Mon été à Paris @moneteaparis - Tumblr Blog

I found out that, thanks to American Airlines cancelling one of my flights tomorrow, it will now take me 17 hours to get home when it should only take 10 at the absolute most. Wish me luck.

#study abroad #france #paris #home

L'apothéose des feux d'artifices de la Fête Nationale à Paris/The grand finale of the fireworks for Bastille Day in Paris

#paris #france #14 juillet #fête nationale #bastille day #study abroad #tour eiffel #eiffel tower

Moi devant le Louvre/Me in front of the Louvre

#me #picture #paris #france #study abroad #louvre

Les colonnes de Pont Alexandre III/The columns on Pont Alexander III

#paris #france #pont alexandre iii #study abroad #picture

July 18: Anglophones vs. Francophones

Hello everybody,

Yeah, today I’m feeling lazy, so this one’s only going to be in English.

Today I discovered one of the most interesting things about language I have ever heard of before. I feel like I should have realized it, but it just never occurred to me. We were Basta (a game a little like Scattergories) at work today because there was literally nothing to do. We had to come up with a thing in that started with a “z” in French. I put down “zézaiement,” a word that I had learned from a skit I did in a high school French class. The translation I always found of it was “lisp,” but after a discussion, I found out that it was different than that. Essentially, this is a French speech impediment where someone pronounces a “j” as a “z.” As far as I know, there is no such speech impediment found in Anglophones. This led me to realize that different languages can have different speech impediments. I feel like I should have realized this because languages all have different sounds and such, but it just never occurred to me. I find it extremely interesting.

Another thing that I learned from playing Basta was that Francophones and Anglophones have different ideas of what constitutes a thing. The category that I put “zézaiement” down for was the category “Thing” and everyone rejected that response because they said that a thing is something that you can touch. English-speakers, or at least the ones I know, would disagree. I would definitely say that a lisp is a thing, but the French define things as more concrete.

-Kevin

#language #study abroad #french #speech impediment #lisp