# Sometimes I can't tell English from French
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [October 11, 2017, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540 "2017-10-11T03:53:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2017, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/21 "2017-10-11T14:17:08Z")
I have that problem, too (French and English).
My mother tongue is French but I spend most of my free time on English and American websites. Sometimes however, I switch to a French site and, while I have no problem understanding what I read (of course), I’m not always sure which language I’m reading, especially if I go back and forth several times. It’s a weird feeling, realizing that you understand what you read but having to pause to make sure whether it’s in French or English.
I often think and dream in English, too although I live in a completely French-speaking environment.
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### Author:  [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/22 "2017-10-11T14:28:05Z")
> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> As a kid, I actually found reading French to be easier than reading German.
I’m a native English speaker, but I’m bilingual in German and speak it every day. I had basic French lessons (i.e., not immersion) way back in elementary and high school, and have hardly had occasion to speak it since, but I still find it easier to read than German. If I get some food package that has cooking instructions in French and German but not English, then I’ll go straight to the French.
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### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2017, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/23 "2017-10-11T14:58:31Z")
> [@Jennshark](#):
>
> I (think) I’ve read that German is the closest relative to English, but Dutch and Danish seem much closer to my earballs.
English is basically a Germanic language, but I think you’re right. High German sentence construction, gendered nouns and multiple cases make it very different from English. Dutch has lost much of that, so in that sense it is closer to English. And one thing I do notice from all the Scandi Noir TV shows we’ve been getting recently is that Dutch, Danish and Swedish have a number of usages that are closer to each other than to German. And that there are elements of Danish speech (more in accent than anything else - some vowel sounds and a particular way of aspirating “T” before a vowel) that are identical to some English accents, and I can’t help wondering if that’s something that’s been around since the days of Sweyn and Canute.
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### Author:  [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2017, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/24 "2017-10-11T16:01:15Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> No, it actually could be some of both - exposure to a language as an infant/toddler does have an effect.
My mother was enormously surprised when I still remembered the little French I’d learned in kindergarten, almost 20 years later.
Sometimes I can’t remember what language I’m in; sometimes I’m reading or watching something, someone adresses me in another language and suddenly what I was doing becomes incomprehensible. And apparently my French is connected to both my Spanish and my Catalan, but not to my English: if I’ve been working in English I need a few seconds to switch to French. This is a PITA because my current team’s main working languages happen to be English and French, but it’s made me very popular with coworkers who’ve copied the “connected/not connected” expression to explain their own similar problems with other pairs.
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### Author:  [@Jennshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jennshark)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2017, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/25 "2017-10-11T17:18:06Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#):
>
> English is basically a Germanic language, but I think you’re right. High German sentence construction, gendered nouns and multiple cases make it very different from English. Dutch has lost much of that, so in that sense it is closer to English. And one thing I do notice from all the Scandi Noir TV shows we’ve been getting recently is that Dutch, Danish and Swedish have a number of usages that are closer to each other than to German. And that there are elements of Danish speech (more in accent than anything else - some vowel sounds and a particular way of aspirating “T” before a vowel) that are identical to some English accents, and I can’t help wondering if that’s something that’s been around since the days of Sweyn and Canute.
I’ve also noticed this in the Scandi noir series we do on Netflix. Wifey is bilingual (kind of tri, they spoke Viennese German and Yiddish at home) and German seems extremely complex, kind of difficult to discern the relationship to English.
I’m allegedly fluent in Spanish (seven years under and graduate courses), but I didn’t practice after leaving So Cal and struggle to follow Puerto Rican-style Spanish.
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### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2017, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/26 "2017-10-11T22:12:47Z")
English is a “Germanic” language, but it apparently has really weird grammar for such a language. No doubt this is due in part to the French influence but I recently read a book claiming that the Gaelic languages, especially Welsh, also exerted influence on English.
The book is _Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue_ by John McWhorter.
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### Author:  [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/27 "2017-10-12T02:27:45Z")
Years ago, a friend of mine was translating an English conversation into French for his girlfriend (who spoke some English, but not well). They were talking about taking a bike trip and another friend of mine said “I have a map of bike trails”. Without pausing, friend #1 translated it to his girlfriend: “Il a un map de bike trails”. We thought it was funny, but he didn’t even know what we were chuckling about until we pointed out the similarity.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/28 "2017-10-12T02:45:03Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> English is a “Germanic” language, but it apparently has really weird grammar for such a language.
I bless the day that the speakers of Proto-English threw out most of gender. He, she, it. Guys are “he’s,” girls and ships are “she’s,” and everything else is an it. All you need. German? Four years of steady Bs in High School German, and I speak better almost entirely untaught Spanish. Except with a lisp, 'cuz that’s how my wife spoke it.
Decades ago, PBS ran a series, The Story of English, which, IIRC, claimed that Frisian, not Dutch, is closer.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/29 "2017-10-12T02:56:56Z")
> [@dropzone](#):
>
> Decades ago, PBS ran a series, The Story of English, which, IIRC, claimed that Frisian, not Dutch, is closer.
Yes, that’s the language that is usually touted as closest to English (and, IIRC, it’s the West Frisian dialect that is closest.) It was mentioned in post #14, so the discussion about Dutch and other languages is taking Frisian’s relative closeness as given.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/30 "2017-10-12T03:07:42Z")
Missed that, wasn’t paying attention. ☹
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### Author:  [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/31 "2017-10-12T05:43:31Z")
> [@pulykamell](#):
>
> Yes, that’s the language that is usually touted as closest to English (and, IIRC, it’s the West Frisian dialect that is closest.) It was mentioned in post #14, so the discussion about Dutch and other languages is taking Frisian’s relative closeness as given.
Yes, West Frisian is the closest of the Frisian dialects. Because I lived in the Netherlands I refer to “West Frisian” simply as “Frisian” which was the style at the time\* (along with tying an onion to your belt) 😉 )
- Still is, AFAIK. I just wanted to make a silly allusion to The Simpsons. Also, in the Netherlands “West Frisian” refers to a dialect of Dutch, not a dialect of Frisian, IIRC.
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### Author:  [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/32 "2017-10-12T05:56:43Z")
The kid watches YouTube on a tablet and sometimes random clicking brings her into a Spanish or Chinese zone. I heard Russian and thought that it was a new one. Wait, is that Spanish? Huh… Oh wait that means it must be Portuguese. Reads the title… Yep.
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### Author:  [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/33 "2017-10-12T06:53:43Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> After that point, the brain isn’t as quick to learn new languages, and new languages after that point are “stored” differently than early languages.
>
> That means that if you’re fumbling for a word on a later-learnt language, the brain might give you an option from another later-learnt language, rather than an early one.
I think the technical term for that is “interference.”
Informally, I say, “I have one drawer in my brain marked ‘foreign languages.’ I just open it and see what comes out.” (It’s always Indonesian that comes out these days, but when I started speaking Indonesian I mixed in a lot of French. Now if I tried to go back to French it would be the other way around.)
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### Author:  [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/34 "2017-10-12T14:28:02Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> English is a “Germanic” language, but it apparently has really weird grammar for such a language. No doubt this is due in part to the French influence but I recently read a book claiming that the Gaelic languages, especially Welsh, also exerted influence on English.
>
> The book is _Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue_ by John McWhorter.
Interesting.
It seems that Celtic influence is also responsible for the weird numerals in French. Apart from that, it doesn’t look like Gaulish or Breton had much of an impact on Modern French.
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/35 "2017-10-12T16:10:21Z")
> [@Jennshark](#):
>
> I’ve also noticed this in the Scandi noir series we do on Netflix. Wifey is bilingual (kind of tri, they spoke Viennese German and Yiddish at home) and German seems extremely complex, kind of difficult to discern the relationship to English.
English used to be that complex (the word you are thinking of is “inflected”), but lost a lot of that after the Viking and French invasions. But the everyday words in English as still mainly Germanic and it’s very easy to see the relationship: Man, hand, foot, water, boat, good, day, night, etc.
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### Author:  [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/36 "2017-10-12T16:32:20Z")
My job in a 911 center has me typing notes as a caller is describing what is going on. More than once I have re-read my notes before committing them to the system only to realize I was writing in Spanish as the caller was speaking in English.
Where I typically get tripped up is when a cognate is used. I’ll be going along fine in English and then a word comes up that is the same in English and Spanish. And at that point I switch languages. And the notes comes out looking something like — The patient has severe \*abdominal \*dolor desde 3 por la mañana. (… abdominal pain since 3 in the morning.)
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2017, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/37 "2017-10-12T16:48:16Z")
[Lawyers](http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_French) cannot tell English from French either:
> [@Sir George Treby](#):
>
> Richardson Chief Justice de Common Banc al assises de Salisbury in Summer 1631 fuit assault per prisoner la condemne pur felony, que puis son condemnation ject un brickbat a le dit justice, que narrowly mist, et pur ceo immediately fuit indictment drawn per Noy envers le prisoner et son dexter manus ampute et fix al gibbet, sur que luy mesme immediatement hange in presence de Court.
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### Author:  [@Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barbarian)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2017, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/38 "2017-10-13T17:34:46Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> I’m working on a project in the kitchen and Mrs Piper is watching a show in the next room
>
> For the life of me, I can’t tell if it’s English or French. Sometimes it sounds English, sometimes it sounds French.
>
> One of the puzzles of bilingualism, I guess.
>
> Any others ever have trouble distinguishing a language like that?
Are you sure she wasn’t watching Bon Cop Bad Cop?
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### Author:  [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2017, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/39 "2017-10-13T17:38:51Z")
I had some Dutch friends a while back. They would speak to me in English and amongst themselves in Dutch. It was often hard to tell the difference.
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### Author:  [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2017, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/sometimes-i-cant-tell-english-from-french/798540/40 "2017-10-14T06:07:46Z")
And I biffed it again tonight. I was reading a webpage in Spanish when a police officer made a radio transmission, in English of course. And I acknowledged the transmission in Spanish. Fortunately it was a brief, “Claro!” and he did not question it. I hope he thought the radio was a bit garbled and he maybe didn’t hear me right.
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