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American Reacts to 'Is English Just Badly Pronounced French?'

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Is English just badly pronounced French? 🤔

I never realized how much of the English language actually comes from French. In this video, RobWords breaks down the fascinating history of how French influenced English, how words were adapted, and why so many of them sound almost identical with just slightly different pronunciation.

I was honestly taken aback — this video had so much information that I found myself just listening more than reacting. It was surprising, funny at times, and gave me a whole new appreciation for how languages evolve and mix together.

👉 Question for you: Do you think English is basically “French with bad pronunciation”? Or is that too far?

Video Credit - Is English just badly pronounced French?

Recommend a Video - https://form.asana.com/?k=MLHTsItypf-...

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#Languages #Linguistics #French #English #RobWords #History

20 Comments

@floshmsc 1 year ago

As a French person this is actually funny because a French person that doesn't know English well will sometimes just say the French word with an English accent and it is enough to actually work out pretty well

@JEANBRUCEnocturbulous 1 year ago (edited)

"He initiates a period of enormous linguistic change" Il initia une période d'énormes changements linguistiques" pretty close.

@vaudou74 1 year ago

"mayday ,mayday "comes from "m'aider, m'aider" (help me, help me)

@olivier.m9415 1 year ago

my favorite one : Bougette (a small purse ) became Budget in English and then came back in French as le budget ^^

@lr7694_ 1 year ago

As a french, my english teacher who came from Canada every day tell me to put more French words in my english to level it up 😅

@Jeni10 1 year ago

Americans use at least two french words without realising it. They’re always correcting me when I say fillet as in fish fillet or beef fillet. They tell me I’m spelling it wrongly (and don get me started on their use of adjectives instead of adverbs!), that it’s filet. Well, filet is the French word. The same with herbs, Americans pronounce it as in French by dropping the “h”.

@mrj1341 1 year ago (edited)

My grandad used to say "L'anglais c'est juste du français mal prononcé." And i think its beautiful.

@t.a.k.palfrey3882 1 year ago

As soon as he asked, "Is French a Germanic language", it became obvious that he's a product of the American public "education" system. 🙄😂

@lina1911 1 year ago

I love videos by this guy, he's so informative and presenting in a very interesting way.

@nicpulpovic 1 year ago

The motto for the British crown is in french too "Dieu et mon droit"

@romainmathieu2039 1 year ago

Waiting until englishmen realise the true origin of "god save the king" 😂

@SavageIntent 1 year ago

Please do react to a lot of this guy's videos, they are all good and interesting. 'Is English Just Badly Pronounced German?' would be a good next video I guess.

@reynaldparisel3852 1 year ago

9:00 example* = William (english) / Willaume (old norman and picard) + Guillaume (current* french)
* french words too ! ^^

@fit_tan_klubb 1 year ago (edited)

Great to see people who are interested in their own culture. I, as a huge language nerd, love this.

@dominiquecontant1254 1 year ago

'To remember' comes from the French remembrer. At the beginning of Chapter 1 of Gargantua (1534), Rabelais says: "(Une chose) tant plus serait remembrée." (A thing) so much more would be remembered. Remembré no longer exists in French, but English has retained : remember.

@yiren813 1 year ago

in fact, when you're french and learn English you realise that basic vocabulary is really another language, then, you learn more vocabulary, that English think more difficult, and you're like 🤨 It's easier ! it's like 98% French! So we often speak English with vocabulary that seems more difficult, cause it's just a lot easier for us. Here for exemple, I used : realise (réalise), basic (basique), language (langage), difficult (difficile), vocabulary (vocabulaire)... You can see how close it is 😅
And when it's come to law or medical vocabulary, it's usually clearly all French origin, so it's like English level 1 is more difficult than level 10 for us 😂

@MrApocalyptica83 1 year ago

even the word entrepreneur is french

@wasstl2153 1 year ago

30% of words from French origin vs 30% from Latin, though it's sometimes unclear whether the "Latin like" words are truly latin words. Very often, they are French words that the English latinised (they reshaped the French words into Latin looking words). Unsurpisingly, other statistics claim that French words represent ca 40 to 45 % of the entire English vocabulary. Speaking of statistics, only 2% of the 100 most frequent words in English are from French (2 out of 100), but we have a striking 50% of French words when we consider the 1 000 most frequent words in English.

@HertWasHere 1 year ago

Im not a language specialist but im fascinated by languages and word etymology. I could talk about language evolution and origins for days. Just need someone to talk to about it. 😅 If theres anyone in the comments who feels the same then hmu

@anniegovet9370 6 months ago (edited)

159 / 5 000
A US president once said: The French don't even have a word for "entrepreneur" 'Entrepreneur' is a French word, Mr. President. USA have NO word for entrepreneur.