While the vocabulary of the love language 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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French Cats
We use a lot more "mdr" which mean " mort de rire/ dead from laughing".
The French Way Of Counting
Bro, I'm french and this is the reason I hate my language. Like, what the f*ck is 'prépositions subordonnées relatives'??
Load More Replies...Okay, so basically the French can't count past 60 before they have to start all over again?
Yes, and then they stop at twenty. Hence, four twenty or quatre-vingt equals eighty. I can laugh, I am Belgian, and although I have to confess that, in Belgium we also say "quatre-vingt", at least we say septante to mean seventy, and nonante to mean ninety. The Swiss are more logical, they say huitante or octante to mean eighty.
Load More Replies...English used to have a system like this that was used occasionally. "Fourscore and seven years ago" may be the most well known example of this.
Although French still seems to have gone the extra mile in making this confusing.
Load More Replies...The reason is historical , too much people who could barely count were writing 4 x 20 to say 80 etc... it's just history and every language evolves in the same way, as they re probably reason why american says vaccum and not hoover while it's a british invention etc.
The Correct Way To Name A Potato
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
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.
I believe that apple used to mean pretty much any kind of fruit. I guess it is the same way in french.
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?
French School Years
They are counting how many years left before they can go to uni and do dru- I mean study hard.
way to go on making my life more complicated, france. am i in eighth grade(US) or 4th grade? BAWWW!!
ÉCOLE MATERNELLE CYCLE 1 PS petite section MS moyenne section GS grande section ÉCOLE PRIMAIRE CYCLE 2 CP Cours préparatoire CE1-CE2 cours élémentaire 1-2 CYCLE 3 CM1-CM2 cours moyen 1-2 COLLEGE 6e 5e 4e 3e LYCÉE 2e 1e terminale >>>> baccalaureate (examen general culture before specialization in high studies)
Before CP it's Maternelle, not kindergarten, and there are 3 years you can do there, but not all children go
In Brazil you go 9 years and then you go back to the first. Cool right?
The French Numeric System
But it's pronounced 'kes ke say' a lot of French autograph has silent letters
It can even get longer with "Qu'est-ce que c'est que ça ?" (pronounced "kes ke say xa ???" and that I would translate by "what is this that this that is, is ?") To use mostly when you want to express disgust, anger or doubt, exactly like "WTF is THAT ???"
Load More Replies...Well, it's funny because french are making fun of us belgian because we say "septante" and "nonante" for seventy and ninety, and it appears to them as a nonsense :))
Although it’s entirely logical, and the French sound hardly literate if, when they want to say 70, they have to say 60-10 !
Load More Replies..."Kes Ke say, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa" That sound familiar? Its in a song!
Because "qu'est ce que c est" is redneck talking. The correct way is simple "qu'est ce?"(litterally: "what's this"). Unfortunatly foreigners talk a better french than the french themselves.
redneck talking lol, in french we say "français courant". In fact, "qu'est-ce ?" come from "le français littéraire", the french you can read in books or hear in the center of Paris maybe but by old people. I wonder if someone from Manhattan speak exactly the same as someone from Brooklyn.
Load More Replies...Indeed, but if you don't feel fine with it, you can ask "c'est quoi ?" ("it is what ?") instead, like many French speakers do.
Psycho Killer . . . I literally cannot say the French without my wife screaming, "SHUT UP!". She hates that TH song.
actually the longest version is qu'est-ce que c'est que ça? which literally translates to what is this that this is that "that" hahahahaha there's a point in harry potter where an owl or something scares somebody and they twirl around and say WHAT IS THIS THAT THIS IS THAT "THAT"??!?
99 Problems, But Longer
Off course neuf adolescent (nineteen) is much better than dix-neuf! =)
J'ai quatre-vingts-dix-neuf problèmes et la façon de compter dans ma langue c'en est un
Funny French Language
Except you pronounce all these words exactly the same! (ver,vert,vers,verre,vert)
Load More Replies...There's a similar phrase in Welsh. "Ydy dy dei du di yn dy dŷ du di neu ydy dy dad di yn dy dŷ du di?" It means "Is your black tie in your black house or is your dad in your black house?" !
I hope it's not only me who tried pronouncing this tongue twister (right away) after seen it
My bf is not a french native speaker (I am) and he always told me that one of the most annoying thing with french is that many words sounds very similar with many different meanings :/
Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo
It’s not a tongue twister, it’s just a sentence that tries to make fun of homonyms. Like English has a bloody leg to stand on there with their silly use of homonyms, they’re out-of-control! Where were we? We’re where we were. He threw the ball through two windows too. Not to mention sentences like: “I never said he took my wallet.” Which has a completely different meaning every time you emphasize a different word. (eg I never said HE took my wallet. I never SAID he took my wallet.)
English: Green green green green greener Latvian: zaļais zaļums zaļo zaļumu zaļināja
French Numerals
Not all french speaking countries count this way. Belgium and Switzerland still use, septante (70), huitante (80) and nonante (90)
I live in Belgium and we don't learn huitante in school, but quatre-vingt for 80. I even never heard anyone say that in Belgium. Maybe the use it in some places as a dialect, but it certainly isn't the standard.
Load More Replies...What! Oh my god that's insane?! HOW DO YOU EVEN MATH?! My condolences my friend. :D
Load More Replies...They should add Denmark here with a troll face. Danish numbers are also 20-based, but it gets worse, because they add fractions to the mix. 50 would something like (3/2 * 20)
As we say in English you’d have to be 429 friendly to think 420 was 80! It is basically impossible for me to understand a French person read me a phone number. Or any string of numbers 05 76 21 65 81 91 In the USA we would generally read the number is one digit a time: 057621658191 French: zéro cinq soixante-dix six vingt et un soixante-cinq quatre-vingt-un Pronounced (not written) in French as : 0 5 60 10 6 20 and 1 60 5 40 20 1 A 12 digit number suddenly looks like 18 to me !
Funny French Expressions
"Go on and cry, you'll p**s less". Great! I will use it in italian
It is used in Hungarian language too :)) I remember my gran saying that to me.
Load More Replies...i just learned how to say "my a*s" in french. Thanks boredpanda! *The More You Know! music theme*
"And my a*s is made of chicken" -- I want to hear a reporter say that to Kellyanne when she drops one of her "alternative facts"!
When you talk to someone and he is not listening: "Parle à mon cul ma tête est malade" Talk to my a*s my head is ill (My mother in law uses this a lot :-))
when you didnt close the door: do you live in a barn/horse-barn? when you stand between them and something [like tv :D] you're not transparent! when you lie too obviously: yeah, and i'm a ballerina [though, not sure if this isnt peculiar for my region only] when you are in a bad mood: why aren't you in a gravy/sauce? - I've known this my whole life and until know I've never checked the origin, so here it goes: formerly people thought there are four different liquids in the human body that may affect mood/temper: blood, bile, black bile and phlegm, and also the liquids were called that way: mood or temper. and people believed it so much they started to use sentences like `to be in a good/bad gravy', nowadays only the `bad mood` part remains in polish language, so `to be in a bad gravy/sauce` literally means `to be in a bad mood`:)
accually, some of this are used in Estonia too...the one about glazier and pissing less when crying...
When you are too familiar On n’a pas gardé les cochons ensemble à ce qu’il me semble We have not herd the pigs together I think
The French Word For Shower
The first day I arrived in the USA, I asked my NEW in-laws where I could take a *douche*. Their *stone faced* expression, let me to believe they never took a *douche*, so I said, where can I take a *bath*! To make matters worse, once in the bathroom, I said real loud. Here is the *douche*. It wasn't until the next day, I learned the difference between *shower and douche* in the USA.
Latin languages ... to shower = se doucher ( in french) , ducharse (in spanish), what about americans and english people using the words " torch" for different reasons... it's funny too
Funny French Language
Ninety-nine = 3 syllables (full sentence = 10 syllables) ; quatr'-vingt-dix-neuf = 4 syllables (full sentence = 11 syllables). So not much more. 12 syllables if you really want to say all syllables.
Load More Replies...La Petite Mort
Actually, it is proven that when a woman has an orgasm, her brain has a complete shut down for a brief moment, which means that she has a "little death." So in this, French language has the most accurate description.
It's just some kind of poetic expression. We don't call it that every time.
It's an old term that only people reading classic literature woul know
Tu vs. Vous
Come on this is done in many many languages, it's just you English speakers who don't :D
It looked scary and complicated at first, then I remembered in Poland we use "ty" (and "wy" in plural c: ) in not formal situations like like French "tu" and - oh boy - "Pan (for man), Pani (for woman), Panowie (for men), Panie (for women), Państwo (for group of men and women)" as "vous" c: You're welcome c:
I wouldn't say "poor us" since it doesn't exactly detriment our lives, but I can see the benefit of it.
Load More Replies...It's the same in Serbian just replace ''Tu'' with ''Ti" and ''Vous'' with ''Vi".
It's the same in Hungarian. The (apparent) lack of polite speech freaked me out, when I started studying in Britain. But it!s actually there, just done in a weird, subtle way.
Indonesian Javanese has 3 grades of language, and it's own written characters. So this chart is not complicated enough for me.
In Serbian is exactly the same just replace ''Vous'' with ''Vi'' and ''Tu'' with ''Ti''.
The English Have Landed
Never heard of that (I am from a post-soviet country).
Load More Replies...We have a lot of them : I'm a man but i have a lot of female relatives so : I have : The russian or bolchevik. I have mes "ragnagnas" (no translation possible), the respectuous expression is "être indisposée" , i have my things. I have my guests(monthly guests), I'm on my week...
In Germany we used to announce (some years ago) that our "red Porsche is parked just outsidethe door"
Are the latin american no creativity at all? We say something like “Llegó Andrés, el que viene cada mes" and it literally translate “andres the one who comes every month". We are weird.
In Malaysia we call it "Jepun menyerang" which means The Japanese is invading! It sure links to the Japanese flag. Honestly I don't hate Japanese, I love emm and I'm an otaku too!!! :P
Magic Baguette
More precisely, the baguette has been named after its wand-like shape. So you could litterally translate "he bought a wand of bread".
Ok it's funny. But "baguette" is a shape. Orchestra conductor, the bread(ha ha ), chinese food instrument...something : thin, long and lightweight.
but don't forget that voldemort is vol-de-mort which means "flight of death"
Might as well be "Flight of Dead" or "to rob death " or "to rob a dead man" homonymes .o/ hahaha !
Load More Replies...Enfin... une "baguette magique" c'est aussi autre choses chez nous... hehe
And "Jedusor" can be read as "jeux du sort" which means "game of fate" or "curse" too .
There's a party slightly above this about orgasms being le petit mort, the little death. That immediately made me think of Voldemort, the flying death.
French Letters And Their Pronunciation
You wanna talk about "Thought", "tough", "though"? Don't even get me started with italian...(I'm from italy)
Load More Replies...My last name is pronounced as it is spelled (except the last letter) and yet everyone gets it wrong
Sorry, the English language can't be on its "high horse" here. We have a five letter word, four letters of which are completely unnecessary. Those of you who know it form an orderly queue...
Funny French Language
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.
Or we can simply say "Huile de Coco", "Oil of Coco".
Load More Replies...The Love Language
Diversifying Words
Are you serious with this one? Like English is the most diversified language?
Learning The French Language
Confusing Language
but then again he spelled it as "handfull". how we know if he meant handful or hand full? it's ok to be confused! ;)
Again, back to a previous post's comment section discussing Americans butchering their (our) own language.
Load More Replies...Even to an English speaker that still sounds stupid. Just say you want some tattoos, damn!
The Law Is The Law
Because that's the name of the TV show in French
Load More Replies...Yes, but that's not an oddity in the French language. It's an oddity in Google Translate. And whatever dumbasses released that movie in France.
I Am Late
r****d has an entirely different meaning in English and it isn't particularly nice.
Load More Replies...It's from Latin. Tardus means late, slow, tardy. In Spanish you have retraso which means delay of anything (retraso mental means mental retardation) and atrás and detrás, both meaning behind. 😊
Not someone's behind, but orientation wise. 😆
Load More Replies...Funny French Language
I'm fairly certain that "breaking my balls" is also an English phrase. Not sure what country it originates from.
Référence aux "Tontons Flingueurs",où Lino Ventura dit à sa "nièce", mon petit ton ami commence à me les briser menu, sans dire exactement quoi, sous-entendu facile à élucider... Your boyfriend in on the verge of mincing them, breaking them .... no need to say what
Word Similarities
Until you meet "actually" "actuellement" "eventually" et "éventuellement" or dramatic/dramatique which ended with different meanings xD
Or talking about "les préservatifs" (meaning condoms) in food when you mean to say "conservateurs". I could write a book!
Load More Replies...well yea remember you've been invaded by a french king one day and french became the official language of the court, why do you think you make the difference between food and animals ... because the name of the animals was for the working class but the food the artiocracry... Things are changing now with the globalization , we have a love of english word especially in technology
What is called "les faux-amis", the false friends, because we think we can use them with the meaning we know
Learning Swedish now. Same thing. Semester - vacation, bra - good, slutstation - end station, gift - married, kiss - pee, puss - kiss
French Language Jokes
Oui = yes in french + ja = yes in german = oui+ja = ouija. Sorry, mate
No I'm German, yes is ja. I should know I'm German
Load More Replies...Minute Changes
It actually can be translated by " to f**k up" (no link with genitalia though, even if 'con' actually comes from the latin word for vagina haha)
Load More Replies...Faire le con veut dire = faire le con ^^ Seriously, it's mean, to play the fool
One Big Ooof, Please
You pronounce the f when it's singular, you don't when it's plural.
Load More Replies...Maybe with an english accent... From a french point of view it's really different ! 😊
Load More Replies...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!
Load More Replies...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 :)
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".
is nobody here going to talk about the significance of the tu in permets-tu? ok then...
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!
Load More Replies...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 :)
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".
is nobody here going to talk about the significance of the tu in permets-tu? ok then...
