Why French people should stop using English (it’s not what you think)
It was La Journée de la Langue Française yesterday, a day – as the name cleverly suggests – to celebrate the French language. As part of a campaign to raise awareness of the growing Anglification in France, an advert was shown highlighting one of the most perplexing phenomena I’ve encountered in France.
It features a couple in a bar. The man drops numerous English terms into his conversation much to the exasperation of his companion. She retorts in English that he should decide to speak either French or English then leaves him, flabbergasted and – we’re to intimate – confused because he doesn’t really speak English. The ad finishes with “Our language is beautiful. Say it in French.”
I couldn’t agree more. But not for the same reasons as the ad-makers.
Languages are living; new words are invented or adopted from other languages to fill a need, be it new technology (“email”), discoveries (“the potato”) and crazy youth dance sensations (“the Charleston”). This is how is always has been and always will be and getting angry about a language being polluted from outside sources is like shouting at the tide to stay where it is.
What’s peculiar in France is that some people choose to use Engish words because they’re English. Perfectly good French words exist but – to a certain section of the population – using English makes them sound more modern/international/cool. Like how in Britain people drop French words into conversations to let you know that they’re a wanker.
L’Academie Française are in a tizzy over this preference of English over French. Me, too. But my problem is quite different. It is this: how does a native-English speaker pronounce these English words while speaking French. I have a great deal of difficulty asking for “un crumble” in the bakery. Should I say it like a Brit and risk being misunderstood, or try it in my best French accent (“crrooom-bul”) and end up mispronouncing even the French version of the word, coming across as a proper weirdo to boot?
This is why I refuse to use English words when speaking French. Except “crumble”. I’m going to keep asking for that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvchC1e-Jmo
Photo credit: “Quartet Porcelain Plate” by Didriks / CC BY
