{"id":5012,"date":"2016-02-22T14:03:34","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T14:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eurotalk.com\/blog\/?p=5012"},"modified":"2017-07-11T13:46:32","modified_gmt":"2017-07-11T13:46:32","slug":"you-speak-more-french-than-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/you-speak-more-french-than-you-think\/","title":{"rendered":"You speak more French than you think"},"content":{"rendered":"

So you think you can’t speak French? You may not realise it but if you’re an English speaker, you probably know more French than you think. Just take a look…<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Biscuit<\/h3>\n

A common snack or treat in the UK and the US, there are so many options to choose from. But did you know that this originates from French, meaning \u2018twice cooked\u2019. The original biscuits were\u00a0baked first, and then put into another oven to dry out so that they kept\u00a0longer.<\/span><\/p>\n

Faux Pas<\/h3>\n

Often seen in magazines or newspaper as a favourite way to describe a celebrity fashion \u2018faux pas\u2019. It originally means \u2018false step\u2019 in French related to a social mistake, which leads to embarrassment.<\/span><\/p>\n

Picnic<\/h3>\n

The original meaning of picnic was to describe people who bring their own wine to a restaurant. The connotation of bringing something has stayed today with the idea that people contribute different things to a picnic. Today we also know it as a meal we eat outside or \u2018al fresco\u2019 (which is from Italian, if you were wondering).<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sabotage<\/h3>\n

Interestingly this word was first related to a work dispute and the idea that workers threw shoes into the machinery (originally clogs) to stop it from working, so they could strike. Today we associate this word with the idea of doing something which will prevent the desired outcome.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fianc\u00e9(e)<\/h3>\n

We do have a couple of words for the person we’re going to marry in\u00a0English, but for some reason the French is used much more regularly than\u00a0‘intended’ or\u00a0‘betrothed’. Perhaps it’s just that the French sounds more romantic?<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Fiance\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Saut\u00e9<\/h3>\n

A term used in cooking such as to saut\u00e9 an onion, it means frying in a small amount of fat. It originates from \u2018sauter\u2019 which means to jump in French.<\/span><\/p>\n

Can you think of any other examples of French words or expressions that are regularly used by English speakers?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So you think you can’t speak French? You may not realise it but if you’re an English speaker, you probably know more French than you think. Just take a look… Biscuit A common snack or treat in the UK and the US, there are so many options to choose from. But did you know that … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,49,3],"tags":[1435,1436,32,375,1437,1438,48,2,1439,1440,1441,1442,1443],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5012"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utalk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}