• 0 posts
  • 3 comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: December 11th, 2024
  • m_‮f@discuss.onlinetoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•Can English speakers understand spoken French?
    7 days

    I tried translating the sentence to French with a machine translator and it came up with this:

    L’hiver rigoureux approche, une tempête de neige va s’abattre. Viens te réfugier dans ma maison bien chauffée, mon ami. Bienvenue ! Viens ici, chante et danse, mange et bois. Voilà ce que j’ai prévu. Nous avons de l’eau, de la bière et du lait tout frais de la vache. Oh, et de la soupe bien chaude !

    I would understand “bière” and “soupe” out of all that, I think. There’s cognates in there like mansion/maison, but they’re spelled/pronounced differently enough that I don’t think they’d help.

  • m_‮f@discuss.onlinetoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•Can English speakers understand spoken French?
    7 days

    Generally not, but it’d be interesting to explore how long of an intentionally-constructed text could be considered mutually intelligible. Here’s an example for Germanic languages:

    https://linguifex.com/wiki/Literature%3AThe_cold_winter_is_near

    The cold winter is near is an example text for Germanic languages written by YouTuber King Ming Lam. It aims to use as much partially or completely mutually intelligible vocabulary between North and West Germanic languages to construct a text that can be understood, if vaguely, by any speaker of a mainstream Germanic language, such as English or German.

    Here’s the English text:

    The cold winter is near, a snowstorm will come. Come in my warm house, my friend. Welcome! Come here, sing and dance, eat and drink. That is my plan. We have water, beer, and milk fresh from the cow. Oh, and warm soup!

    To me, Norwegian is the closest to intelligible as a native English speaker:

    Den kalde vinteren er nær, en snøstorm vil komme. Kom inn i mitt varme hus, min venn. Velkommen! Kom her, syng og dans, et og drikk. Dette er min plan. Vi har vann, øl og melk fersk fra kua. Åh, og varm suppe!

    I’ve also seen that Frisian is supposed to be most understandable to an English speaker, or at least most historically related. Here’s some samples of that:

    • English: The boy stroked the girl about the chin and kissed her on the cheeks.
    • Saterland Frisian: Die Wänt strookede dät Wucht uum ju Keeuwe un oapede hier ap do Sooken.
    • North Frisian (Mooring dialect): Di dreng aide dåt foomen am dåt kan än mäket har aw da siike.
    • North Frisian (Söl’ring dialect): Di Dreeng strekt dit faamen om’t Ken en taatjet höör üp di Sjaken
    • West Frisian: De jonge streake it famke om it kin en tute har op 'e wangen.
    • Gronings: t Jong fleerde t wicht om kinne tou en smokte heur op wange.
    • East Frisian Low Saxon: De Fent straktde dat Wicht um’t Kinn to un tuutjede hör up de Wangen.
    • German: Der Junge streichelte das Mädchen ums Kinn und küsste sie auf die Wangen.
    • Dutch: De jongen streelde het meisje langs haar kin en kuste haar op de wangen.
    • Afrikaans: Die seun streel die meisie oor haar ken en soen haar op die wange.
    • Danish: Drengen strøg pigen på hagen og kyssede hende på kinderne.
    • Icelandic: Drengurinn strauk stúlkunni um hökuna og kyssti hana á kinnarnar.
    • Norwegian (Bokmål): Gutten strøk jenta på haken og kysset henne på kinnene.
    • Norwegian (Nynorsk): Guten strauk jenta på haka og kyssa henne på kinna.
    • Swedish: Pojken strök flickan över hakan och kysste henne på kinderna.