Tutorial Transcript

Salut YouTube welcome back to my channel or if it's your first time here, my name is Rosie And I'm a Kiwi living in France and today I wanted to do something quite fun for my Frenchies out there which is a video on the 12 most common mistakes that I've noticed when French people are speaking to me in English. What I've found is that even when a French person is very fluent in English there seem to be these sort of common Pitfalls or trip ups that French native speakers have when speaking in English where they'd say something that was totally understandable, but it's just not exactly what a native English speaker would say. The point of this video is not to shame you or bring you down I think that anyone who's speaking a second language or third language or fourth language is incredible, it's honestly just to make something helpful and useful for you, if you want it, so that you can keep speaking English like a pro Okay, so the first English pitfall that I often hear when French people are speaking to me in English is the word Hopefully I often hear it used as a substitute for words like thankfully fortunately and luckily. For example a French person might say Hopefully I remembered to take the rubbish out today, I almost forgot, it was rubbish day today or Hopefully we have a cleaner that comes once a week, otherwise I don't know how we would manage so the word you actually want to be choosing here is luckily thankfully or fortunately like luckily I remembered to take the rubbish out or thankfully we have a cleaner that comes to our place once a week. In English we use the word hopefully to be optimistic about an event that's going to happen in the future that hasn't happened yet for example hopefully I get into the Grande Ecole of my dreams or hopefully it will be good weather on the weekend I think hopefully is actually more the equivalent in French of avec un peu de chance For example "avec un peu de chance, il fera beau demain" Word number two that I want to talk about is the word funny And this one's so cute that I almost don't want to help you fix it But what you need to know is that there is a difference between the words fun and funny I often hear things like we went to a really funny concert on the weekend or We went to the beach with friends It was very funny the word you should be using here is just Fun to have fun to have a good time we had so much fun at the concert it was fun to go to the beach together funny is an adjective and it means amusing or causing laughter so a comedy show was funny. If something's funny, it made you laugh Number three isn't a word as such but it's sort of common rule to keep in mind when speaking in English, and it's around plurals so it may be a good idea to learn the few words that don't have plurals. The most common ones that I hear are Transports so I spend a lot of time in the transports what you want to say is I spend a lot of time in transport Another classic one I hear is fruits. So you'll eat a lot of fruit, there's a bowl of fruit there are three pieces of fruit, but you'll never have fruitS. Same with toasts So that's never a plural It's toast so I ate a lot of toast or I had two pieces of toast another classic I hear is feedbacks So feedback is never a plural either So you can give someone a piece of feedback or you can have a lot of feedback, but you never have feedbacks And it's the same with Information so I hear a lot about having informations, they gave us some informations And it's never a plural either always just information Word number 4 is eventually what you need to know is that eventuellement and eventually in English are faux amis. They don't actually mean the same thing. Eventually means at some point in the future for example. We might eventually contact the police if our neighbours don't stop being so loud The word that you're looking for to replace eventuellement with is Possibly or potentially - it's a hypothesis or a suggestion so instead of saying we could eventually take an appointment with the director of the company you could say we could potentially take an appointment with the director of the company or we could possibly take an appointment with the director of the company Number five are the words good and right And this is going to be really tricky for me to explain because I'm not an English teacher But I often hear the words good and right being mixed up Good is the opposite of bad and right is the opposite of Wrong so when I hear it's not the good password what you want to say is it's not the right password aka the password is incorrect and the other thing I hear a lot is it's not the good one and It's the same rule here what you want to say is it's not the right one. It's incorrect or it's wrong Number six is the word fat and this might blow some people's minds out there but food cannot be fat! Fat is an adjective for a person or an animal for example you have a very fat cat. If you want to talk about food having a high fat content you say this food is fatty, or this food is greasy or this food is high in fat, so that means you can't say for example this McDonald's is very fat you could only say this McDonald's is really greasy or this McDonald's is very fatty. Bonus for you on this topic food in French can either be sucré or salé and in english, this is sweet or Savoury not salty so quiches, scones these kinds of things are savoury items of food. Salty food is food that's got a very very high salt content so it's literally when you've been cooking the pasta and you put way too much salt inside the recipe and that's when you can say "Oh this pastas very salty!" Word number seven is the word proposed and I often hear this used instead of the word suggested for example He proposed me to go to a bar firstly you've got to be careful when you say someone proposed you because Straightaway, we think that you're going to get married because when you ask for someone's hand in marriage You're proposing to someone so if you're a girl and you're coming up to me saying he proposed me I'll be like oh my god congratulations While you can use the word proposed in English in the same kind of sense for example He proposed that we go to a bar I think it can get a little bit confusing so if I were you I would use the word suggested so he suggested that we go for a bar or the seller suggested several colour options but I went for the blue one Word number eight is the word make so I've heard sometimes We're going to make a party, I'm going to make an interview I'm going to make a bungee jump when I'm in New Zealand What you're actually wanting to say here is I'm going to throw a party or I'm going to have a party I'm going to have an interview, and I'm going to do a bungee jump when I'm in New Zealand I know this is really hard because you're using the verb Faire here which is a tricky verb because it can mean to make or to do in French But what you need to know is that the word itself "make" in English really means to construct to build to fabricate something like you make a cake for example because you've got all of the ingredients you put them together you go through the process of cooking that etc You have made a cake, so hopefully that gives you something to keep in mind when you're hesitating about using the word of make or another word that would suit, like do or have Number nine is the word since so I've heard this phrase a lot which is I've been in Paris since four years or I've worked in marketing since six months so this is obviously their direct translation of depuis But in English it's got the wrong positioning in the sentence In English you always start with it's been X amount of time since I've done something e.g. it's already been six months since I joined the marketing department Number ten is the word Stranger and I know you're translating this from étranger but when we hear the word Stranger we think of someone we really don't know and its associated quite negatively with stranger danger You know you tell your children to never talk to strangers The word that you're looking for is a foreigner someone from outside of your group or your country is a foreigner Number eleven is a little bit tricky, but it's the word Normally, and what you have to know is that normally and normalement are not friends you may say in English normally my keys are on the table, but I can't find them or Normally, I have class tomorrow, but I don't think I'll go. What you're referring to here are actually events that happen regularly over time so we would actually use the word usually. Usually I have my keys here on the table Or usually I go to class on Tuesdays And when you as native French speakers use normally for an event that may happen in the future for example Normally he should come on Saturday here You can replace normally with should or should be so he should come on Saturday Number 12 is simply here and there For example I'll be waiting for my friend at a café, and they'll say I'm there and I'll be like "where?!" "where is there?" here means here as in the same place that you are so here is ici there is là or là-bas I quickly want to run through some bonus tips because I've got a lot to say and I don't wanna stop talking yet I'm gonna address some common pronunciation matters. First, the word idea it actually has three syllables I-d-ea, it's not pronounced ID ID is a short form of identification, it means your passport or your driver's license also Analysis is pronounced analysis and not anal-yz-is. Number three, someone who is cynical or doubtful is a Skeptic or someone who's skeptical not a sceptic Okay, so I'll leave it there for now if you do like this kind of content please comment below hit the thumbs up and Let me know what you want to see from me because I'm happy to get creative and film videos different to what I'm used to filming if it's gonna help you guys out And if I did miss any really obvious ones Please let me know down below because I'd like to do a part two to this video because it was really fun Even if it wasn't very funny! Until next time friends, à bientôt!