French: Every living thing is born without meaning, but non-living things have a gender
And different words used to name the same thing can have a different gender
A meme format from one of the greatest movies of all time???
Up down up down up down up down
English pronunciation is much worse than just silent letters. It doesn’t really make any sense and you need to learn tons of words by heart: https://fishofgold.net/2023/12/08/english-pronunciation-is-stupid/
Sometimes even the exact same set of letters are pronounced differently. The verb live vs a live broadcast. Read (present) vs read (past) and many more…. Are you kidding me?
And when the letters are removed, French still lets you know there was a letter at some point by putting a little hat on top of the preceding letter. It makes learning it even funnier.
Forêt and forest. Arrêt and arrest. Hôpital and hospital.
As a native French speaker this may be the laziest part to me. We still say someone was hoSpitalisé, in a hôpital. People can be défeneStrés through fenêtres. Someone can be arrêté through arreStation.
Lots of hidden pains and treasures. When I was a kid I thought learning all this shit was pointless. We should just reform everything and spell like we speak. But then I also learned to appreciate the evolution of the language, and why it’s aisle and isle in English.
We should just reform everything and spell like we speak.
Let me introduce you to slavic languages, where AFAIK it’s the rule, not exception
I’m curious where the ‘s’ was dropped first, in speech or writing? Written French is quite prescriptive with phonetics so I would guess it dropped from spoken language first? (And each little ‘hat’ is just a ‘tip of the hat’ to the lost letter? (Ok, I’ll see myself out lol))
In English, every letter is silent. Sometimes.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/mums-the-letter-when-letters-dont-say-a-thing
Without reason, sure, but with a gender
Assigned with malice
Tibetan: abject chaos
French pronunciation works by geological principles: over the years, what looks like an intricate arrangement of vowels and consonants gets eroded and folded down to what’s essentially a nuanced grunt.
I think you actually just described Danish.
Why pronounce a consonant when you just can swallow it and use a glottal stop instead?
That’s just called language
Bordeaux = bordo
French: oui paid for the whole alphabet and by God oui’re using the whole alphabet
And we are going to use the almost all the alphabet to make exactly one sound.
For instance eaux is pronounced o.
I’ve always thought it was funny there is no “o” in “eaux”.
> Heard my friend is going to ‘Bordo’
> Look up Bordo
> Mfw it’s spelled Bordeaux
Letters still have lots of meaning in French. I love French spelling and pronunciation. Not understanding something doesn’t make it meaningless.
Is that seaux?
Yes it is sceau
Oué
œufs.
That’s un oeuf
Accurate.
English: ghoti
Do you like ghoti sticks? Then you’re a gay ghoti.
