From owner-freebsd-chat Tue May 21 7:19:17 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from excalibur.skynet.be (excalibur.skynet.be [195.238.3.90]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B823637B407 for ; Tue, 21 May 2002 07:19:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [10.0.1.4] (ip-27.shub-internet.org [194.78.144.27] (may be forged)) by excalibur.skynet.be (8.11.6/8.11.6/Skynet-OUT-2.19) with ESMTP id g4LEI7H04341; Tue, 21 May 2002 16:18:07 +0200 (MET DST) (envelope-from ) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: bs663385@pop.skynet.be Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <20020521140312.A88313@lpt.ens.fr> References: <20020517114010.A57127@regency.nsu.ru> <20020519100324.GK44562@daemon.ninth-circle.org> <20020519134348.I67779@blossom.cjclark.org> <20020520195703.A79046@dragon.nuxi.com> <20020521103710.C71209@lpt.ens.fr> <20020521133026.L71209@lpt.ens.fr> <20020521140312.A88313@lpt.ens.fr> X-Grok: +++ath X-WebTV-Stationery: Standard; BGColor=black; TextColor=black Reply-By: Wed, 1 Jan 1984 12:34:56 +0100 X-Message-Flag: Your copy of Outlook will expire in 3 days. Please contact Microsoft about purchasing a new license. Remember: software piracy is a felony! Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 16:13:41 +0200 To: Rahul Siddharthan , Brad Knowles From: Brad Knowles Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/alpha/alpha clock.c Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org At 2:03 PM +0200 2002/05/21, Rahul Siddharthan wrote: >> That's because the pronunciation of the same word is different in >> the two languages. > > I don't think that's the issue. An English person, speaking in > English and pronouncing the French male name "Jean", will pronounce it > roughly correct, and not like the English female name "Jean". Only if they speak French or are aware of the proper French pronunciation, and they are aware that the person themselves is French or from a French-speaking country or region, and therefore would know to apply the proper French pronunciation rules to the French name. Otherwise, they'd almost certainly pronounce it like the female name "Jean", or the alternative male name "Gene". > The > French apparently believe that, when they speak their language, they > have the right to mutilate other people's names (but will not grant > that right to others, ie they will complain if an English speaker > doesn't pronounce "François" correctly). I would say that most of the people I've met in this world have tended to do the same sort of thing. It's just that the French (and French-speaking people) are more adamant about insisting that their name be pronounced properly, and tend to get extremely upset if you cannot manage to do so -- all out of proportion to the real gravity of the situation. Moreover, it seems to me that they tend to use French name pronunciations and insist on doing so, to a greater degree than most people. But this doesn't mean that other people don't do the same. > True, they exist. But even in a city like Paris, most of them quite > genuinely have a very hard time with English -- both because their > command is bad, and because they're very underconfident in using it. > Sometimes they do make the effort anyway, but after I'd spent a few > months here, I found that some people refused to talk to me in English > because, they claimed, my French was better than their English. (And > sometimes that was true.) It's far, far worse if you just approach them and start speaking English (unless you know them personally, and you know that they speak English reasonably well), or if you go up to them and ask "Parlez-vous Anglais?" I've found that the majority of French speaking people tend to be more understanding if you instead attempt to first explain that you don't speak French, and give them more time to hear your atrocious accent -- e.g., "Pardon. Je parle en petit pous Français -- parlez-vous Anglais?". More than once I've gotten a reaction that amounted to "Yes, I will speak zee English wiss you, but only if you promise to never again insult my language wiss your tongue." But then there are the hard-core types, especially in local neighborhoods (such as the one in which you might live), which insist that you must speak French in order to exist -- you aren't even a person if you don't speak French. This gets particularly annoying in a commune that is officially dual-language, and they don't even pretend to recognize Flemish as a legally required alternative. > If they do in fact > speak English they'll help out, otherwise they'll wait patiently while > you try to make your meaning clear in broken French... We had this local baker who was really nice in helping me to learn French. His English was excellent (although his wife didn't speak or understand much), but he was always very kind and helpful, and he always encouraged me to try to conduct as much of the transaction in French as I could. Unfortunately, his wife got sick and they sold their shop and moved to France -- Le pain de la pays de ma grand-mére is no more. Contrast this with a different bakery close by, where they clearly speak English, but refuse to do so. Moreover, they get extremely upset if you attempt to use English with them, and rather rude and offensive. They also get rude and offensive if your French is not very good, but not nearly so much as they do if you even ask if they speak English. > English-speakers, on the other hand, are often quite condescending > towards people who speak (or write) bad English. I tend to be much, much more understanding if the other person is not a native English speaker. I tend to be much harsher on people who should know better. -- Brad Knowles, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message