Learn English vocabulary from French: foie gras, du jour, faux pas...

Bonjour, comment ça va, ça va bien?

That's all I got.

So, I don't know if you know, but in Canada, we are taught French.

I was taught French from the time I was eight years old to when I was eighteen, so I studied

French for ten remarkable years.

Can I speak French?

No.

Can I understand when somebody speaks French to me?

No.

Can I read the cereal ingredients in French?

Yes!

This might be the same for you learning English.

Maybe you learned English in your school and you sat there and go "Why the hell am I ever

going to use this?"

That was me in French.

And when you get older, you realize: "Oh hey.

Do you know what?

English is kind of important now, damn, I should have paid attention in class."

Or you're just watching this video for fun.

Yeah, yeah fine, I get it.

So, English is a very peculiar, which means strange language, because we steal words from

many different languages.

English is based in Latin.

We also have German.

We also take words from French.

We also take words from the Greek language.

So, good luck.

This is what - one of the reasons our pronunciation is so difficult.

I could say the word now, but it's still really hard.

So, if you speak French or if you learned French, I've got a tip or a technique to help

you learn more English vocabulary, because we have stolen French words.

And you probably know these words already, but again, we have to be careful with our

pronunciation of these words, especially if you're living in the USA.

Because something happens when I cross the border.

For some reason, all hopes of French pronunciation is gone.

Canada's a little better because we have a huge French population, but yeah, I've heard

some really strange things coming from our neighbors in the South.

So, this lesson is to help you remember and learn vocabulary.

And hey, guess what, I'll teach some French at the same time.

But you might already know.

You might - not die, you might not die, you might die.

But you might get an invitation, and I'm pretty sure that initiation is also a French word

- from a friend on Facebook or someplace and it might say "RSVP".

And RSVP in French means "Répondez s'il vous plait".

"S'il vous plait" in French means "please" and "respond" means "answer".

We do not put the e here.

I think I was speaking Spanish or something at that point, so.

RSVP actually means hey, please answer me.

But we don't use it like this.

We just think "RSVP, okay.

This means tell the person yes or no."

Which is actually, we are responding to the invitation.

So, RSVP: "Répondez s'il vous plait", answer me!

Are you going to come to my fantastic party or not?

That's what I need to know.

I need a yes or a no from you, so answer me.

Next one.

If I translate this from French - I didn't translate it, I was Google, thank you, Google.

A la mode, okay.

It means "at way", or - I don't know, something about the way.

We use this predominantly for pie or ice cream.

So, you can go to a restaurant and get apple pie a la mode, and for some reason in English,

it doesn't mean on the side, it means you get ice cream.

Wow, we have really stretched that one.

So, a la mode in French - at the way, or on the side.

In English, means "ice cream on the pie".

But hey.

Hey, what's English, right?

Confusing, crazy.

Crème brûlée.

How's my pronunciation?

Crème brûlée, crème brûlée.

Crème brûlée means "cream", crème is "cream", and brûlée means "to burn".

So. you go oh, burned crème, awesome.

Did you make a mistake in the kitchen?

Crème brûlée to use is a delicious dessert where they take cream and they burn it, oh yeah.

But it actually makes a beautiful caramel tasting dessert.

So, crème brûlée.

Don't worry, I haven't burned your cream.

I made you a wonderful dessert.

crème brûlée.

These are all food words and I'm getting hungry, damn!

Café au lait.

Ole, ole, ole!

Café means "coffee", au means "with" or "in" and lait means "milk".

So, when you go to your fancy coffee shops and you walk up and go "I want a café au

lait, please?"

You're just telling the person, you know what, put some milk in my coffee please, sir.

But you're doing it in French, so you think you're fancy, mmhmm.

You're not.

Just ask for coffee with milk, please?

It will save you a lot of money at Starbucks, I'm sure too.

Because I'm sure a coffee without milk is free, but a café au lait, whew, five dollars

more for you!

Because you don't know French.

I'm saving you money, too!

This next delicious treat is foie gras, foie gras.

Foie means "liver", and I'm sure my pronunciation is bad on that one.

And gras means "fatty".

Foie gras to us is a duck liver.

So, apparently, they do terrible things to ducks in France.

They feed the ducks lots of food so the duck is really fat.

And then we kill them and we eat their liver.

Delicious again.

Thank you for making your ducks really fat so we can eat them.

Hmm.

I could have some foie gras right now.

This one, wow, this blew my mind!

Look at me, learning with you.

Now, this how we have to be careful when we pronounce things.

So, hors d'oeuvre.

I have heard Americans say this.

We say "or derves", we say "or", okay, "derves".

Try, "or derves".

I know it's a terrible way we have changed it because I'm sure it sounds much more eloquent

in French.

Please don't say "hore doreves".

It's "or derves".

So, in French, this means "outside of work".

No way!

In English, an hors d'oeuvre is an appetizer.

It's something that, if you're at a party, someone passes you some little things to eat

with a toothpick, you have some wine, it's great.

But in French, it means, I guess "hours outside of work".

So maybe this is like, French people were like, "I'm not working, give me some food!"

I like this idea.

Give me some of that duck, I want some of that duck liver, give it to me.

I'm not working, okay?

So hor d'oeuvre means outside of work, but we mean it like delicious food.

Cool.

Next one, du jour.

You will see this in many, many, many restaurants.

Soup du jour, okay?

Dessert du jour.

It means "of the day".

So, you think your wonderful little restaurant - wow, soup du jour.

Hmm, 17 dollars for soup du jour.

That's a good deal.

Nah, you're just getting ripped off, aren't you?

It means "of that day".

It means that particular day, that restaurant opened this pre-packaged soup, put some water

in it, and that's your soup of the day, thank you.

Enjoy that.

Did you commit a faux pas?

So, we have this, we say, "I've committed a faux pas" and we sound so fancy when we

say it.

Eh, it's close.

In French, apparently means "false step" like "woah, I saw a false step there, watch out".

And we mean it to say that we've done something wrong or we've made a mistake.

I made a giant faux pas in my lesson, I must start again.

This is one that, again, I was amazed at.

So, ménage a trois, as you guys might know in English, means sex between three people.

Woah, hey!

Apparently in French it means "house of three".

So, if you have a mom and a dad and a you, guess what?

You are in a ménage a trois, which sounds really dirty right now because in our bastardization

of the French language, it only means sex.

Wow.

Okay.

Sorry, France.

This is fun.

As a child, I always loved this one: eau de toilette.

Oh, you should so beautiful.

Would you like some eau de toilette?

And then you look at it and go: "eau" means "water", "de" means "of" and "toilette" means

"toilet", oh my God.

So, I've been actually putting toilet water on myself to make myself smell...what?

So, I've been just going to the toilet and going "Hahaha, look at me, I've got toilet

water.

I smell delicious."

I don't think so.

I don't know how this became - we just call this perfume for us.

It's a lower grade of perfume.

In France they say "parfum", which is beautiful and smells good.

Water of the toilet, yeah.

I'm not too sure what happened there.

I blame marketers.

Marketers are like "Let's take a word in French that's really terrible and make people buy

it for a lot of money.

Let's take, okay, toilet water, hahaha, and make people spend $100 on it and that'll be

funny!"

It is funny, actually.

Thank you, whoever did that, yes!

Next one, this is fun.

A chaise longue.

So, we say in Canada, we say "chaise longue".

In French, I'm sure it's "chaise longue" or something French, lots of French accents.

So, this means "chair long".

So, when I was researching this, I was like "No way!"

Because in America, people will say "lounge chair".

Now, a chaise longue, as we say in English, is a chair, but it has room for your feet.

You almost saw my feet, damn!

It has room for your legs, so it's a very long chair.

Makes sense, wow.

We didn't hurt that word too much.

So, if you're in a house of three, and you're doing a little bit of a ménage a trois, you

can sit on the long chair and you can have some toilet water to make yourself smell nice.

It'll be great, it'll be great, just don't go to France and say these words.

I'm Ronnie.

If you speak French, welcome to learning English.

Good luck.

I don't even know how to say that in French, but yeah.

Just good luck, sorry.

English, I'm sorry.

I'm so embarrassed now.