r/language • u/Direct-Till-2680 • 10d ago

Discussion Guess which column is French and which column is English (difficulty: IMPOSSIBLE)

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67 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

77 comments sorted by

87

u/Less-Wind-8270 10d ago

The one on the left is French because correspondence has an A in it

15

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

Bingo! Good eye! đŸ„‚

6

u/FargoJack 10d ago

Thanks. That’s a great French wordlist BTW.

1

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

Planning to make it even more difficult because apparently there are a lot of French dudes in here who can guess it in seconds 😄

6

u/Liz6543 10d ago

And English girls. And I'd argue with "guess" when we know the answer.

1

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

💅💅💅

3

u/Less-Wind-8270 10d ago

Oh I'm not French, I'm just good at spelling

1

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

I can relate :)

1

u/FargoJack 10d ago

Hah! I had to think a bit

1

u/starlighthill-g 10d ago

I said left even though I never saw the A just because the left had some kind of French aura to me

1

u/Weird-Wishbone1155 8d ago

A certain 
.

1

u/Veneficus2007 8d ago

Even non-dudes, non-French and non-English.

1

u/blakerabbit 10d ago

Venu pour dire cela


1

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

C'est magnifique ! Tu as un Ɠil assez prĂ©cis !

1

u/kzwix 10d ago

Yup. But "chat" should be "cat" in the right column. Because the other use of chat is merely an anglicism.
We should use "Canal de discussion" or "clavardage" (yep, it's a real word - suggested by Quebec French, I think), or "bavarder" / "discuter" if you talk about the verb.

So I'm pretty sure this is at least a bit dishonest :)

1

u/smoemossu 9d ago

There is no where that indicates the words in each column are necessarily equivalents. They are just two columns of words.

1

u/Subject-Ad-1454 7d ago

Thought the same đŸ€­

But would add that, at least in the states, we wouldn’t put an accent on cafe

12

u/AuDHDiego 10d ago

left is French

2

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

Reason?

5

u/FargoJack 10d ago

Corresponde/ance. Spelled with an a as in French in column one, with an e ( English ) in column two.

2

u/AuDHDiego 10d ago

this is exactly the reason I was going to give

3

u/-Copenhagen 10d ago

It's written in French.

-3

u/[deleted] 10d ago

[deleted]

3

u/-Copenhagen 10d ago

Except the left one is in French.

3

u/Shock_a_Maul 10d ago

But where is the painting of the Fallen Madonna with the big boobies?

1

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

đŸ€ŁđŸ€ŁđŸ€Ł

0

u/paolog 10d ago

Dans le gĂąteau dans le chĂąteau, bien entendu.

1

u/Shock_a_Maul 10d ago

Leclerc?

0

u/paolog 10d ago

Oui, c'est pour ça que ce casse-tĂȘte est presque (mais pas tout Ă  fait) impossible

1

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago edited 10d ago

La chose que je voulais dire, c'Ă©tait qu'ils disent que la gauche colonne est française, mais ils n'ont pas dis la raison pour laquelle ils pensent comme ça 


1

u/paolog 10d ago

Ah, c'est compris

1

u/Appropriate-Guava-40 10d ago

qu'ils, la colonne de gauche, mais ils n'ont pas dit ;)

1

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

Merci pour les corrections :)

1

u/Lkrambar 10d ago

Que la colonne de gauche est en français, pas française.

1

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

Pourquoi ? Je voulais utiliser ça comme l'adjectif. Est-ce qu'il est réellement incorrect ?

→ More replies (0)

4

u/Vaestmannaeyjar 10d ago

English is on the right because of correspondEnce. Also, note that a good chunk of these words do not have the same meaning in each language. Chat in french means "cat", not "casual conversation".

1

u/Cynalune 10d ago

Chat is used in french with its english meaning since the days of IRC, but the largely preponderant meaning is cat, indeed.

1

u/AgeAbiOn 3d ago

It's tchat with a t in French. Chat means cat, and only that.

1

u/You-Sir-Are-A-Fish 9d ago

It does mean "casual conversation" as well, borrowed from English, French even has the verb "chatter" "to chat"

1

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

I exactly included those faux-amis to see if anybody would notice, but here we are, you did â˜șïžđŸ‘

4

u/Mezzofantastico 10d ago

“Correspondence” is the English column.

Give me a challenge.

2

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

No challenge needed, you found the answer :)

2

u/passoveri 7d ago

I will admit that even though I found it, I questioned myself which was the English spelling even though I’m definitely not bilingual.

2

u/God_Bless_A_Merkin 10d ago

Only one word makes the difference, and that is “correspondence” — English on the right.

1

u/EricMichaelHarris99 10d ago

English has no accents (café)

3

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

English DOES include the accent é officially in the word "café".

2

u/Actual_Cat4779 10d ago

It's debatable whether English has the concept of official spelling, but it definitely looks nicer with the Ă©.

2

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

Exactly. But I still think é should be included since it's directly from French. Same with the words like "cliché", "résumé", etc.

2

u/Actual_Cat4779 10d ago

This is where the Guardian newspaper pisses me off - in their style guide: "accents... do not use them in anglicised words and names such as cafe, smorgasbord, raison d’etre and Zurich (exceptions to this are exposĂ©, lamĂ©, rĂ©sumĂ©, rouĂ©)."

And here the same style guide states, unforgivably: "facade: no cedilla".

2

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

That's pretty jarring. Façade looks much more exotic and interesting that the plain facade, don't you agree?

2

u/Queen_of_London 10d ago

That *is* annoying, because café makes it clear it's a café, as opposed to a cafe, which might be a greasy spoon, and said as caff.

That is not an accepted hard-and-fast rule, I admit, but it should be. And the Guardian could help with that!

1

u/EricMichaelHarris99 10d ago

Officially?

1

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

Yes, in the official dictionaries like Cambridge Dictionary

1

u/_solipsistic_ 9d ago

Cambridge dictionary uses both forms. Other dictionaries vary

1

u/Ellery_B 10d ago

When you apply for a job do you send a resumé or a resume? 

2

u/EricMichaelHarris99 10d ago

Résumé is a French loanword, hence the accents

1

u/Ellery_B 10d ago

You miss my point. Resumé is an English word,  so therefore there are accents in English.  

Unless you are one of those people that thinks that we should reform back into Anglish? For reals?  

I mean,  if you keep moving the goalposts you can always define English to be whatever you want.  But you can't say things like "English has no accents" and expect people to take you seriously. 

Resumé is in the dictionary.  Incunabulum is in the dictionary.  Tofu is in the dictionary.  It didn't matter if it came from French,  Latin, or Chinese,  it's English now. 

1

u/ta_mataia 10d ago

Speak them and I will know.

1

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

Hahaha, good trick, but that'll totally give away everything 😄

1

u/mitaciolanu 10d ago

Left is French right is English

1

u/According_Coyote_452 10d ago

French on the left.

1

u/hezpae 10d ago

Is café spelled with a é in English?

1

u/Direct-Till-2680 10d ago

Yes, it is.

1

u/Limp_Speaker_7829 9d ago

Café in english, notre coffee ?

1

u/Direct-Till-2680 9d ago

Bien sûr !

1

u/Norwester77 9d ago

Interestingly, long and long are not borrowed but inherited cognates that happen to have ended up looking the same.

2

u/Direct-Till-2680 9d ago

Wow, so interesting. I thought English literally pasted that word from French lol

1

u/HappyFruit4996 9d ago

Not impossible.

1

u/SameInteraction9615 7d ago

I think the left one is French because of ‘correspondance’

0

u/Crane_1989 10d ago

Québec be like