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28 Hilarious Reasons Why The French Language Is The Worst
While the vocabulary of love is known for being charming and sophisticated, French language is also pretty ridiculous sometimes. Let's celebrate a few of French grammar moments that really made us mort de rire.
French is spoken by an estimated 274 million people in the world, but that doesn't mean it's a walk in the park. French pronunciation has up to 17 vowels depending on the dialect, and most of them are nasal. Many words sound the same but mean completely different things. Everything has a gender. It can take days of examining your relationship to someone before you figure out if it's more polite to call them tu or vous. Oh, and also we must not forget the funny French way of counting! Adding all of this together, French sure seems like the hardest language to learn.
Whether you consider yourself a Francophile, or you've barely mastered bonjour, these struggles will be all too real. To make the French learning process a bit easier we've compiled some really funny jokes about it, so at least you can practice your laughing in French.
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Talking about that.. I don't know why an "aubergine" it's commonly called "eggplant" in English, it's like "oh, look at that delicious veggie, so purple and smooth, it's just like an.. how d'you say?, Egg!! But it's a plant so, EGGPLANT! HAHHA
I believe that apple used to mean pretty much any kind of fruit. I guess it is the same way in french.
In the middle ages "apple" was the word for "fruit". The the "pine apple" is a "fruit that lloks like a pine cone", and the "earth apple" is a fruit that grows in the earth. Do some research before you make fun of languages that are older than your country.
It's all stupid now, but probably derives from how "apple" used to be a general word for "fruit". Technically incorrect for a potato, but the people who made up these words were not familiar with our modern distinctions of what various plant parts were, capisce?
Well in formal Greek is the same (γεώμηλο) but we commonly use potato (πατάτα)
Also in german: "Erdapfel" - earth apple. Though "Kartoffel" is much more common.
wtf... "pomme de terre" means "land apple", I think. You know, the land in which you plant vegetables.
English would have the phrase "apple of pine" in that case and yet english doesnt. Hmm
I'm learning French and I'm supposed to know what they are saying, but I don't. (sigh)
Touché les francais, touché. Not to mention a potato looks a lot more like an Apple than a pineapple does haha
"Erdapfel" (= earth apple) is also common in Austria and some southern german dialects.
We could just as easily mock English, as an Englishman living in France I'm laughing whilst sitting firmly on the fence 😁
They are counting how many years left before they can go to uni and do dru- I mean study hard.
But it's pronounced 'kes ke say' a lot of French autograph has silent letters
Not all french speaking countries count this way. Belgium and Switzerland still use, septante (70), huitante (80) and nonante (90)
"Go on and cry, you'll piss less". Great! I will use it in italian
Actually more like "oil of nut of coco", or else French would be "huile de la noix du coco" whereas it's "huile de noix de coco". Makes sense.
but then again he spelled it as "handfull". how we know if he meant handful or hand full? it's ok to be confused! ;)
I'm fairly certain that "breaking my balls" is also an English phrase. Not sure what country it originates from.
Until you meet "actually" "actuellement" "eventually" et "éventuellement" or dramatic/dramatique which ended with different meanings xD
Oui = yes in french + ja = yes in german = oui+ja = ouija. Sorry, mate
Ne vous inquiétez pas, vos expressions idiomatiques sont hilarantes aussi. Do not worry, your idiomatic expressions are hilarious too.
I think it's nice we can make fun of each other. Laughter makes the world a better place!
This made me laugh! I'm french and I'm glad I don't have to learn it lol
Ad they say english is crazy...
*and*
hon hon hon oui oui baguette
And then people complain because Spanish is weird... Yo hablo los tres idiomas; Français est le plus difficile mais je l'aime tout de même. That's all! Gracias :)
Four twenties ten nine % of these were about counting.
The one thing that makes me crazy is the way that in French, nouns have to be preceded by what in English we would translate as "the", that is "le / la". I'm sure someone will point out something like "you don't have to when speaking French casually, or in this dialect" but you know what I mean - generally "proper".
So many languages have that same thing.
I think the person who invented the French language (if anything like that ever happened) was drunk. Seriously why do you put an 's' if you don't pronounce it? Literally every European language has no logic in its pronunciations including English.
I always wanted to learn French. This post was both funny and a bit discouraging at the same time.
is nobody here going to talk about the significance of the tu in permets-tu? ok then...
When my grandmother was taking french, she only learned written french, so when she moved schools (either changing schools or going to a higher school (middle to high school, etc) her french class was primarily spoken french, so on the first day the teacher would speak rapid fire french, and she couldn’t understand anything. At one point he pointed to her and asked her a question in french, and she’s like, “Uhhh...” and he was like, ”Oui! Un!” (like the number).
Regarding Tu and Vous, that applies to many other languages. I'm not sure if any of us would like to keep it, though. :-)
hey i'm paris 👌
Je ne savais pas que ce genre de choses existaient xD c'est enrichissant !
French is diverse. In Switzerland and Belgium 97 is 90 + 7 "nonante-sept" not the funny "quatre-vingt dix-sept".
With the current political, global disarray, the timing of this is left to be desired
La publication ou les Français sont en mode "VIVE LA FRANCE !"
Hi, french there. I'd like to say all of this is not true, but i would lie x) Really funny, thanks
Not to mention inanimate objects are assigned genders in that language...
And in most others. English is the only language I know that doesn't do that and even though I'm very fluent in english it's incredibly hard for me to use "it" for animals, too. That is completely unnatural.
Hahhaha aww man this made my sides hurt lol. For any of you people wanting to have a laugh at English, Google: An ode to English plural. I promise it'll give you a chuckle.
Thanks for the laugh. I'm French but have been living in English speaking countries for 13 years now and I always think English has weird rules and words. But it's nice to be reminded of the fun side of French as well! PS: I have ALWAYS thought pineapple was such a weird name for a... well... fruit that is not an apple and does not grow on pine trees.
Pineapples don't even grow in trees. They grow on top of weird stalks.
Funny ! I''m french and i must admit that's true ! My son always told me : why this lettre is here ? French is too hard mom !
Oddly nobody commented on how it would be to be androgynous in France
This was a brilliant thread. So much fun. I'm keen on learning French now!
Only last week I learned the French say Talky Walky instead of Walky Talky. That's just adorable. xD
Easier to say for us :p
French is an overrated .and ugly language. Not sexy.
Sil-vous plaît, put your opinions somewhere else, not on this page, mon ami.
Ne vous inquiétez pas, vos expressions idiomatiques sont hilarantes aussi. Do not worry, your idiomatic expressions are hilarious too.
I think it's nice we can make fun of each other. Laughter makes the world a better place!
This made me laugh! I'm french and I'm glad I don't have to learn it lol
Ad they say english is crazy...
*and*
hon hon hon oui oui baguette
And then people complain because Spanish is weird... Yo hablo los tres idiomas; Français est le plus difficile mais je l'aime tout de même. That's all! Gracias :)
Four twenties ten nine % of these were about counting.
The one thing that makes me crazy is the way that in French, nouns have to be preceded by what in English we would translate as "the", that is "le / la". I'm sure someone will point out something like "you don't have to when speaking French casually, or in this dialect" but you know what I mean - generally "proper".
So many languages have that same thing.
I think the person who invented the French language (if anything like that ever happened) was drunk. Seriously why do you put an 's' if you don't pronounce it? Literally every European language has no logic in its pronunciations including English.
I always wanted to learn French. This post was both funny and a bit discouraging at the same time.
is nobody here going to talk about the significance of the tu in permets-tu? ok then...
When my grandmother was taking french, she only learned written french, so when she moved schools (either changing schools or going to a higher school (middle to high school, etc) her french class was primarily spoken french, so on the first day the teacher would speak rapid fire french, and she couldn’t understand anything. At one point he pointed to her and asked her a question in french, and she’s like, “Uhhh...” and he was like, ”Oui! Un!” (like the number).
Regarding Tu and Vous, that applies to many other languages. I'm not sure if any of us would like to keep it, though. :-)
hey i'm paris 👌
Je ne savais pas que ce genre de choses existaient xD c'est enrichissant !
French is diverse. In Switzerland and Belgium 97 is 90 + 7 "nonante-sept" not the funny "quatre-vingt dix-sept".
With the current political, global disarray, the timing of this is left to be desired
La publication ou les Français sont en mode "VIVE LA FRANCE !"
Hi, french there. I'd like to say all of this is not true, but i would lie x) Really funny, thanks
Not to mention inanimate objects are assigned genders in that language...
And in most others. English is the only language I know that doesn't do that and even though I'm very fluent in english it's incredibly hard for me to use "it" for animals, too. That is completely unnatural.
Hahhaha aww man this made my sides hurt lol. For any of you people wanting to have a laugh at English, Google: An ode to English plural. I promise it'll give you a chuckle.
Thanks for the laugh. I'm French but have been living in English speaking countries for 13 years now and I always think English has weird rules and words. But it's nice to be reminded of the fun side of French as well! PS: I have ALWAYS thought pineapple was such a weird name for a... well... fruit that is not an apple and does not grow on pine trees.
Pineapples don't even grow in trees. They grow on top of weird stalks.
Funny ! I''m french and i must admit that's true ! My son always told me : why this lettre is here ? French is too hard mom !
Oddly nobody commented on how it would be to be androgynous in France
This was a brilliant thread. So much fun. I'm keen on learning French now!
Only last week I learned the French say Talky Walky instead of Walky Talky. That's just adorable. xD
Easier to say for us :p
French is an overrated .and ugly language. Not sexy.
Sil-vous plaît, put your opinions somewhere else, not on this page, mon ami.