A French Rambling #1: Discussing French/English writing and language · 4:27pm Jun 5th, 2017
***DISCLAIMER: Everything discussed here only represents the author’s view. This dork is far from being neither a professional critic, nor a fluent speaker. His reading experience mainly comes from popular novels and fanfics on this website. If you ever want to add something to the discussion, either to agree or to disagree, you’ll find the comments down below. But if you ever start getting your feelings involved, you can just get the *uck out here.***
Hello and welcome to the show! I’m Fenton and I like rambling. And since I like writing too, I often ramble about that topic. So hear me out, you might learn a thing or two, as well as you might teach me a thing or two.
After several years of reading, and less than a year of writing, many differences appeared to me between French and English. That’s what these blogs are about.
Today’s topic: Vocabulary
When it comes down to English, the first thing you understand is how thick is the English vocabulary. That’s even the first thing that everyone tells you when they want to explain how English is different from French — the multiple ways to name different things, without relying on adjectives.
Usually, you hear people saying “English has many words to talk about snow.” In English, there are snow, sposh, onding, skift, graupel and probably many more I’ve never heard about. Unfortunately, in French we have mainly one, neige — pronounce \nɛʒ\. I say mainly because there are a few others, but aside from some very small and specific areas, no one uses or has heard them. If we have to describe snow, we will put adjectives around the noun. It would be hard, soft, cold, etc…
When you have said that, you don’t have said much. English has more words for snow than French. Okay, but what do I do with that information?
Well, there is a common saying that says language reveals how the speakers see the world. Each language is a unique way to see it. So is that all? Can we just say that English has more words to describe snow because snow is a more common sight in England than in France? Well first, I’m not sure that it is the case — snow isn’t that rare in France once you are outside Paris and its suburb, and second, there is a deeper meaning in both these languages.
I remember some of the discussions I had two years ago with a linguistic teacher. We were talking about the difference between the intention of French and English languages when it came down to speaking and expressing an idea or a concept. She claimed that the English language focused on concision, while the French language focused on precision. She also added that, because the English language focused on concision, it had developed specific vocabulary to convey a concept with a great amount of precision, without delaying it with adverbs and adjectives.
When I asked her if this could mean that there were more words in English than in French, she smiled and said that no, there weren’t. However, she guessed that the difference lied on the amount of words in the different parts of speech — they were probably more adjectives and adverbs in French, while they were more nouns in English.
Whether this last statement is true or not, my experience of English meet my teacher’s claim.
I feel that English always tries to be the most concise. On the other side, French takes many detour. When you need to describe something in French, you usually use several adjectives. That doesn’t mean the more the better. It is necessary to find a good balance and a good pace or your sentence will sound clumsy. It’s the same with adverbs.
Lentement mais sûrement, Nicolas avançait d’un pas ferme, en direction des hautes et menaçantes grilles de son école.
Slowly but surely, Nicolas walked with firm steps towards the high and threatening railings of his school.
That sounds ok in English, right? But maybe many would argue that the two adverbs are a bit pointless, that they didn’t really add anything to the meaning. Well, in French, the fact that these two adverbs are located at the very beginning of the sentence add more rhythm to it. A rhythm that is supposed to match how Nicolas’ step are described.
Here is another example from Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert (the translation is the closest I could do.):
Il savourait pour la première fois l’inexprimable délicatesse des élégances féminines. Jamais il n’avait rencontré cette grâce de langage, cette réserve du vêtement, ces poses de colombe assoupie. Il admirait l’exaltation de son âme et les dentelles de sa jupe.
He was savouring for the first time the inexpressible finesse of feminine delicacies. He had never met this charm of language, this reserve of clothing, these poses of a sleeping dove. He was admiring her soul’s elation and her skirt’s laces.
In French, these sentences are a true work of art. I won’t detail how, mostly because it mainly relies on a language most of you don’t understand, but also because I’m clueless for certain parts. In English, I’m pretty sure these sentences sound awkward and clumsy and I’m expecting that you point out how and why.
Anyway, there are many more examples that I could use but I need to keep some things for the next blog post, which I don’t know what it will be about yet. In the meantime, I would like to hear your thoughts on this.
