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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 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 …

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

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!

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.

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

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

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

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!

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 ❤

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

What amazes me with the English language is that you guys have a specific word for everything under the sun! The English vocabulary is ginormous. Thanks for this instructive video by the way.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Die Präsentation war sehr informativ! Toll!🙂

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, …

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

Note, that American English, is even more French, while UK English was heavily influenced following William, and of course being neighbourgs for centuries, American English got a new wave of influence, because of Lousiana and working closely with French to defeat the British during the indenpence war. This should also be a subject of a video.

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.

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.

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!

*"Anglo-Norman contributed enormously to the current English language. No matter what you say or read in English, however “modern” it may be, the legacy of Anglo-Norman is everywhere. And throughout the world, wherever the English language has gone, it has carried Anglo-Norman influences with it".* David Trotter, [*1957-†2015] English linguist and anthropologist. Normands are the real found fathers of actual Normand English like or not the truth never will change, love or not.

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

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.

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.

A saying i heard a few years ago is, "English is 3 languages disguised as 1", and i will always stand by that thought. 😂

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.

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.

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

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 UKposts 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 UKpostsrs take exemple from you.

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

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

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!

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!!!!

As someone living in France this was very fun

having vocabulary in english as a french speaker is just overpowered, once you learn the basic english vocabulary and grammar, you are automatically an enven better speaker than most americans, because you know french

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 !

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 an English trainer in Europe, I really appreciate getting this background.

English meet all the criteria of a creole language. Creole languages are created when two languages collide, one of them is considered high status on the other lower in status. The prestige language provides the lexicon and the lower one the grammar skeleton. The result is a language that has way less complicated grammar, often with reduce (or total lack) grammatical numbers, genders, cases, conjugations... so...

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

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.

Very interesting for a french native speaker, thank you! I would love that our english teacher explain to our kids the origins of some english words, from french or other languages, it is more interesting to know the language story than learning stupidly!

were just so much more alike than we think its crazy vive leurope

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

As a Frenchman, I find this story absolutely fascinating.

And to see which language English speakers feel more comfortable with, compare the original English, French, and German here: educational possibilities / possibilités éducatives / Ausbildungsmöglichkeiten I conclude my argument / Je conclus mon argument / Ich schließe mein Argument ab.

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!

Actually modern French is just badly pronounced French.

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

Je n'ai qu'une chose à dire : cocorico.

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

"who is horrible with the Hs" 😂😂 as a French story of my life. I speak English and German and still today have problem with Hs 😂 Great content, I learned a lot thanks

At first i thougth it was a joke,only a funny video but the part about nobble words sounding French actualy make sense😂

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!

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 ».

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

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!!

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

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

Thanks for this video. I am french, and am very interested in the ways languages borrowed from each other, and how history, on a large scale, is embedded throughout the way we speak and write. I was aware of couple things you mentionned but, the way you put it together, and all the references you've added are invaluable ! Thanks a lot for this great work. Cheers

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

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

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.

Greetings to United kingdom from Czech Republic 🇨🇿❤🇬🇧

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!

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…

I find your videos fascinating. Thanks for posting!

The biggest advantages are for English and French natives to reach advanced or proficiency levels.

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.

French was the language in courts of many states.. I think correspondence between royalties of countries used to be in French, research papers too

Vive la Normandie ! 😎

😂omg 'h' dropping was originally prestigious and fancy french sounding

English is a little hard to describe because of its origin, combining with its evolution. We have literally borrowed words from almost all languages.

When i started learning Norwegian i realized how close English is to Norse languages. The word order between English and Norwegian is almost identical whereas it is radically different from French and German both. Also the tendency to simplify conjugations across tenses is common with Norwegian whereas French and German remain complex. Some phrases like "yeah i can hop over that" is completely mutually intelligible with "ja, jeg kan hopp over det" (jeg is pronounced yai). We borrowed a bunch of *words* from French but the bones of the language is entirely Germanic and is an admixture of Norse and Low German. We could choose to use only the germanic words and though we might sound weird to folks we could be understood without the French. A German wearing French clothes is still a German with his clothes off.

Love this guy - so much knowledgeable, funny and humble

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

Thank you Rob, i really like how you learn things. I'm french i'm learning a lot ! Cause you there. Merci Rob, j'aime vraiment la façon dont tu apprends les choses. Je suis français, j'apprends beaucoup ! Parce que tu es là.

The most amazing thing that RobWords has taught me is how etymology can teach you about the history of the world.

As a french from normandy I liked your video, and I can add that there were also words from norman dialect that have been exported to english. For example pocket comme from the norman pouquette, me too from mei itou and there's some more. And those are words that i've used to heard in my childhood as my grandparents spoke the dialect. But i never made the link with english until an aunt and a profesor told me about this. So I guess it's a pretty unknown fact, unfortunately the dialect is mostly spoken by very old generations so it's slowly disapearing with them.

I have been working to learn Spanish for years, so it's funny I'm getting this video after I decided to see what other languages I could learn, started with french, and realized that apparently there are other languages much closer to English that I can pick up faster.

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!

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).

Hi, I'm a French speaker. I've heard that many English words are derived from French but pronounced differently. However, I must say, you've made a very remarkable video on the subject. It's very interesting, and I've learned a lot. This is my first time watching a video from your channel. Keep up the good work. Bravo!

Awesome video! As a French guy, learning English was hard at the beginning but after reaching a certain level, everything became easier... No wonder it's because all fancy words are actually French 😅

I am learning French and occasionally take speaking lessons with a tutor. If I don't know a word in French, I will guess by saying the English word in a French way. It works about 60% of the time, no joke.

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