Since I was old enough to realise that there were languages other than English – or Scots – but we’ll come to that, I’ve always held a certain fascination of how languages are connected. Maybe it was something to do with my father being a teacher of French and German for most of his working life, although, at least in my early years at secondary school, the rebelliousness of youth meant I never quite shared, in any overt way, his linguistic enthusiasm.
Sat in the back of a car on touring holidays of France I was forever reading signs and pondering how it had come about that whoever had devised the French language could possibly have been so ill advised that they had come up with so many ‘near-misses’ when words had been imported into French from the Anglo-Saxon. Sure, I knew what ‘le camping’ meant but it wasn’t quite on target for meaning a camp-site. Then there was ‘le parking’ – was someone in l’Académie français having an off day when it got the green light?
Once I had a smattering of French and got bored reading road-signs, I’d practice my linguistic skills looking for words with accents. A lot of these looked different from the Anglo-Saxon but were actually the same words, or at least derived from the same root. This was a trick my father had told me about and could provide hours of enjoyment on a long trip when the only piece of electronic amusement was likely to be a transistor radio – the more upmarket models might even receive long wave.
So I’d start with easy ones like école where, if you change the ‘é’ to an ‘s’ you come up with ‘scole’ -étudiant becomes studiant. The first two are fairly obvious but if the same trick is tried with the less familiar verb ‘écarter’, for example, 
meaning to move apart or to move away from, the result is ‘scarter’ which is not a million miles away from the English ‘scatter’. It isn’t foolproof and by no means does it work all the time but it can often lead straight to the equivalent word in English.
Another accent trick can be used in words containing a circumflex (^). Words containing a circumflex in French usually mean that a letter has been missed out. It arose from a revision of the French language as part of the standardisation of French throughout the Republic. Over time, many words had come to be pronounced differently from the way they were written. Use of the circumflex in many words arose because one school of thought wanted to simply change the spelling whilst other academics were affronted that letters were being omitted. The circumflex reflected the compromise between the two opposing factions basically denoting that something was no longer there that used to be.
By guessing which letter the circumflex is the token for, many French (Norman) words often become, if not their direct English equivalent, then at least understandable. Hence, fôret becomes forest, hôtesse becomes hostess and so on. It also works with less obvious examples – huître – meaning oyster – becomes huistre. Try saying the newly discovered ‘huistre’, remembering the silent ‘h’, rather than focussing on how it looks. ‘Huistre’ and ‘oyster’ begin to feel like the same word but just a different dialect.
I’ll finish off with the Scots connection. In Scots, the word for a slave is sclave whilst the French is ‘esclave’ – which is closer to French, Scots or English? A plate or dish in France is assiette. There doesn’t seem to be any close English equivalent but the Scots word is ‘ashet’. And, finally, one I dreamt up sitting in the back seat of my parents’ car. How did the Scots come up with a particular type of bread called a Pan Loaf?
Norman, mine gets on at me non-stop too. However, many people mention her Italian accent that I can't hear at all and say nothing to me ever. I assume it is that because Sarf London cuts through it and thus it is so bloomin' awful that nobody bothers!
Thank you Guy for your appreciation of the Normans - just what I keep pointing out to my French missus when she gets on at me a few thousand times a day about MY French!
Re: Comment by Suzanne Fitzgeraldon August 29, 2012 at 15:38
@ Hilary - I still can't work out or hear the difference between dessus and dessous.
Hi there - if you can remember that 'sous' means 'under' or 'below' (as in the room name sous-sol), then it follows that dessous is the 'down there' rather than the 'up there' word.
As for hearing the difference, it will depend on the speaker's clarity! It's basically the same as the difference in sound between 'tu' and 'vous'. You should normally hear 'duhs-oo' for the 'down there' meaning, but 'duhs-yew' or 'duhs-eeyoo' for the 'up there' word. Hope this helps a bit!
@Suzanne
a sous-sol is a basement and sus-sol just says WRONG to me anyway
alternatively and not very good sous has an O for over, which it isn't. I agree I need a better mnenomic
But in spoken language, as anglos notoriously can't pronounce them properly anyway, either hand waving or en haut en bas will have to do.
I like the last sentence of Michel Thomas's summary about the French Language. "French is spoken by about 350 million people. It is an official language in 29 countries and commonly used in many others. French has lost most of its international significance to English with the rise of the USA as the dominant global power. Nevertheless, French is the second most-studied foreign language in the world after English. Did you know that more than a third of all English words are derived directly or indirectly from French? So the chances are English speakers who have never studied French probably know 15,000 French words already!"
Wow I already know 15,000 words in French - that has to be encouraging for anyone trying to learn French - non?
By the way - I did find his discs extremely useful and recommend them to anyone wanting to pick up quick spoken French.
@ Hilary - I still can't work out or hear the difference between dessus and dessous. Very difficult when speaking to a builder and it's really important - I end up doing hand signals.
Another trick of the trade that I meant to add on here. I always used to get mixed up when writing French with "ou" meaning "or" and "où" meaning "where". Until you realise that there are another two that go together "la" meaning "feminine the" and "là" meaning "there".
It's easy after that. The two refering to place où (where) and là (there) take the accent, the others don't.
Où là làh !!!
Nice one Terry, we understand each other ;-) I can no longer do the pointu accent - Bernard Laporte speaks standard French to me...!
Steve, never known as Howard but always Froggie although he did Latin and Greek as well. So no Jim Lad, but the other Latin teacher was Mr Thrasher! And he did, the rotten old basket! Anyway, when we came on the trip to St Emilion just after start of autumn term for la vendange, improving our French, getting slaughtered on wine and chasing French girls, of which the latter two were not on the curriculum, said Mr Howard told a group of villagers assembled to collect us that we he was known to the boys as Grenouille. You could have heard jaws dropping from Bordeaux to Bergerac when we heard that, imagining that after many generations of pupils he did not know. As if. So, even over here he was not known as Oooh Arrr!
Brian's teacher Mr Howard - pronounced OOOH ARRR (as in Jim Lad)
Many, many years ago, Andrew, after spending a whole school year supposedly teaching English in a college in Florac where nobody spoke a word of English, I got to the point where, on the train home, the old man sitting opposite asked me which village in Lozere I was from. Felt really chuffed. Now, like you, I'm most often taken for a Belgian or an Alsacien. My wife says it depends who I am talking to. She says I go all "pointu" as soon as we hit Paris and switch back to Lozerien as soon as we cross the border from Cantal on the way back!
ah keep them guessing Brian ! The viewing I had on the house a couple of days ago was a family from the north of France, after chatting and showing them round the woman asked which région I was from - she couldn't work out the rather odd mix of aveyronnais and what still remains of my anglo-saxon/germanic language roots. French people often think I'm Belgian. in Italy I got to a stage where I had no problem passing for an italian accent wise for a while but inevitably came unstuck after a while. When I speak to italian friends now they say I sound like a french person speaking Italian and I have obviously lost most of the ease I had as I hardly ever speak italian now :-(
I have a funny range of sounds I can and can't make. I heard the Scots with its bits of French influence as a child and that fed into my SW London, plus the emphasis on syllabic separation in German, so that my London accent was never quite flat enough. I learned South American Castellano rather than European but either way I had the rrrs rolling from Scots and German and the nasals and 'th' sounds from English. My Italian comes out strange, seems a bit Spanish and then they're not sure what and in Portugal I learned to understand but speak, I was a real fish out of water because some sounds never happened. Now I have all manner of questions where I come from because of my accent here. Last night we had neighbours for a quick apero (1900 to just after midnight, as customary) and we were talking about it. My wife with her mix of the strong Italian accent and Romande pronunciation and for them I sound like Spanish because I roll rrs too much and then start slow and speed up each time I speak. Which is strange because for the Spanish I sound Dutch or Flemish... I like it because it saves me being branded one thing or another, especially not the usual Anglais.
that's not bad for the ou and u sound - the ou being so easy for anglophones that all the concentration is given to the u as in tu which invariably comes out as tout in most. physically - form the lips into an o as if to say ooooh, keep tham there and try and say e and that usually works. No probs with brouillard, couille etc either but it took a few years before I got there!
Our French teacher, dear old Froggie Howard, made us prounounce sur with the r and and sous with the s until we heard the slight difference in the u and could drop the r and s. Since my class was full of tone deaf boys the majority never got it. I have never fogotten it and get there BUT dessus and dessous leave me no option but to gesticulate under or over until I see the slight nod. Brouillard and bouillard I can cope with, especially given the amount of the former we have from the Dordogne and the little river at the bottom of the valley. However, recently I called a noyer a noissetiere or something like that and got a peal of laughter. Somebody discretely told me after. It wasn't that funny!
the old tu -v- tout, vous -v- vu, nous -v- nu and all the other ou -v- u pairs. they had us doing those for ages at uni but some still left not being able to pronounce the difference even though they can hear it! brouillard and bouillard are a couple that got me for a while (pronounciation not meaning!), trouille, trouillard, couille... :-O
I often try to get my husband to say Smiths crisps. Hilarious. But then he laughs at my "grenouille" and my "dessus" "dessous". How cruel can a language be - to have two words that are pronounced (to the untrained English ear) almost identically and mean the exact opposite. I thought I'd got the hang of it until a phone call on a dodgy mobile line from my sister in law suggesting buying the mother in law a "tapis" to go "dessus" the outdoor table. Now to me, a tapis went on the floor, which is obviously "dessous" the table. So very confused!
I gave up, my OH only says chips (crisps and chips both). Incidentally, yes she is an Italian speaker but learned English after she had gone to Francophone Switzerland and has the whole catalogue of crackers you guys can come up with for sure. However, she has conquered the 'th' thing that many people never get rid of.
I've got my sons say it right by breaking it down to Chris ps