes, it sounds cute, but really?!
Hey, the French word for prostitute sounds way too close to the name of Putin for my cocktail party comfort. Also rat de chommage doesn’t mean “unemployment rate”; it means “unemployment rat.”
To be on the safe side, I redacted all the punchlines has got to be in the running for most prophetic statement of our times!
I have been traveling to and spending time in France for over 30 years. I have noticed a real change in attitude and language. My French is very rudimentary and I have to listen to tapes for refreshers every time but my poor French is now accepted as a good faith effort where once it was disdained. In addition, I have noticed much more friendly attempts to help tourists. At the RER station the last time I was in Paris the clerk in the ticket booth had posted a whole schedule in English. That would never have happened in 1980.
My worst language problem was in Spain. I was visiting a friend in Málaga who got me a bus ticket to to Sevilla for the Expo back in 1992 (I think that was the year). I arrived late at night in Sevilla with no other plans, my friend assumed I could fend for myself. Wandering around with my suitcase trying to find a place to stay, I finally gave up and hailed a cab for the bus station. The cabbie didn’t know English, and I didn’t know Spanish, so we got by in part through the worst of both of our German, which was pretty weak on my part.
In the course of explaining that I couldn’t find a place to stay he told me he had a friend that would take me in, reverting to Spanish, for “ocho mil.” I thought “mil” meant million instead of thousand, big difference. I told him there’s no way I could pay that much. He was surprised and probably wondered how I would pay his fare, and I was wondering how anyone could afford that much for a room. I finally realized my error as we neared the bus station and, both of us relieved, he took me to his friend and I had a great time at the Expo.
Relentlessly suffusing Spanish with Portuguese, in Argentina (but it would’ve been stupid anywhere) I said ano when I meant año.
My Spanish friend, a beautiful Señorita I was chasing, asked me how I was doing as a greeting. “Mucho bueno,” I replied. She laughed and explained to me that I should have said, “muy bueno” because what I said was an idiom that meant I was good in bed. I told her, yes, that’s exactly what I meant.
Possibly but not very off-topic: have you ever shouted in a foreign language? Did you embarrass yourself doing so?
My own answers: “twice” and “not much.” The second time was as my train was pulling into Ljubljana and I needed to know if it was continuing through to my destination. I spotted the conductor on the platform, and it was noisy, I had to yell my question. Grammatically correct, but it felt funny. I got a useful answer, and transferred to a mixed local. I myself had a seat but my bicycle I had to put in a boxcar, and while it was perfectly adequate, there’s just something spooky about Iron-Curtain freight trains.
The first time I yelled, it was in Turkish, but too simple to mess up, though not simple enough for the yellee. I’d tried to check into a hotel that proved to be full, then gone back out in search of another. Some old man followed, urging me to go right back in. I told him it was dolu, then shouted it was dopdolu, but no matter: Middle Easterners, never too serenely reasonable at the best of times, get downright loopy when a commercial impulse stirs them. This guy wasn’t even an employee, he was just one more street-idler. I added a gratuitous English expletive. It was almost certainly not intelligible, although maybe things have changed. I feel certain dumfukluk was not a Turkish word then but it might be now.
Not a foreign language story, but a language story…
Some guys I know were traveling by bus and wandered a bit during a pitstop. One friend by the surname of Coon remained behind. When the guys returned, they could see the bus already starting to drive away. So they yelled “Hey Coon! Hold the bus!”
Needless to say, the bus driver happened to be black and misunderstood. After explanations… Coon got booted off the bus too.
It’s the sounds that you simply do not hear that are the trickiest. I was trying to learn Icelandic long, long ago (there was a girl involved), and there were sounds that I just did not hear. If I read them I knew there was supposed to be something there, but I did not hear the sounds — at first. It got better. She had the same problem “w” and “v” she could not hear the difference.
“I’m hot” or “I’m cold” in almost any other language than English has sexual connotations translated directly. And if you translate “I have no idea” directly in German it minds you have no mind at all. I always asked native speakers before hand what were the biggest – and funniest – mistakes.
Also, I learned my French while living and working in Africa. Lots of things don’t translate among Francophones either. Swiss French will use German constructions when speaking French and French will make fun of it. And I’ve been with French Canadian friends in Paris, and everyone would speak only English to them. It’s weird.
And what’s so un-pc about calling somebody an arschloch?
EnGYNers are welcome? Awesome.
My most embarrassing foreign language faux pas was when I reached for “Mein deutsch ist schwach” and pulled down “Mein deutsch ist stark.” Incomprehensible hilarity ensued. And I’ll be dipped if I can remember that an Apfel is male but a Kartoffel is female.
My daughter minored in French, and taught English for a year in a French high school. I don’t remember her mentioning theta.
Claire Berlinski, Ed.: What’s the most embarrassing mistake you’ve ever made in your efforts to speak a foreign tongue?
I was once being introduced to the young (6-8 years old) child of a Mexican-American coworker. I meant to ask if she had a good summer, but iirc, I asked her if she ate the summer. She gave me the weirdest look.
If you’re anywhere close, you ought to get down to the Biltmore Estate while the azaleas are blooming. I might be able to round up some pictures. We had season tickets once.
You could have said “Ich bin ein Berliner” in front of God and everyone.
My most embarrassing attempt to speak a foreign tongue? That’s easy. When I told a friend of mine to keep his pecker up. Turns out it doesn’t mean the same thing at all in the English of the “Other,” as it does in the English of the Brits.
. . . 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
My biggest problem in German over time has been that I learned quite a lot of it from Enlightenment philosophy, modern linguistics and translations of Heinlein. So, I (used to) come off sounding like a bizarre hybrid of Lessing, Sassure and D.D. Harriman. Hilarity would ensue. It was a great day when Frau Doktor Professor Klink (her real name- she was like a German version of my favorite aunt, but I digress) used “In der Tat” in a sentence, vindicating a linguistic tick of mine.
We had some missionaries to Mexico come and speak to our church when I was a kid. She told this story about a trip to the market, wanting to buy chicken breast. She asked someone for “another” breast but I guess the word for chicken breast is different than human breast… and she asked for another human breast.
She got some funny looks for that.
This was a fun post. Thanks.
Yes, this is what I keep telling people! France just isn’t the rude place it once was. They’re trying so hard. They were so embarrassed by their reputation for rudeness, and they made a conscious national effort to change it — and it’s made life here so much nicer, for everyone.
So it’s just the waiters now?
Honestly, there are specific linguistic reasons why the French have such trouble learning foreign languages. They do try — and they try very hard. But French phonetics involve such a small number of sounds compared to most other languages that by adulthood, they’re really not able to approximate them. This is also why people find it’s hard to be understood in French, even when they make a sincere effort: It’s not that the French are rudely pretending not to understand. They truly don’t understand. If you don’t hit that narrow phonetic target, it just doesn’t make a sound that their ears know how to interpret.
Vowel training and drilling helps foreigners to overcome that problem pretty easily, but the poor French — unless they’re exposed to other languages in childhood — are really trapped in their darling but phonetically tiny little language.
I went out with a Cuban lad for many years. Once I was with his mother in the ladies room and, glancing in the mirror, I said “Necesito un peine” ( I need a comb).
There was a sharp intake of breath, and I found her staring at me in shock and horror. I had no idea what I had done, but it was obviously very, very bad. The bewildered expression on my face must have somehow penetrated and she suddenly relaxed.
And then she told me, very clearly and enunciating each word separately: “Es muy preciso pronunciar la letra“i”. Muy preciso.” (It is very essential to pronounce the letter “i”) She then made me say the word for comb in Spanish multiple times.
That is when I found out that I had not said “peine” (comb). Instead, I had said that I needed a “pene”. You can guess what that means!
Kartoffelpuffer is my favorite sounding word in any language.
“Taking a piss” is the British expression that used to throw me for a loop. That’s how the queen says it, right?
And is the curse that rhymes with “muddy” acceptable in polite society or not? When I was a kid, even saying “That stinks” was frowned upon by my Southern genteel relatives.
I always thought, based on my ability with French, that I was “talented” with languages. Then Turkish humbled the living heck out of me. I wasn’t talented; I was just young. That’s why I always urge people to make sure their kids take language classes as early as possible and watch as much foreign television as they can.
Honestly, there are specific linguistic reasons why the French have such trouble learning foreign languages. They do try — and they try very hard. But French phonetics involve such a small number of sounds compared to most other languages that by adulthood, they’re really not able to approximate them. This is also why people find it’s hard to be understood in French, even when they make a sincere effort: It’s not that the French are rudely pretending not to understand. They truly don’t understand. If you don’t hit that narrow phonetic target, it just doesn’t make a sound that their ears know how to interpret.
Vowel training and drilling helps foreigners to overcome that problem pretty easily, but the poor French — unless they’re exposed to other languages in childhood — are really trapped in their darling but phonetically tiny little language.
Even the waiters are generally really nice. Some occasional exceptions, but in my favorite local cafe they’re so nice that I go there whenever I just need the reassurance that humanity is basically good.