Pratiquecompte - Occasionnellement Bilingue, Souvent Perplexe

Merci pour votre reponse! Je suis un Eurovision fan donc j’ai aimé votre poste. Merci en plus pour partager le meme avec moi. Matsuda est un personage très intéressant et je trouve son rôle dans Death Note fascinant

Quel est votre scène préféré du Death Note? Mon c’est la scène avec Lind L Taylor.

Aaah je t'ai vu dans mes notes... Ça fait bizarre de voir un reblog sur mon post qui dépend entièrement du contexte que la France était représentée par une chanteuse Canadienne à ce moment-là 😭 Plus très marrant maintenant... Bonne chance pour ton apprentissage en tous cas !

Je n'ai pas regardé Death Note depuis très, très longtemps. Je ne saurais pas dire quelles scènes étaient mes préférées. Mais la mort de L était mémorable, j'y pense de temps en temps.

Sinon, j'ai déjà mentionné sur mon blog que ce vieux meme IDIOT m'a (réellement) aidée à des moments où je me sentais pas bien, donc on peut dire que je suis fan de la scène lol... J'ai aussi souvenir d'avoir aimé le rôle de Matsuda à ce moment de l'anime quand je l'ai regardé.

La Mode illustrée, no. 12, 20 mars 1921, Paris. Ville de Paris / Bibliothèque Forney

"Le courage n’était guère digne d’être compté parmi les vertus s’il n’était motivé par la justice. Dans ses Entretiens, Confucius le définit en expliquant, comme il le fait souvent, ce qu’il n’est pas. "Savoir ce qui est juste, dit-il, et ne pas se conduite en conséquence démontre un manque de courage." Réécrivons cette maxime dans un sens positif et cela donne :"Le courage consiste à faire ce qui est juste." On considère trop souvent comme de la bravoure le fait de se mettre en péril, de s’exposer à tous les dangers ou de se jeter dans les griffes de la mort. Dans le métier des armes, une conduite aussi inconsidérée, que Shakespeare appelle "la valeur bâtarde", est injustement applaudie ; mais il n’en va pas de même dans les préceptes du Bushido. Mourir pour une cause indigne était une mort inutile. "Se ruer au cœur de la bataille et s’y faire tuer est assez facile, dit un prince de Mito, et à la portée du plus simple des rustres ; le vrai courage consiste à vivre quand il faut vivre et à mourir lorsqu’il faut mourir.""

Inazo Nitobe, Bushido. Le code du Samouraï. L’âme du Japon, trad. Laurence Seguin, 1900.

Au lieu du traditionnel "Ça rentre part une oreille et ça ressort par l’autre", mon fils vient de me sortir "Ça rentre dans sa tête mais ça y fait pas grand chose"

Quelquefois j’oublie que mon idiolecte des références aux memes, blagues entre nous, et langage excessivement soutenu n’est pas partager avec tous le monde.

oh my god i actually cannot communicate. like at all. « this makes sense in my mind therefore it must also make sense in my mind » NO GWEN YOU NEED TO EXPLAIN THINGS TO PEOPLE FUCKING HELL

HELP!!!!

French teachers, please help with these chaos of questions!!!!

Qu'est-ce que?

Qu'est-ce qui?

Qui est-ce?

Qui est-ce qui?

Qui est-ce que?

My poor head! Its crazy!

PLEASE explain me the meaning of all of these.

… a text I got just suddenly made much more sense. Thank you.

I remember, when I just started learning English, being SO dumbstruck at the concept of missing someone like i couldn’t comprehend what do y’all meant by “I miss YOU?????” Tf??? Wdym I miss you?? You’re the one that I miss??? I know it makes sense to you guys but before I was just like WTF?? cuz in french we say TU me manques-> basically YOUR absence is making me miss you/ you’re missing FROM ME.

And saying I miss you was like saying Je te manque in french which is like saying “you miss me” instead of “I miss you”

So I = Je, miss = manque, You= te

Oh so ->Je te manque? wrong! Tu me manques? Yes

And Tu = You, me (muh) manques = miss me (me is I in this context)

So does it means ->You miss me? NOPE! I miss you

See why I was losing my mind back then?

Tu me manques is I miss you

And it’s so mind blowing when you finally understand that french focuses on how the person’s absence is affecting you: you are the one suffering from the other’s absence, TU me manques -> your absence is making me miss you. Or the fact that you are not here is making me miss you (that’s how I explain it to myself lol)

But English focuses on how the speaker feel the person’s absence: I miss you -> I AM feeling your absence

I probably didn’t explain it right cuz now that I understand it perfectly it kinda blurs in my head and it’s like wait why was this confusing already?? Both make perfect sense??? ugh but I hope i got my point across 😭😭

For people learning French and wanting to speak it like a native, I’ll give you some tips, the things native people say (so you can sound less formal when you speak it).

“Je suis” is often shortened to “j’suis” and if we say it fast, it becomes “chuis”

“Tu es” and basically every verb with “tu” that starts with a vowel, we contract it and make it “t’es”, “t’arrives”, etc.

“il y a”, “il y avait” are most of the time shortened to (oral speech and when writing to a friend) “ya”, “y avait”

To make a question, it’s rare that we use the “est-ce que” form, we just take the affirmative sentence and put a question mark at the end : tu veux manger? (instead of : veux-tu manger?, est-ce que tu veux manger?)

Some abbreviations we often use :

bcp (beaucoup), mtn (maintenant), pk (pourquoi), tlm (tout le monde), mm (même), ptn (putain)

I know this post is probably useless but if you have any questions about french, ill be happy to answer them!

Une question pour les françaises (French side of tumblr):

Salut! Je sais que la France est la deuxième plus grande consommatrice du manga au monde derrière le Japon. Quelqu’un peut si-vous-plaît expliquez la connection entre la France et le Japon pour moi? (Ou la connection française avec l’Asie de l’Est en général).

En anglais:

Hi! I know that France is the second biggest consumer of manga worldwide behind Japan. Could anyone please explain for me the connection between France and Japan? (Or the French connection with East Asia in general)

Merci!

Hi! I’m starting to learn French and one thing that’s both cool and weird to me is how everything is gendered in a way (referring to someone/whose saying the statement/etc.) and I was wondering how that relates to people who identity as non-binary or gender fluid in France? Are there equivalents to they/them pronouns or neo pronouns in French?

I do plan on doing my own research about this but I figured since I love your blog and you’re really open about different cultural lgbtq+ communities I’d try here first!

That's an awesome question... with a complicated answer lmao. So buckle up and bear with me !

Basically, you can't be non-binary in French. The community found ways to do it but it's not mainstream. Most of the time, they're going to get misgendered or will have to misgender themselves to get understood.

Some things I'm going to list here are not proper French. Actually, they can even be forbidden in some circumstances, according to the law (the use of inclusive language, and more specifically le point médian, was made illegal in schools in 2021 for ex) or simply because your company etc forbids it. So use this wisely, there is a time and place for inclusive language in France.

That said, things have greatly developed over the last two decades. Which was partly because of the queer community and mainly because of feminists, who are tired of the way French erases women. More and more people are using inclusive language, at least in some circumstances and circles (for ex, i wrote my master's thesis in inclusive language and it was accepted bc i was in a leftist faculty). And inclusive language is debated as a serious issue now, which is saying something.

So, how do you use inclusive language in practice?

There are different ways, as it's informal and mostly new. People are still testing new things and trying out various methods. You can stick to one or alternate or mix them up.

Pronouns

Officially, there isn't a gender neutral pronoun. We don't have an equivalent to they. You're either talking about a man or a woman. If it's both, you use masculine pronouns ("masculine trumps feminine" rule). Same thing if you don't know the gender of the person ("masculin générique").

The most common neopronoun is "iel" (plural : iels), which is obviously a contraction of the masculine pronoun "il" and its feminine equivalent "elle". It works for nb folks or to avoid talking about someone's gender or to refer to a group of men and women. So it's equally used by the queer community and feminists.

I'm pretty sure other neopronouns exist but I can't think of any at the top of my head.

Choosing the right words

Sometimes, inclusive language is just about learning to use alternatives.

Instead of using gendered words, you can choose to use gender-neutral words or words "épicènes", aka words which are identical in their feminine and masculine form. For ex, instead of "homme politique" or "femme politique", you can use "personnalité politique". Personnalité is a feminine word but it's actually gender-neutral as you can use it for women and men alike. "Élève" (student) is épicène, as a female student and a male student are both referred to as "élève". Although épicène words as a gender-neutral option only work in their plural form, as you have to choose either a feminine or masculine article for the singular ("les élèves" is inclusive but it can only be "un" or "une" élève).

As good as this method is, it can be quite limitating. Your vocabulary will be drastically reduced and it can be quite hard to master that kind of speech so you can reach the point where you don't have to think everything over for ages before you open your mouth.

With oral French, you can take it a step further by choosing words that sound the same even if they have a different spelling. Ex, friend is "ami" or "amie" but it's pronounced the same way so if you say it out loud, people can't know how you're gendering it (as long as there isn't a gendered article/word with it ofc).

It avoids misgendering people but the downside is that, as masculine is considered neutral in French, people will often think : no gender specified = masculine. Not even because they're sexist or whatever, it's just so ingrained in our brains that it's a knee-jerk reaction.

That's also why most feminists often prefer to use explicitly feminine words when talking about women. For ex, they prefer the word "autrice" to "auteure" (female writer) because the second one sounds the same as its masculine version "auteur". And as previously mentionned, out loud, people will assume by default you're talking about a man. It's a big debate though, lots of women prefer words that sound masculine - going as far as refusing to use feminine words at all! Which sounds cool and gender-bending as fuck but in reality comes from feminine words traditionally seen as less legitimate and serious. Even today, if you look up the word empress "impératrice" in a French dictionary, the first definition that comes up is "wife of an emperor". "Woman ruling a country" comes second. Using a masculine title to refer to women can also be a way to mock them and show they're not welcome (a french deputy got fined in 2014 because he called the female president of the national assembly "Madame le président" and refused to use the feminine title "Madame la présidente").

Recently the tendency and official guidelines have been to feminize words, so I'd say go with that by default, but respect other people's choice if they specify how they want to be called.

Anyway I'm getting off-track but what I meant was that in French, if you avoid talking about gender, you're automatically erasing women (and nb people). So if you want to include everyone, you need to make it obvious.

Inclusivity as a statement

The most common way to make women and men equally visible is the "point médian" rule, which you can also use to refer to non-binary people as it avoids picking a specific gender.

Basically, it means pasting together the masculine and feminine forms of a word and using dots/middle dots/hyphens/parentheses/capital letters to create an inclusive word. For ex, instead of saying acteur (♂️) or actrice (♀️) for actor, you'll write "acteur.ice". For the plural form, there are two schools of thought : either you separate the feminine and masculine form AND the suffix used to signify the plural, or you don't. Aka, "acteur.ice.s" or "acteur.ices". Personally I prefer the second option because less dots makes it easier to read and faster to write, but it's an individual choice, both work.

There are two major downsides to this method : it only works in writing + it isn't doable for every word, as feminine and masculine words can be quite different and pasting them together that way would be unintelligible. Ex, "copain" and "copine" (friend or boyfriend/girlfriend depending on the context) would give something like "cop.ain.ine"...

You can work around that by choosing alternative words (as previously stated!). And it's still a pretty good method, especially as it works for any type of word (adjectives etc). Some people argue that it's hard to read and ugly but personally I think it's just a matter of habit (although it does pose a problem for people using screen readers). Be aware that it is the most controversial version of inclusive writing, as it's the furthest structure from how languages typically work.

If you don't like dots or want an alternative for oral speech, you can also straight up create new words that sound both feminine and masculine, making them gender-neutral. To use the previous example, "copain" and "copine" become "copaine".

Obviously, this only works if it's obvious which words they're based on. I think it's a great way to make French more inclusive but I'd advise against using it with uninitiated people as it would probably confuse them more than anything. This method is still quite niche.

An inclusive, yet binary language

As you've probably figured out, inclusive language remains quite binary in the way we approach it. It's more about making things both masculine and feminine than transcending gender and creating gender-neutral alternatives. Probably because inclusive language was more often a will to stop women from being erased rather than a non-binary friendly gesture.

Which means, there are also some rules that were created to avoid the "masculine trumps feminine rule" but don't allow room for non-binarity at all. I'll still explain them because they're interesting and you might encounter them at some point.

The proximity rule ("règle de proximité") is one of these. It existed in Ancient Greek and Latin but was dropped in Modern French in favor of the masculine trumps feminine rule. Basically, you gender things according to what's closest in the sentence instead of systematically using masculine words to gender a mixed group. For ex, instead of saying "Les hommes et les femmes sont beaux" you say "Les hommes et les femmes sont belles", as the subject "femmes" is closer to the adjective "beau/belle" than "hommes".

Another method is to systematically use both masculine and feminine words (which I personally find excruciating to write and read). Meaning, instead of writing "Les étudiants mangent à la cantine" (students eat at the cafeteria), you'll write "Les étudiantes et les étudiants mangent à la cantine".

This is mainly for the subject of the sentence : adjectives and such are gendered according to the masculine trumps feminine rule. The point is to explicitly include women, not to make the sentence unintelligible or gender-neutral.

When following this method, you also have to pay attention to whether you put the feminine subject first or the masculine. The rule is to follow alphabetical order. For ex, in "l'égalité entre les femmes et les hommes", "femmes" comes first because F comes before H. But in "Les auteurs et les autrices de roman", "auteurs" comes first because E comes before R. Etc.

This method is common as it's the only inclusive language you can get away with, given that it's a valid way of speaking French. It's even mandatory in some situations now, like in job descriptions for the french administration, in the spirit of gender equality.

So, how do I gender a non-binary person?

In short, you can use the pronoun iel + avoid gendered words and/or use the point médian and/or make up new words.

But keep in mind that if you're not talking to someone familiar with these rules, you'll have some explaining to do. And looots of people are still very anti inclusive language, because they're sexist and/or transphobic, ignorant, language purists, etc. A few years ago it was the thing to be angry about for conservatives and anti-feminists so it's still very controversial. But if you're in a trans inclusive queer space or talking with intersectionnal leftists, go for it !

I hope I covered everything (fellow french, don't hesitate to comment!) and didn't put you to sleep lmao. If you want to see some examples, you can look it up on Wikipedia or check #bagaitte on tumblr (it's the french queer tag) 😉