@IAmCaptainMarvel Also, my French teacher told me once that while she was teaching English in France, the French students were ecstatic when they found out they were going to have an American instructor, because they wanted to learn "American English."
Well at least he can understand some... I'm French so I obviously don't think it's sexy...with the hindsight. But, though English can be a beautiful language itself, I honestly feel French just has the refinement and natural aesthetics to be called the most beautiful language. Then again, to each his own taste - with a limit to that premise though... If you think Philipino tagalog is the prettiest language, you're simply insane.
@TolpuddleMartyr You're right about that, but keep in mind that French HAS influenced English considerably. Take the word animal for instance: it's also "animal" in French but Tier and dier in German and Dutch, respectively. (Which is from where the Engl. word deer comes from). Other examples that are similar to French and not to Ger./Dutch would be example, acid, to consider, to maintain, heritage, difficult, very (from old French "verai") (LOL just random words that come to mind :P)
@MattRodrig Yes. English is my first language, but I am part of the rather small English community of Montreal, Quebec. I am fluent in English and French (I was born here) and I can tell you English is not an EASY language but it's a fairly simple one. But my as my math teacher once said, "Ce n'est pas l'Anglais qui est facile, c'est le Francais qui est difficile."
at least, he understands it! I think I speak french okay or at least good enough to pass by in france or Paris. but I can barely understand what people say in french because it's a bit too fast. Wish I could understand it though. :]
@Kr4zYG4m3r common do you really think we dont know what OMG means??? i mean ....we're not stupid cuz we're french, if we didnt know what it means we would probably not use it dont you think?.......
@123eldest. Goedenavond! Hoe gaat het ? Your native mother tongue is a germanic language (like english), it's easier to learn another germanic language ! But just a hint : try to explain to a french guy that in" banana" the 3 "a" are not pronunced the same (or the 3 'o' in "phonology" or...). Add to the recipe totally irregular word stress. Then explain this is true for each word in english. The guy will immediatly learn latin :) (ok, it's a private joke for xargxes :))
@MattRodrig english is a pure knightmare from a pronunciation/spelling point of view : more than a thousand phonems where spanish a french only have around a hundred, non phonetic spelling, totally chaotic word stress, schwa... You talk about conjugation, but almost 300 irregular verbs! French has only 80. In grammar, every case is an exception, because of the lack of rules. Most of the adult people forget they are learning english since they are 6 years old, when they say it's "easy"..
@emmadilemmasings Swedish! That is one difficult language. English! easy as pie ;) But French...Non -.-' Je parle un petit peu de France ;) That's about my level of French, and NO I'm not English nor American or from any other English speaking country. Just a Swedish 17 year old guy who hasn't got a clue on how he got to this video -.-'
@Pixiesoapbox Now hang on, that's not fair, I do feel like I'm apart of Britain, but I don't see what's wrong with wanting to be addressed individually. And that's the thing really, I used to say "British" when referring to myself as well, but to most other countries "British" is synonomus with "English/England". I've even seen people make the mistake of going: "Scottish, Irish, Welsh and British" more than a few times.
@laramenke Ahh, well good. But, I must warn you, NEVER say "British" as a language or when referring to the English, it's highly insulting. Not only is it insulting to the English themselves, but it insults the Scottish and Welsh as well. Do you think we call one another British? It'd make jokes when insulting one another awfully difficult and confusing. In fact, it's so insulting here that you know what Scotland are doing? They're voting to become an independent country for 2015.
@IAmCaptainMarvel well, as a matter of fact I have never seems any of those movies or elizabethtown in the original language (I wish, but the only film I was able to seem in english in a german cinema so far was HP). nor did he speak much "english"- (considering england is but a part of the GB, I should probably call "british"- or even "UK"-) english in this clip. but rest assured, from this day on I shall not forget that he is from canterbury and therefore english/british
@WTFced That isn't exactly difficult to learn when comparing yourself. Americans don't speak English, they imitate it. You could instantly learn English better then them if you chose to learn it, speak it, and spell it in its purest form (in other words, the way the ACTUAL English speak English). I wouldn't want to learn French from a Belgian or Swiss-Frenchman/woman, so you shouldn't have to learn English from an American. Learning a language in its original form just seems logical.
@deedeerh12 german was my first...then english then french...and from that point of view...english seemed to be more difficult when attempting to write properly...french at least follows a similar speech pattern...i had little difficulty with writing in french and received lower marks in my english writing class until my senior year when someone pointed out the reverse sentence structure i was using. i just like the way he cringes when attempting to speak french. =^_^=
@emmadilemmasings Well,I'm a french from montreal (woo hoo! diversity! lol) I'd say that english is not a simple language, in fact there is more words in english than any other language on earth,but the whole world speak it. Wherever you go (specially on north America I got to say) english is present in one form or the other, so you don't really have the choice to speak it unless you want to live in ignorance. RU-vid is a good example. So maybe it can seems easy because we are surrounded by it
@zwastra Plain, illogically and remembered. Maybe you could complain of its limitations if you had a mastery of the language. Half of the words have to be remembered by heart? As opposed to French where only a quarter of the words have to be learned by heart? What do you mean by that? I would have thought for any language, if you want to speak it fully, you have to learn all of the words by heart. Not that French doesn't sound a whole lot better and sexier than English.
@MattRodrig man, english is clearly so freaking easy, accent is the difficult part, but guess what? it doesnt really stop you from being understood, most of the french (and i'm not exagerating) cant spell their own language, when written, french is like the most impossible, and really not intuitive thing in the world, frankly, for a swedish, or an american, having a good french writting is nearly as difficult as learning chinese, so yeah, we're better off with english as universal language :D
@kotowka Do you take me for a complete idiot? I know all of that, of course it is the latin alphabet, of course cyrillic has more letters, of course there are other alphabets. Guess what though? Besides Arabic, every other alpahbet makes no sense and is based on way too many characters. Arabic is an Asian language by the way, and it uses 28 letters. Anyways, the Latin alphabet kicks every other alphabet's ass.
@yomama629 Do you really think english alphabet is everyone`s alphabet excluding Asians? And first of all it is not english but latin :) In Northern Africa f.e people are using arabic. I also wanna kindly remind you about huge part of EUROPE where cyrillic alphabet is used and about plenty of other european languages which, although using latin alphabet, have developed a little more letters than "english" 26.
@MattRodrig Any language is "easy" if one can immerse oneself within the target language. Grammar is best learned organically through conversation, reading, and watching films, not mechanically through study and classroom experience that doesn't promote immersion. I am a native English speaker, and I find Romance conjugations and grammar to be easier than most languages (save for Slavic languages). And your English here is very good compared to some native speakers.
@MattRodrig Any language is "easy" if one can immerse oneself within the target language. Grammar is best learned organically through conversation, reading, and watching films, not mechanically through study and classroom experience that doesn't promote immersion. I am a native English speaker, and I find Romance conjugations and grammar to be easier than most languages (save for Slavic languages). And your English is very good compared to some native speakers.
@plaid4u i was referring to the accent, prononciation, but it'd be hard for me to describe it with text isnt it ? i meant english from england, as opposed to english from america, or english from scotland for example. Now if you said " we have a large variety of accents on our part of the country, yes i agree. and my comment is kinda old, i learnt to actually like the accent since then
@plaid4u how terribly misguided. I'm an american but I spent time living in england, and I can say that english prononciation is often no better than an american's. many englishmen wouldn't even pronounce the middle consonants of "bottle of water." it would come out "boh-oh of wah-er." it's all a question of dialect, and the same goes for america. for that matter, does it matter if it's pronounced? what makes our way of speaking so much better than anyone else's?
[continuation]... each langage have its own difficulty. Vocabulary and pronunciation are pretty difficult in English, in Japanese the nuances and above all the writting are a nightmare (but talking remain rather accessible), in French it's the structures (grammar/conjugation) and many littles things (perhaps voc too). Of course, overall some langages are more difficult than other and english is probably less difficult than the other two, but EACH langage is more difficult in a precise field.
@kansaikanadian It's more complicated than that. It's because of several definite facts that english is today the linga franca (two historic superpowers, a structure which allow much flexibility...), i don't think Mandarin (which isn't even the langage of all Chinese) will be like that even in the future. But in fact, english isn't the "easiest" langage at all. Not the hardest, but not the easiest, for a french spanish is much easier. Each langage have its own difficulty [next post]
I guess the accent and the mistakes on similar words (same spelling but not the same prononciation) are fun. the "R" pronounciation is iften screwed and it turns out to be hilarious. but i dont think it sounds bad or harsh in the end. to me, when i hear English (from england), the first thing i ask myself is " erm.. do you have smth in your mouth or is it a form of paralysis? " because of the prononciation. American sounds easier to me, when spoken slowly, but it depends on the area ( accents )
I don't call myself a fangirl, I am an admirer of his, I have great hopes that he would achieve sucessfully in Hollywood last few films before he disappeared were okay for laughs and Etown, I loved it for sentimental feelings but I wanna see him expand his acting talent. Which is why he should play a villian, I had pictured him a villian on Heroes if it wasn't going so bad as it is now.
@MattRodrig Did you know it's actually easier for an english speaker to speak a latin language without any accents, whereas a latin language native speaker has a harder time? Yet, when a lot of english speakers try to speak a latin language, they make no efforts. It breaks my heart to see this capacity being throw away because of laziness
@TheMarianneBL haha. actually, i have always wanted to ask a french person that. i would love to go up to them and be like "you talk fast" haha. im sure we sound really fast to them and they think they talk slow. i suppose its because we dont really understand french and its just a mumble jumble of foreign sounds. haha
well your english seem's very well! I have a diffcult time understanding french. Im so bad with reflexive verbs. There is so much to know. I am doing so bad in my french class but im not the only one. Our teach is mean and she makes a joke out of our class to the other higher levels because we can't quite catch on to the language
I don't know, ive only heard "normal" english in the street. but the posh one that i could hear on tv sounded like.. some over acting ? haha. i watched a clockwork orange recently and it is the ugliest english ive heard in my life, could barely understand :) so yeah as soufly say, american english sounds easier to pronounce.
I can speak English - or better said, am able to speak - and I understand almost everything he says, like 90 percent. But I don't speak French at all, that's my problem. I think I could never learn that language, though it's beautiful and hot. Justin Timberlake said that this language is so sexy that when you say: "Butter", it sounds pretty hot even if it's just a butter.
@IAmCaptainMarvel The language is English. The nationality can be British for those of us who aren't nationalists and feel we belong to all of the countries of Britain rather than a single one. I certainly wouldn't be insulted to be called British- it's the term I use myself.
@TheCutwood I lived in england before...So i know the "correct" form, but i read american books and watch american movies, so i kinda speak both. It's not incorrect, its just their form of english... And i don't really mind if someone learns french from a belgian....
@Zwastra ...Dude, did you even read what you just wrote? And you say english gentlemen speak too diplomatically. And i have no trouble at all expressing myself in english. In fact, i find it easier to express myself in english than french, because english has some expressions that french doesn't have.
@laramenke I'm still not sure where you got the idea from that he's American, his accent has always been English and in his most famous films his accent is English (LOTR, Pirates of the Carribean). It'd be like calling an Austrian German, it's not good stuff to say, mein freund.
@TolpuddleMartyr Books don't judge right or wrong. It's the people who use and modify the language. And it's common for young French people to shorten sentences to the extreme. You would make a fool of yourself by ignoring these changes and sticking to your books ^^
@xoNickJisaCutieox French and English do not share a common proto-linguistic root. English is derived from Common Germanic whilst French is a Romance language and a direct descendent of Latin. This can be seen in the stark syntactical and morphological differences between the two languages.
@yoe91 I like French, but it's definitely not the most beautiful language. Have you heard Hebrew? It's a very soothing language. Portuguese from Portugal is probably the most second beautiful. French has a lot of silly sounding words like bouger for example.
For a french, english have indeed the particularity to be veeery easy to "read"/"understand", but curiously mastering this langage can be VERY difficult in fact. It's weird and because of that there's some misconceptions about this langage.
@kansaikanadian Well that's stupid. I speak 5 languages and English is the easiest. There are some that are easier, of course (like Swahili) but believe me, no matter what would happen Chinese would not be the easiest language.
@kansaikanadian Still, reading and writing Chinese characters is much harder than reading and writing in an Alphabet language. I you speak Japanese, I bet learning Kanji took a little bit longer than learning the ABC. :)
@eyeLuvTheOutsiders Hope you're doin' fine with your studies?!! Would be cool to add another one to the precious few Americans speaking a foreign language without any accent =) No offense ^^
@SnowInTheSun are you kidding he is sooo good looking have you seen this bone structure cuz i have and its really really greattt!! and i appreciate a man with good bone structure and a nice smile : )
He said 'je comprend, mais je pas parle' which means 'I understand, but I don't speak' so basically he's saying that he understands french, but that he can't really speak the language himself
@knightsintodreams By Chinese? do you mean Cantonese? or Mandarin? or Wu? or Min? or any of the other 288 languages spoken in China? :D (Mandarin being the most widely spoken).
@007philcollins well, that somewhat explains it then ;) europeans often have accents closer to the native one, since there a lot diversity (from what I have noticed so far)
@mrbluezz5 she said so you only know a bit of french? And he said I understand but I can't talk good, but he messes up on the french word thats why they're laughing :-p
I hate it when Hollywood takes fresh faces like this and tosses them away like trash. I really hope that Orlando keeps on acting and gets back on screen or do some series.
Kylie Minogue speaks French very fluently becoz she lived there 4 five yrs and used to hav a french boyfriend. Im relly gonna try to learn. Its relly sexy in a woman
