A Chinese rant about the French language

[Shm Jay]

http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2011/03/c ... mes-viral/

Sorry, I have no idea how to find the original Chinese text.

[Ars Lande]

Heh.

I'll maintain that giving a phone number as groups of two digits is the most rational way to do it. My brain actually freezes for a few seconds when I have to give a phone number in English.

[Left]

----

[Gulliver]

http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2011/03/c ... mes-viral/

Sorry, I have no idea how to find the original Chinese text.

If you hover over a sentence, it produces something in Chinese, which I guess is the original.

Prepositions lined up like piles of poop

[Legion]

Wat.

There are like a handful of cases in French where 2 prepositions follow each others, and that's about it:

"juqu'à"/"jusqu'en" (until)
"d'après" (according to)
"de par" (somewhere in, according to the will of)
"par contre" (on the contrary)

Ironically, the last one, which is somtimes condemned on the ground that "two prepositions cannot follow each others in French" (except, you know, they can), probably doesn't even count, "contre" being more likely an adverb here (since "par contre" is an independent phrase, that doesn't require a following noun).

(and the second-to-last one isn't even two prepositions historically, "par" here is a reanalysis of "part")

[Chagen]

These complaints focus a lot on the synthetic parts of French....I'm not surprised, given that the ranter speaks the highly isolating Chinese language (yes, I know that a "Chinese Language" doesn't really exist because there's like 50 million different mutually un-intelligible dialects).

[ol bofosh]

The French are truly the finest at numbers! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
76 does not read seventy-six! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Its spoken as sixty plus sixteen! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
96 does not read ninety-six! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
It’s four twenties plus sixteen! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

I thought that was stupid when I was learning it in school.

Someone should have told them about Swiss and Belgian French(es), they apparently have words for seventy and ninety.

[Arzena]

My faves:

And if someone dare to claim again that French is the most elephant language on earth, I shall spit on you to your death!

Those damned professors are fond of picking irregular forms for tests!!!!!
O the trickery!

[Legion]

The French are truly the finest at numbers! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
76 does not read seventy-six! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Its spoken as sixty plus sixteen! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
96 does not read ninety-six! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
It’s four twenties plus sixteen! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

I thought that was stupid when I was learning it in school.

Someone should have told them about Swiss and Belgian French(es), they apparently have words for seventy and ninety.

Our system is better: we need less distinct words to achieve the same result!

[Rui]

My faves:

Really? I liked

How on earth are you (French guys) good at asking girls’ phone numbers! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
By the time you are done exchanging numbers, I would have finished watching an entire episode of Ninja Turtles! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

[Ser]

There are like a handful of cases in French where 2 prepositions follow each others, and that's about it:

"juqu'à"/"jusqu'en" (until)
"d'après" (according to)
"de par" (somewhere in, according to the will of)
"par contre" (on the contrary)

Ironically, the last one, which is somtimes condemned on the ground that "two prepositions cannot follow each others in French" (except, you know, they can), probably doesn't even count, "contre" being more likely an adverb here (since "par contre" is an independent phrase, that doesn't require a following noun).

(and the second-to-last one isn't even two prepositions historically, "par" here is a reanalysis of "part")

I believe the one who wrote the rant was referring to prepositional phrases such as au-dessus de, par dessus de, à côté de, etc., since Mandarin doesn't really have stuff like that.

And yeah, as a Spanish speaker using groups of two numbers has always seemed to me as more economical and easier to remember--it's as if the four number groups (in the case of Salvadoran numbers) had more character rather than a stream of eight digits.

My favourite was by far the pronouns. (In Standard Chinese they're all invariable for case, except for the reflexive pronoun, which is further invariable for person and number.)

[Nortaneous]

Giving out phone numbers in groups of two doesn't make sense for American numbers, because those follow the format XXX-XXX-XXXX, instead of whatever ridiculous undifferentiated stream of numbers Europe uses. (seriously how the fuck do they even work, i have never been able to understand them)

That said, I have no idea why BrE does it the same way as AmE.

[Ser]

Yeah, Salvadoran phone numbers follow an XXXX-XXXX format, so it works. When Spanish-speakers over here talk about Canadian numbers in Spanish (also XXX-XXX-XXXX), I think they usually use some combination... Like "six zero four, four forty-two, thirty-six twelve" (in Spanish, literally), for example.

Also, the original Chinese text, for the sake of completeness:

老子两年前选了法语课！

于是踏上了尼玛不归路啊！
谁跟老子讲法语是世界上最油煤的语言啊！
尼玛听的 哪个外太空的法语啊！
跟吐痰一样一样一样的啊 有木有！
谁再跟老子讲法语是世界上最油煤的语言 老子一口浓痰咸死啊！

法国人数数真是极品啊！
76不念七十六啊！
念六十加 十六啊！
96不念九十六啊！
念四个二十加十六啊！
法国人数学好得不得了 有木有！
一百以内加减法老子不用计算器 直接念出来了啊 有木有！
电话号码两个两个念啊！
176988472怎么念！！！！！！
不念腰七六九八八四七二 啊！
念一百加六十加十六 四个二十加十八 再四个二十加四 再六十加十二啊！
你们还找美眉要电话啊！！
电话报完一集葫芦娃都看完了啊 有木有！

所有名词都分男女啊！
胡子是女的啊！
头发是男的 啊！
钥匙和锁都是女的啊！
法国人开门的时候 多么活色生香啊 有木有！
我以后再也不能睡在床上了啊！
因为床是男的啊！！
赤果果的搅基 啊！！
所有词的性别都要记啊！！
因为男的女的冠词不一样啊！！！
形容词也不 一样啊！！
各种不一样啊 不一样！！

每个动词每个时态有六种变位 啊！！
法语一共尼玛23种时态啊！！
都要背啊！！
考试要考啊 有木有！！
全考没学过 不规律的啊！！
坑爹啊！！
当老子是谷歌翻译啊！！

介词一坨一坨的啊 有木有！！
光表示方位的你就伤不起啊！！
到达和出发用的不一样 啊！！！
城市和国家用的不一样啊！！
男国家女国家其他国家用的都不一样 啊！！！
男大陆女大陆用的也不一样啊！！！
男州女州其他州用的更不一样 啊！！！
元音词开头非元音词开头用的全部都不一样啊！！！
还有各种岛 省 地区尼玛各种不一样啊！！

人称代词也是琳琅满目 啊！！！
主语有六种有木有！！！
直接宾语有六种有木有！！！
间接宾语有六种有木有！！！
介词宾语有六种有木有！！！
反称代词有六种有木 有！！
放到句子里各种排序一二三四五六七有木有 有木有！！！

以下省略三千字有木有！！！

总之学法语的上辈纸都是吐着浓痰满口男性女性讲一句话要翻10次词典的天使啊！！！！
你ne伤起pas！！！
完华

[Bob Johnson]

Giving out phone numbers in groups of two doesn't make sense for American numbers, because those follow the format XXX-XXX-XXXX, instead of whatever ridiculous undifferentiated stream of numbers Europe uses. (seriously how the fuck do they even work, i have never been able to understand them)

In France (long ago) it was written as AA.BB.CC.DD which fit the
Presumably it's still like that. I gather other countries over there have different formats though.

US phone numbers for me tend to fall into amphimacer, pause, amphimacer iamb iamb. Hm.

[Legion]

Fun fact: when giving out a Canadian phone number, politeness mandates that you arrange the numerals from the lowest to the highest value.

[sirdanilot]

I hate it when people give their phone numbers in pairs of two, because in Dutch the order is reversed. It's confusing as hell...

06 12 34 56 78 would be 'nul-zes twaalf vier-en-dertig zes-en-vijftig acht-en-zeventig' (lit. zero-six twelve four-and-thirty six-and-fifty eight-and-seventy)

I prefer to get a string of numbers, much simpler.

[ol bofosh]

Someone should have told them about Swiss and Belgian French(es), they apparently have words for seventy and ninety.

Our system is better: we need less distinct words to achieve the same result!

Whereas Belgium and Switzerland need less words.

Curiously my girlfriend uses the Swiss "seventy", but also the French "ninety". Maybe it's a Genevan thing?

[Ars Lande]

Someone should have told them about Swiss and Belgian French(es), they apparently have words for seventy and ninety.

On the other hand, if you used them you'd sound Belgian, so you'd never be taken entirely seriously.

In France (long ago) it was written as AA.BB.CC.DD

Giving out phone numbers in groups of two doesn't make sense for American numbers, because those follow the format XXX-XXX-XXXX, instead of whatever ridiculous undifferentiated stream of numbers Europe uses. (seriously how the fuck do they even work, i have never been able to understand them)

This is still the case, except that we use 10-digit numbers now.

Phone numbers are 0x.xx.xx.xx.xx

The first two digits are an area code (except that 06 and 07 are for mobile phones, 08 for commercial services and 09 for IP phones).
The next two digits are related to either the telephone exchange, the mobile provider (for mobile phones) or the DSL provider (for IP phones).

[Shm Jay]

Fun fact: when giving out a Canadian phone number, politeness mandates that you arrange the numerals from the lowest to the highest value.

No

[Astraios]

That said, I have no idea why BrE does it the same way as AmE.

We don't... It's usually XXXXX-XXX-XXX, for private numbers at least.

[Gulliver]

That said, I have no idea why BrE does it the same way as AmE.

We don't... It's usually XXXXX-XXX-XXX, for private numbers at least.

I wouldn't put dashes in. 01234 567 890 or 01234 567890, with the first chunk being the area code. The 0 is pronounced "oh", like the name of the letter. Doubled numbers are frequently "double-seven". My mother's number is "oh one two blah blah, four double-seven blah blah blah". Numbers for companies are frequently quoted in double figures, so the number for National Rail Enquiries is 08457 48 49 50 (oh eight four five seven, forty-eight forty-nine-fifty).


Back to the rant, I assumed by prepositions he mean "small annoying words that annoy learners" like in "Je ne le lui ai pas donné". I know they are all meaningful (apart from ne, ne can suck a fuck), but the whole "You pile them up here at the front in a very specific order" thing is hard to learn. I know it's a very elephant way of doing things, but it's tricksy. Anyway, that's what I assumed he meant.

[Ser]

The Chinese text uses "介词", so no, the author does refer to prepositions and prepositional phrases like "between", "around", "in front of", "after", etc. Unless the author isn't using 介词 as he's supposed to...

[Bristel]

"five five five, four one two, six seven seven one" is how I say my number. (of course with the area code faked)

[Astraios]

I wouldn't put dashes in. 01234 567 890 or 01234 567890, with the first chunk being the area code.

Well, yes. I was putting in dashes to mark a break I guess.

[Terra]

I hate it when people give their phone numbers in pairs of two, because in Dutch the order is reversed. It's confusing as hell...

German too, of course. Japanese does it as the LORD intended though.

They read TWO digits of phone numbers at a time! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Guess how they read the number 176988472! ! ! ! ! !
It doesn’t read as one-seven-six-nine-eight-eight-four-seven-two! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !
Instead, it’s one-hundred-plus-sixty-plus-sixteen, four-twenties-plus-eighteen, and four-twenties-plus-four, and sixty-plus-twenty! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

People do this in English too for phone numbers. I refuse to though; Instead, I use single digits, as the LORD intended.

Furthermore, it's not reserved solely for phone numbers. Take "6502" or "Z80". The former is "sixty-five oh-two", and the latter is "zee eighty".