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Is English Just Badly Pronounced French? 🇫🇷 | American Reacts

Aaron Arnold Reacts: Europe

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*AMERICAN REACTS TO: IS ENGLISH JUST BADLY PRONOUNCED FRENCH?! 🇫🇷🇬🇧😱*

American Reaction to "Is English Just Badly Pronounced French?" — and honestly, this French reaction video completely wrecked me. 🤯 As an American reacting to European history and language for the first time diving deep into this topic, I had NO idea that nearly 30% of English vocabulary comes directly from French. This American reacts video breaks down centuries of linguistic history — from the Norman Conquest of 1066, to William the Conqueror, to why we say "cow" on the farm but "beef" on the plate. 🐄🍽️

In this European language reaction, we explore how French became the language of power, justice, and culture in England for hundreds of years, why words like "parliament," "jury," "attorney," and even "United States" are secretly French, and how French grammar and poetry shaped the English we speak today. Whether you're French, British, or just love language history, this French reaction is going to blow your mind just like it did mine. 🎧📖

I'm Aaron, an American discovering Europe one country, culture, and language at a time. 🌍 On this channel, I react to videos about European history, culture, sports, food, and language — always from a genuine, first-time American perspective. This video was a request from a subscriber via Buy Me a Coffee, and it did not disappoint. If you're new here, welcome! I post daily reaction content covering everything from European history reactions to sports reactions to travel and culture.

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Video Credit - Is English just badly pronounced French?

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20 Comments

@AaronArnoldReacts Creator 12 days ago Pinned

Easily one of the most interesting videos I have seen! Did you know this? 🇫🇷

Thank you so much for tuning in! All of my links are in the description, and please let me know if you have any video recommendations! 😁

@fxdx68 6 days ago

Old Clemenceau said: England is a French colony which turned bad........

@gsbeak 9 days ago

"Most people don't know that"... Well Most American people don't know that.
Most British and French people do know that.

@Cavabardus 9 days ago

Suscribe ? Don't you mean "souscrire" ? :p

@jean-michelmaillou7507 11 days ago (edited)

Bonjour Aaron
Je suis tombé sur ta chaîne par hasard il y a 2 semaines. J'apprécie ta curiosité et ton côté humble. Ton intérêt, en particulier, pour la civilisation et la culture française nous donne une bonne leçon d'histoire et de vie. Merci beaucoup pour ta gentillesse et ton sourire.

@lizardlenny 8 days ago

He has another video called "Is English really a Germanic language? " which is a good follow up to this one.

@BassComb 7 days ago

I am French, and I remember discovering, as a young linguistics student, the influence of French on English.
I also remember reading a book by Oscar Wilde and passages from Shakespeare and wondering why their writing seemed so easy to read and familiar.
There's no shame in not knowing everything. On the other hand, I find it ridiculous when I hear some English speakers deny this kinship between French and English.
And let's not forget that, while English is, in part, badly pronounced French, French itself is poorly pronounced Latin. And it seems to me that most of the world's languages are the fully ripened fruit of another language.

@short-stack-goblin 9 days ago

Rob Words is one of the most talented education communicators in the world, hope you'll react to more of his stuff

@sergejean8309 12 days ago

Concerning Richard I Lionheart you must also know that he never went in England, except for 6 months in order to collect taxes for his cruisade.

@jameslewis2635 8 days ago (edited)

I used to make fun of George W Bush coming over like an absolute idiot by pointing out that he said on TV "The problem with the French is that they have no word for 'entrepreneur'." 'Entrepreneur' being another French word. At the end of the day though, English is an odd mix of Latin, German, Norse and French with a sprinkling of Celt somewhere in the mix.

@srtxf 7 days ago

9:05 it's a similar situation with the French's accent in Canada and France. They say our French, mainly some of the pronunciations, ressembles France's one from the 1600-1700s. But once we fell under British rule and got isolated from the rest of the French colonies, some of that French remained while France's changed

What is now considered "low class" pronunciation, was the proper way to say it at the time.

A good exemple is the "oi" sound in "moi"(me) and "toi"(you), vs the old "moé" and "toé"

@JohnBerry-rn3hc 6 days ago

Little known secret: in Britain when nobody is looking we all speak French. Except if there are French speakers around and then we speak German.

@slowrivertichris 3 days ago (edited)

I had a very good Belgian Jesuit priest as English teacher back in my high school days in my country of Congo and he pointed to us that for many parts of the human body in English the related adjective comes from French. For example: "lung" is "poumon" in French and the adjective in English is "pulmonary" similar to "pulmonaire" in French. "Hand" is "main" in French and the adjective "manual" in English, "manuel" in French), "Tooth" and "dental" in English are "dent" and "dentaire" in French, "heart" and "cardiac" in English are "coeur" and "cardiaque" in French, "Brain" and "cerebral" are "cerveau" and "cérébral" in French, "forehead" and "frontal" are "front" and "frontal" in French, "Eye" and "ocular" are "oeil" and "oculaire" in French. I think there are more examples, not only for body parts.

@Mimihajee 8 days ago

3:47 From a genealogical standpoint, Richard the Lionheart possessed 50% Aquitaine (France), 25% Angevin (France), 12.5% Norman, and 6.25% Anglo-Saxon blood, with the remaining 6.25% being Scottish/Celtic. Despite being King of England, he had very little English ancestry and culturally and genetically identified primarily as French.

@timglennon6814 12 days ago

British guy here.
We I got taught how the English language was formed.

@arnoudduyvesteyn855 8 days ago

As a Dutch person I am well aware of English history, both politically as well as linguistic. This is partly due to it being a neighbour. Dutch people learn German, French and English at school, and by doing so it is easy to learn where words came from. Specially as some of us still learn Latin at school as well.

The battle of Hastings at 1066 is one of the most impactful battles in Europe in the past 2000 years.

@thierrylouismenard6083 12 days ago

The word bacon comes from old french bacon/bacun and like "people" came back to France with it's English pronunciation. Always funny. Even the word war is french, pronounced Gu(erre) as a w in Normandy at that time. If you "enter" a house : table, chair, chimney etc are all french words. So this is why our lang(u)ages are so similar. The more technique, the closer/same they are. 🇬🇧🇲🇫

@mariebambelle7361 6 days ago

Old french way of saying "flirt" was "conter fleurette" (litteraly "speaking flowers") -> it became the french "fleureter" -> which was borrowed by english as "flirt" ->and reborrowed by the french as "flirter" nowadays

The english "riding coat" was borrowed by the french as "redingote" which was re-borrowed by english as "redingote" (not so much used today though).

@issey1456 8 days ago

You might think that" knife" is old English because it's so different from the French equivalent "couteau". That's until you remember that a small pocket knife in French is "un canif". Mispronounce the "i"… swallow the "a" , and ca-nif turns into k-nife

@doudouledoux4831 5 days ago

Aliénor d'Aquitaine made a huge impact on the English court when she married the English king. She influenced it a lot by bringing her way of like from le Duché d'Aquitaine. The terms for food come from her. The ladies dressed "à la façon" which became fashion etc