Tricks in Learning English if You Speak French
64Actually and Eventually
My mother tongue is French, and the more common mistakes I hear when other fellow native French persons talking in English relate to these two words: Actually and Eventually.
This is certainly because of the similarity with "Actuellement" and "Eventuellement". It's very tempting to think their English cousins have the same meaning, but they don't !
"Actuellement" means "at present time" in french... so if a Frenchman tells you "I'm actually working in this company", he does not mean that he truely works there (would not make a lot of sense...). What he means is that he is working for this company now.
"Eventuellement" means "possibly" in french, and this leads to stronger missunderstandings. If a Frenchman tells you "I will come, enventually", he does not mean that he will come in the end, but that he might come... or not !
These two words have created so many problems that they are worth the "false friends" golden medal !
Two Funny Ones
Most of other problems come from idioms and bad use of language. For years, "having kittens"did mean to me "having small cats", and nothing else...
To close this hub, two funny but true stories...
The Affair EngineerIn France, an engineer providing technical support when settling a deal is called an "Ingénieur d'affaire". Good english speakers will probably translate it to "Business Support Engineer", or something equivalent.
I met once a guy whose business card mentionned a very simple and litteral translation of his french function: "Mr XXXX - Affair Engineer".
If you're a french reader, an "Affair" in English means a "Liaison" !
They are hardly working
This second story is even harder to beleive (hehehe), but also true. A french plant manager was giving a tour of the facility to potential customers. When getting through the workshops, he said something like..."As you can see, our employees are hardly working !"
Obvisouly what he meant was that the employees were working hard... Again, for french readers, "hardly working" means "travaillent à peine" in french...
Update: The Italian Who Went To Malta
This is so funny, I can't resist the temptation to put the link... don't forget to turn the sound of your PC on !
http://www.huaren.com/fun/English.html
If you get no sound, try this one: http://www.huaren.com/fun/English.mp3
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Comments
ah yes, I also used to say 'actually' for the French word 'actuellement', but then my teacher said the meaning is totally different :D, so...
What I also forget is the importance of long vowels ! This distinction does not exist in french, so it is frequent for us to pronounce "ship" and "sheep" the same way (for french readers: bateau et mouton).
This might sound fun, but if you ask someone how to go to the "bitch" instead of the "beach", you can expect stong reaction (plage et prostituée)...
....or if you ask the hotel maid to take the "shits" off your bed instead of the sheets--heehee...I'm smiling over the affair engineer too. This hub is "formidable" in both the French and English senses of the word....Merci beaucoup!
@robie2: you certainly heard the old sketch "The Italian Who Went To Malta"...
don't know that one I'm afraid, but I bet it's good:-) do tell
@robie2 (and all): if you don't know "The Italian Who Went To Malta", turn your PC speaker on, and visit http://www.huaren.com/fun/english.htm
You will then know how IMPORTANT a proper english accent is...
ROTFL! That was sooooo funny< I'm laughing till my sides split> Thanks. I will never forget the Italian who went to Malta :-)
I'm reminded of the little diplomatic storm that blew up in the 1960s (I think) when Great Britain was petitioning to join the European Community and was constantly being repulsed by Charles de Gaulle. A British diplomat then compounded the problem when he misinterpreted de Gaulle's statement about "L'entrée éventuelle de la Grande Bretagne dans le Communauté" A nice example, I think, of the sort of thing you are talking about.
As a personal complement, I produced a small video "Understanding France - Lesson I". I'm waiting for your comments !
NealWalters says:
2 years ago
Thanks for sharing the false cognates (or "false friends"), word that look like they should have the same meaning in two different languages.
I was working with a guy from Belgium, it was pouring rain outside, and he said you could go out and have a "douche". Since I knew a little French and Spanish, I knew what he meant, but it means something entirely different in English.