You’ve definitely used these French words in English before! And they don’t mean what you think! Thanks to Rosetta Stone for sponsoring this video! Get 60% off on their lifetime plan for a limited time: https://partners.rosettastone.com/lucile
I’m French and I’ve noticed English has so many random French words, that sometimes don’t make sense to me. Let’s check them out together and see what they really mean in French. Also keep in mind that I’m mostly talking about French from France and American English, so leave me a comment with other French words that are used in English (UK, CA…) that I have not mentioned here!
—
– Get $5 off my PARIS FOOD MAP with over 200 delicious spots I’ve personally been to and recommend: https://www.paris.lucilehr.com/products/paris-food-map?promo=YT
—
Watch my language reaction videos:
– French Girl Reacts to Louisiana Cajun French: https://youtu.be/6eEQqQJw_jA?si=Die91YmH6rJwLxd_
– French Girl Reacts to Celebrities Speaking French: https://youtu.be/V8GYvuxXrdE?si=v8_l8ki48OJFPk5J
– French Girl Reacts to Quebecois Canadian French: https://youtu.be/ZFc3-CdK1vg?si=JpkjsP_CVonq6us-
Watch my other cultural commentary videos:
– Why is it so Easy to be Thin in France? https://youtu.be/sHKXlAnVgo8?si=KOZxQ3ClzcytMq1E
– Why Are French People So Rude? My Thoughts as Local! https://youtu.be/GkxzKuL5gP4?si=p5fXjIv9oCrx8wrz
– Why Parisians are Forced to Live in Tiny Apartments: https://youtu.be/oWwyZUe6MjY?si=udcnnZf59I569gi2
– Why France Has Better Food Than The USA: https://youtu.be/C7fIHeVypdI?si=18f2MiAC8TEeLNrk
—
Tags:
#french #frenchlanguage #frenchwords #france #paris #english #englishvocabulary #RosettaStone #RosettaStonepartner
46 Comments
This is a new topic for me so I'd love if you could leave me a comment with your thoughts!
I think French is called the language of love because it sounds romantic to a non French speaker.
Have you tried to understand descendants of native French speakers in the US?
Since they stopped being influenced by native French speakers the language was influenced by Spainsh and English and now most Native French speakers can not understand them.
Bon appetite was universally known in the U. S. Long before Julia Childe.
I had to google "petite bites" just to verify and the top result was a bakery in Malaysia! I guess the Malaysians also forgot to ask a French translator.
(France Burgundy🐌) American YouTubers, you are in danger. The American government has suspended all French translations, which will be detrimental to all American YouTubers. (Try it on your side)❤❤❤
I didn't know bite has a meaning in french too, that is hilarious 🙂
I didn't expect that "petite" thing (I don't even dare to write the word). I've burst out laughing reading it 😂
Either it's on purpose, either someone got fired after the fact.
Petite b*
Gros compliments.
Comme quoi … c'est pas la taille qui compte?
You are forgetting that British people also used the latin language. As you might know by now, French comes from Latin.
I believe the "Please RSVP" error derived from some of us being incorrectly taught the initialism stood for "Respond So Very Promptly".
Tres utile. Merci
NO, No. A chair is NOT a woman, it is a word that takes FEMININE gender (not female) – gender and sex are not the same thing…
I've tried and tried and tried and tried but I'm sure you know by now that spoken French is totally impossible to learn. Totally. I've given up.
In (British) English, French terms are typically considered high brow as French was the language of court during Norman times. This will then have been exported to the US through the colonisation process thus giving French expressions a glamorous air.
Thanks so fun. Good point about using your regular accent with foreign words- I’d probably say Craw-sahnt. Also, good to say Monsieur for waiter. I don’t know the word otherwise! 😅
Puré, l'accent très Français avec un pseudo anglais Américain et une intonation très French. My ears ache like hell when I hear you🥶🥶🥶 Et cette voix hyper artificielle. Jesus….🥶
I cook chez moi, so in a conversation, I said "C'est moi le chef!"
Apparently that was a faux pas ?
There is a campervan rental company in my small French village, it was founded by an English couple and it's called Ooh Lala. I didn't think it was a very good choice of name.
The “ooh laa laa” bit was hysterical….😂
I got/remembered the bite thing about 5 seconds before the reveal. My brain does retain some French apparently.
1066 is why we think french is fancy… after this we used french for the fancy high class formal and official stuff and english for the low language at homeand in more profane situations.
Oh la la didn’t just use to mean something suggestive in English. In my whole life it indicates something “fancy”, even pretentious. You order caviar, say, and your friend says oh la la, aren’t we special? But also it could indicate something seductive, but in an elevated way. Nice lingerie, say, but not pornography. That kind of thing. Maybe there’s been a change, but I’m unaware of it. And I’m nearly 60 btw, and speak several languages.
Just because it was a French word, doesn't mean an English speaker using it is saying it as a French word. This means you should expect both the pronunciation and meaning to be different, and they're not necessarily wrong in doing so.
I must point out that English and American English are not always the same.
For example, I was quite surprised to hear the American definition of entree.
I always understood it to be something eaten before the main course of the meal.
(For reference, I'm from New Zealand with some English heritage.)
i really enjoyed that
I think there’s a bit of tongue-in-cheek to some of the English uses of some of these words like risqué which sounds like “risky” and is usually used in reference to someone wearing something revealing and might draw outrage.
Btw, don’t know if you know this but the US military likes to use the term “rendezvous” to simply mean the point at which they will meet up or return to. I suspect this is because the French were the first to teach the US army so they’ve probably always held onto a few of the French terms for things.
But most civilians, yes a rendezvous is a romantic meeting.
I have also lived in Ireland and now I live in the US and it's true that some words are used in the US but not in the UK/Ireland. But in the US, I hear more bon appetite (pronounced apetitt).
While it is true that in standard American English, rendezvous typically has a suggestive connotation, I think you will find this interesting.
In two other versions of English, US Military jargon, and Aviation English (the standard language of air traffic control around the world), rendezvous is used much closer to the French meaning.
In US Military Jargon, rendezvous refers to two military units meeting in a time, place, and manner that is pre-planned. US military jargon uses more French than standard English. This likely comes from the fact that the French Army and Navy helped train the early US military during the US Revolution. (The Marquis de Lafayette is considered one of our national heroes)
In Aviation English there is also more French than standard English because the French were highly influential in early aviation and had an outsized involvement in early aviation organizations. In Aviation English a Rendezvous is the process of having two or more aircraft meet and come together to either continue on their flight together, or do other things like air-to-air refueling.
I disagree with calling a waiter "garçon." French people say it. My father would call a waiter "garçon" all the time. But yes, otherwise, monsieur or s'il vous plaît is fine. Double entendre is something I have never heard in my 13 years in the US. Oh la la in French is used just as much as Americans say Oh my god all the time.
I disagree with calling a waiter "garçon." French people say it. My father would call a waiter "garçon" all the time. But yes, otherwise, monsieur or s'il vous plaît is fine. Double entendre is something I have never heard in my 13 years in the US. Oh la la in French is used just as much as Americans say Oh my god all the time.
I disagree with calling a waiter "garçon." French people say it. My father would call a waiter "garçon" all the time. But yes, otherwise, monsieur or s'il vous plaît is fine. Double entendre is something I have never heard in my 13 years in the US. Oh la la in French is used just as much as Americans say Oh my god all the time.
I disagree with calling a waiter "garçon." French people say it. My father would call a waiter "garçon" all the time. But yes, otherwise, monsieur or s'il vous plaît is fine. Double entendre is something I have never heard in my 13 years in the US. Oh la la in French is used just as much as Americans say Oh my god all the time.
I disagree with calling a waiter "garçon." French people say it. My father would call a waiter "garçon" all the time. But yes, otherwise, monsieur or s'il vous plaît is fine. Double entendre is something I have never heard in my 13 years in the US. Oh la la in French is used just as much as Americans say Oh my god all the time.
As a French waitress I always used « bon appétit » when I was leaving the table after bringing the dishes. Its a debate weither its impolite or not. For me and most people, its just a way to say « enjoy your meal » . Otherwise you dont know what to say when leaving the table, its awkward lol. I think calling « garçon ! » is okay too
As for me, Jack will stick to English, no sense in ruining another country's lingo
I'm English and I thought it was common knowledge the fiancé and fiancée were gendered? Even in English, as is blond and blonde widow and widower, and I'm sure divorcée is female, not sure what the male version is, I assume divorcé. I noticed when we wer ein A pub in Germany, eating dinner, when the locals came in they wished us Guten Appetit, so it's not just a French thing. Honestly most English people I've heard pronounce 'croissant' closer to the French way, bit with a harder 'r', same with the Aus and NZ bods. Just the Americans who emphasise the second syllable.
entrée in the US is a crazy usage. Etymologically, entrée can only sensibly mean starter/appetiser
I see now, how we got the word risky in English from the French Risque
maybe initially a bad pronunciation of the french version, and it caught on
I didn't know that entrée in American English mean main course 😯 so what is the world for the dish before the main course in American English? Is it a starter or something else?
One reason French tends to be reserved for "fancy" is because it was the court language, while English words were the peasant version. Peasants raised cow so nobles could eat beef. (Though of course, that particular one has been entirely nativized.) Thank you for pointing out that it's weird to switch accents mid-sentence. There's an old SNL sketch with Jimmy Smits, I think it was called "Enchiladas," in which the new Latino employee is constantly corrected by the Anglos, because he's pronouncing Spanish words in his everyday English accent. He finally loses it.
English also adapted over 700 danish words from the vikings
Something funny about "Oh La La"…if you watch the Arnold Schwarzenegger film "Commando", there is a scene when Arnold drops a guy off a cliff and, as he falls, he screams "Oh La la!!"
Déjà vu?
We use bon appétit exactly right, enjoy your meal. BUT we use it humorously because we seldom use it. If I burnt a meal, I might say to my love, “bon appétit” with a sheepish smile.
Gallicism. We use them all the time in English.
I think the biggest problem we here in North American – yes, both in the US and Canada – have is that most people, when they hear of a country, they immediately think of the capital or other major city, and that's it. I put the blame mostly on Hollywood movies, that primarily focus on those major cities in their plots. (Although for Germany it's different, because when Americans think of Germany they are actually thinking of Bavaria, since that was the major region of the sector the Americans occupied after WW II.)
The other problem is that, yes, as you pointed out, too many people try to look sophisticated when using a foreign word, and it just looks wrong.