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A Frenchman saying the English should be grateful to France for English's popularity is one of the most French things I have heard in a while.

Isn't French just poorly pronounced Latin?

everything is just badly pronounced caveman grunts

I don't know why, but people tend to think French people are proud of being French. As a French person, I think most of us are really pessimistic and not that proud. We think every country hates us, and our government insults us every now and then, saying we're lazy, stupid, bad in English, and so on. It's a relief to know French and English are more connected than they want us to believe. Our countries have a lot in common, and yet we always hear that the French despise the English and vice versa. Thank you for this video.

French was my worst class in grade school. Now, thanks to this little piece, I can now say that I am fluent in bad French. Merci!

“The flesh-monger” sounds like some secret boss from a fantasy game, not someone you buy your lunch meat from.

Why am I not seeing this chap in his own tv series on language? Guy deserves more recognition for his informative and, most importantly, interesting style

Would be cool if you pointed out the number of Latin/French words in other European languages like German, Russian, and even Greek. They've been influencing each other for thousands of years.

Fun fact: American Sign Language is more similar to French Sign Language than spoken English, because it was directly derived from French Sign Language. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (yes the guy Gallaudet University is named after) went to Europe to learn to teach deaf students. He actually went to a school in England first, but left because they wanted him to stay for a while. That was important, because they taught deaf people to speak and speechread and not sign. He visited other nations and eventually ended up in France. They used sign language. Eager to get back, he brought back a teacher named Laurent Clerc and they established the first permanent school for the deaf in the US. It has changed names and locations a few times, but still exists. They bought over French Sign Language, which has obviously been altered and is the basis for ASL. His son, Edward Miner Gallaudet, was the first president of what we know today as Gallaudet University.

English recently added katsu, a Japanese word to the dictionary and it refers to a cutlet (katsu curry = cutlet curry). The irony is both the word katsu AND the dish itself were given to the Japanese by the British. Katsu, aka カツ was originally katsuretsu/ カツレツ from the English "cutlet". The curry dish itself was introduced by our sailors to the Japanese who took it and made it a local cuisine. It's no wonder katsu curry rose in popularity in the UK so fast over the last decade. So just like the French reimporting their old words from English we have done that with Japanese once, and given how distant the two languages and places are I find it more interesting.

Aw, this brings me back to my college days as a Linguistics major! And, I took up French in grade school as my foreign language b/c I knew it'd help me with my SAT prep, given the majority of the advanced SAT vocabulary have French roots. Even many English last names have Norman French origin, which separated the classes; French last names distinguished the elites from the peasants who had Germanic last names. Spencer came from "D'éspenser" and Fitzgerald from "Fiz Gerald" in which "fiz" is equivalent to modern French /fi:s/meaning "son". So, Fitzgerald = son of Gerald.

As french people borrowed back some french words they gave to the brits, I happily discovered that french book in your english video. It was very interesting, merci beaucoup !

It absolutely blows my mind how complex this whole tapestry of the English language is! Thank you Rob for unravelling a bit of it so we can better understand it!

Peu importe le langage, qu'il est plaisant d'écouter des propos lorsqu'ils sont exprimés avec autant de clarté et d'intelligence ! Félicitations

Congrats on the great video. Let us not forget the many Norman but also generally French names and surnames that also flourished in England ( Robert, William, Richard etc..) and surnames like Fitzgerald, Fitzpatrick but also Montgomery, Gervais etc. And above all , let us take a look at the noble crest " Dieu et mon droit". Another interesting thing that i heard in this great video is the deep sound and use of "h" in places like Scotland. It is interesting that the H is similarily being pronounced heavily in the deep South of the U.S. Scots Irish, maybe??? Once again, bien fait!!

Fashion is "façon" and it means "in the style of..." in french.

As a french, I have always noticed that french people who are struggling with english very often use those english words with french origin, instead of the more english sounding words (sometimes even inventing words that in my opinion could have existed in english honhonhon 😂) Et merci pour la vidéo ❤

I like how enthusiastic he is. Clearly loves language. Can't fake it.

Between the badly pronounced French, German, and Latin, the versatility of English makes nuance, innuendo and subtlety an art form.

Very interesting video, thanks a lot. As a Frenchman trying hard to improve my English accent by emphasizing "h" it’s funny to hear that some English were trying to make English words sounds French by dropping the h sound! Also, wanted to mention that to remember some Franch spelling rule such as using the ^ sign (the “accent circonflexe”) which often come from dropping the “s” letter between old and modern French, sometime I use the English translation that still use old French wording. For instance in French word “forêt” the ^ comes from the forgotten s that still exist in the English word “foreSt” (same for “batârd”/“bastard”, “hôpital”/”hospital”). "Honni soit qui mal y pense"

I also noticed that a majority of the words ending by « tion » Are the same in English and in French Obligation Formation Alliteration Aviation Civilisation Transformation Abolition Mécanisation Accélération Condition Fabrication Fonction Inscription Interdiction Invention Innovation Traduction Solution Émotion Discrétion …

Never knew 'chapman' meant 'merchant', but you can see the link to the German 'Kaufmann' there

This linguistic coming and going across the Channel is magnifique. I love English from UK.

Of course English isn't just badly pronounced French. It's also badly pronounced German, Greek, and several other languages.

Dammit Rob, you've done it again. Another video with nonstop information that I will try desperately to absorb and poorly retell at cocktail parties. Fact after fact. Another excellent video.

Here's another French word that became two English words: hôtel. The circumflex indicates it used to be spelled _hostel._ English took "hostel" from the old word, and "hotel" from the new word.

For those who enjoyed this video, you would probably also enjoy the much more detailed and still surprisingly interesting series on ITV in the 2000’s called “The Adventure of English”.

I speak french and I actually learned many things from this video... thanks!!! :)

I'm astounded. I knew French was about 30% of English, but I was nowhere near considering all the ramifications that it meant.

As an anglophone Canadian who seriously studied French as an adult I was so happy that so much of English comes from French. We had a joke in my French class that if you don’t know the French word just say it in English with a French accent and you might get it right!

The old hate-love relationship between neighbours. Both have fought for, along and against, pretty much like an old couple, but in the end you can't do without. Long live Lilliput and Blefuscu!

I tell my Francophone friends and relatives when they are unsure of the English vocabulary just use the French word & pronounce it like it was German. There is always an English cognate but sometimes we surprise them by pronouncing it like the French. Changed (Germanized) pronunciation: Quarter - quartier Niece - niece People - peuple Meme Exactement (en mode de XVIIIe siècle): Banking terms - banque, cheque Hors d’ouvres, (American) filet of beef, …

As a member of the peoples of Acadianna, i would like to invite yall to listen to the Cajun language, an archaic remnant of 1700s rural French.

As a french living in this perfid albion, i find it satisfying.

Watching from Montenegro and this blew my mind..Very cool dive into history here and top notch content,very rare I watch an entire video but this had me glued!!Keep em coming!!

As a frenchman, i just came across your video by chance and it was a real pleasure to learn all these stuff.

There are a lot of words you presented as French origin we use here in Germany, too. Just made me realize that we may have adapted much more words from French or Latin than I thought.

Well isn't that one of the most satisfaying videos ever made. From a corner of my head I guess my subconscient knew it all along, with all the french sounding words I encountered during that english journey. Thank you Sir, for clarifying the fascinating matter

Thank you for this very interesting video. I'm French (half American) and this is the first time I've come across this information.

As a French who lived for 3 years in Ireland and 8 years in the UK this is really interesting! Thanks for the quality content!

Being French Canadian, this video explains perfectly why I've always thought English was much more malleable than French. You can basically got at it using both languages' perspectives lol. Very interesting video!

What a lovely video. Such smooth transitions and interesting facts. Your passion is palpable and the scene is majestic ✨

You deliver the lecture so well spoken ... I love that. ❤

14:59 I'm an American from the deep south, from an area settled predominantly by the Scots-Irish, and I also pronounce the 'h' in 'what' and 'where,' albeit not as strongly as in the video here. But it is especially pronounced if I'm saying the word with extra emphasis, or asking with a sense of incredulity, like, "She said _what_ ?!"

I am Dutch and I started learning French at the age of 10 and English 3 years later. Reading Morte d'Arthur and Canterbury Tales in early English was an eye opener to discover both the French and Germanic roots of English. "They smote each other full sore" would roughly translate to "Two (or more) people threw blows at others to cause the most harm "

As a Frenchman, I love the English language so much. After all, it’s a bit ours too!

merci!! i love the english french relationship! A la prochaine!

Hi ! french person here, i'll pass by to tell you a bit of the french media talk about the infamous "English doesn't exist", while i can't talk for Clemenceau, i can talk about Cerquiglini, as his books made a short buzz due its title here. And the truth is that, as sad as it is, the title is very much clickbait for its own sake, he explained in numerous interviews (all in french so i doubt fellow english speaker would see it pass) that all were smalltime stuff, that he didn't do it for any other reason than because in this day and age, the onyl way to sell a book here is to have a provocative title. This is something of a problem we share today with America apparently, as per "The Psychosis of Whiteness by Kehinde Andrews" has proven by Andrews own word. Great video too, learning how much cultural switcheroo happened in languages is always a fun thing. Something to note too, the William the Conqueror/ Guillaume le Conquérant debate between English and French is apparently moot, as the rare drawings of his banners found spelt it like "Will.E.M" which is really funny to me.

I am a Frenchman and I enjoyed your video a lot ! Thank you for all this useful pieces of information. I guess most of the people watching this video understood that the title of the Professor's book is indeed humourously provocative ! Very good job, and now I really want to read the book !

Great show sir, as always. Nice balance of good explanations and facts with humour. The wonderful ways of words!

I think this video taught me more about the english / french langauges than everything else i ever learned. Thank you! Grew up english in montreal so have a fair bit of perspective.

I don't comment on the main topic. Just want to say how good is this video. This is by far one of the best short video you regulary watch on KZfaq to learn something not getting bored. Congratulations from France to you sir. C'est rythmé, riche, intéressant, bien monté et votre voix est très agréable. I wish the french KZfaqrs take exemple from you.

As a "Berber" who speaks arabic, french and doing my best to learn the so beloved english language.. I enjoyed your video. 😊😊

May I add that George Clémenceau, a former French Prime Minister at the turn of the XXth century, nicknamed 'The tiger', used to say : England is a French colony that turned out badly ?!!! Never mind, your video is excellent, just like every other you 've posted so far. Keep up with the good work ! 👍🗼

I find your videos fascinating. Thanks for posting!

The great Terry Pratchett observed that English didn't so much borrow from other languages as it followed them down dark alleys, knocked them over the head, and rifled through their pockets looking for loose grammar. The source seems to be disputed, but I remember seeing it in one of his works.

I love the extra details beyond the meat/food things that people often bring up. What a fascinating and entertaining video full of information!

Fascinating. Thank you for making such a high quality video!

Wonderful! Very good presentation, excellent open-mindedness, and very well researched. My first experience with your videos will not be my last!

My mother is French/Acadian. She moved from Nova Scotia, Canada to Boston for the last 60 years of her life. Her kids all developed Boston accents, and she developed a French/Boston accent. It was so cute!

That was fabulous!! I'm from Montreal and I'm fluent in both languages, French being my mother tongue. I knew about the 30% content of French in the English language, but you blew my mind with all your examples!! Just stunning the complexity and the way it all evolves throughout the centuries. Will sent that video to a few friends for sure!! And you gained a subscriber! Very very well done my friend!!!! Merci beaucoup!!!!

Thanks for this very interesting video. You didn't fall into the partial trap and just shared great knowledge with us. I'm happy to stumble upon your video and I'll watch others from you. Great job!

That is the first time ever in my whole life that I see a brit (specifically english) be honnest about the fact that William was indeed French. Most people would say he's not french, he's a nord, that's why we call them normans. But no, normandie is a place in France, it's still called this way, and people from Normandie are "normands" in french. And yes, they are fully french, 100%. Thanks for that. It's enjoyable to see someone just speaking the truth.

I wrote a whole sketch in English in my one-woman musical "London-Paris-Roam!" that was just written using French words. I did it as challenge to myself and it turned out to be one of the highlights of the show!

Rob and my fellow thieves, you reminded me of a lovely German woman I knew when I worked at a Public Library in New Jersey. We almost always spoke German and she worked in Administrative Jobs Wahrend Des Krieges. Her Husband was Jewish and died in the Holocaust (they had a son who she kept with her). She Mentioned that Before the war French was the international language and after, English but During the war it was GERMAN. This was something I'd never thought about but it makes sense, since Germany had most of Europe under it's control. I love learning about language and it's shady alleys and cul-de-sacs . All the best Jim Mexico retired

I'm french and I really like the fact that we are trading words with english (btw I prefer english, from the uk, over french ^^)

I've said it many times that england and france are soooooooooooooooooo very similar that if one were in a hurry, lazy or overly in love with standardisation one could call them practically the same country. (i underline the word "Practically")

Imagine a Germanic language where an entire spelling reform was just about the spelling of French words. It happened in Sweden in 1802. Swedish has about 20% French/Latin loanwords. French was spoken at the royal courts not only in London but also in Stockholm, Berlin, Vienna, St Petersburg and Moscow. In some Swedish dialects, "h" is also missing at the beginning of a word, but that has nothing to do with French. Even some runestones lack "h" at the beginning of the words. It comes from some dialects in Old Eastern Norse and is probably the source of why some Northern English dialects also lack "h" at the beginning of words.

As a french student in french uni, the best tip we got from our English teacher (who was British) was "nearly all words of 3 syllables or more are basically the same in French". And it checks out! Construction, establishment, advantage, possibility, temperature... I could go on

As someone who is bilingual in english and french, I must say that english is by far my preferred language, for its simplicity and versatility.

Die Präsentation war sehr informativ! Toll!🙂

Those mixes of root languages give English three main characteristics: 1. A very varied thesaurus 2. Removal of a lot of the complex grammar rules from the root languages. 3. A huge amount of irregular verbs… But mainly, English is a very flexible language. You can be understood even if you speak it very badly…

One of my favourite videos on your channel, Rob... and not because I am French... LOL always informative and entertaining. Thank you!

Very enjoyable. Your writing and delivery are great. I guess that shouldn't be surprising considering that this is your metier. You have a new subscriber.

I just saw your content today and I am hooked!! Good stuff

English is really just Dutch dressing up as French 😂 Edit: guys, relax. It’s just a joke

As a frenchmen this makes my moustache shivers with pride Bonjour de Lille ! 😊

Bravo! Great videos! You sir, may very well be the most interesting man on the internet! Do keep up the excellent work. Regards from Cape Town

It’s kinda cool how you emphasize what words in what you say come from French and then you make a slight nod/hint to it and helps us understand more

Actually modern French is just badly pronounced French.

As a native french speaker, I would never have guessed some of those words as french.

I would love to see you and Judy Dent have a conversation about whatever. Thank you so much for making language so interesting!

As an American expat living in France and who is learning French, I really appreciate the information in this video. I actually understand French very well although the conjugaison is difficult, but the vocabulary is so similar, I don't find French so difficult to understand.

I am from Haiti and most French speakers have a phobia of the English language (the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic sounds), but I would reassure them that 99 percent of the vocabulary is made up of French words…. And that goes to 100 percent for words ending in “tion”, like nation. Great documentary. Thank you.

As a Frenchman, I find this story absolutely fascinating.

Je suis Franco-Canadien , Québécois I want to thanks all 3 "Germanics,English,French" equally and the reason why is because I LOVE my VW Golf8R and because when i open the "User Manual" i can read no matter if French or English side the instructions show up ! ! 🤣😉

when she reads the poem you realise how much you can thank french influence in the english language....

Another great video. Funny that old Cockney English, "In ‘ertford, ‘ereford, and ‘ampshire, ‘urricanes ‘ardly ever ‘appen,” is actually quite continental. 😊

We can thank 100 years of French (Norman) occupation for its influence on the English language. Francais a la table; Anglais a la etable! French at the table; English in the stable!

OK. When I saw the title of this video in my recommendations, my immediate thought was "You should look up Melvin Bragg's series 'The Adventure of English'". Now I'm 2:49 in and my impression is that this person HAS seen it - the presentation style is VERY similar.

Sometimes our English friends kept the poetic version of French words. The flower we call « pissenlit » (« pees in bed », due to the diuretic properties of the plant), you call « dandelion », or « lion’s teeth » in French : »dents de lion ».

The H is dropped in French, but still ghostly present, like how we say "des haches" (axes) and not "des zaches" preventing the liaison when it was a Germanic H (IIRC), but we say "des zumans" (humans).

I really enjoyed that. Thank you. 😊

That was so interesting. Absolutely wonderful. Subscribed.

As a norwegian native speaker (who spends a lot of time studying languages, it's what i love) it is deeply fascinating to me to hear that the word for merchant was "ceapmann"! The way it is pronounced and written is clearly similar to the norwegian word for merchant, "kjøpmann", and in some dialects, espeically western dialects like the Ålesund and other Møre dialects, it would be pronounced kinda like "chupmann". It is just a word I didn't expect to see in old English! I was pleasantly surprised, it didn't feel foreign to me at all. Old english doesn't really sound all that foreign to me!

Thanks for the not falling into the English vs French old theme... If anything, it tells us how much we're cousins more than adversaries. Congrats from France for another excellent video!

this was such an interesting, informative video, thank you!

Maybe la meilleure video I've seen so far qui parle de ce sujet !

Super interesting video, as an english speaker who moved to France and learnt french over the past few years it's fascinating to understand some of the history behind why there are so many similarities. My favourite is the adverbs, take the English version drop the LY and replace it with MENT and you have the french adverb in most cases. You basically don't need to learn most of the french adverbs as they are the same. Just watch out for the faux amis!