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| User | Thread poster: Guylaine Ingram Differences between Fr-CANADA and FR- France |
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Guylaine Ingram 
United States
English to French
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Hello everyone,
I was wondering if anyone knows if there exists out there some guide highlighting the differences between those two “versions” of French.
Being a native French (FR) speaker, when I read a French (CA) document I can tell that it is not quite the way we would say that in France. I am guessing there is roughly a 10% difference. For example, we FR-FR tend to use “anglicismes”, like “week-end” instead of “fin de semaine”, we prefer long sentences, FR-CA tend to use shorter ones…
What else?
Merci !
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xxx00000000
English to French
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| | Ça dépend du domaine | Apr 6, 2005 |
Bonjour Guylaine --
Un texte traitant de chimie ou de biologie sera pratiquement identique, sauf pour la typographie et peut-être certains emplois de prépositions.
Pour un sondage ou un texte publicitaire, ce sera très différent.
Plus il y a de références sociales, politiques ou pop-culturelles, plus c'est différent.
Bonne fin de journée!
Esther
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Guylaine Ingram
United States
English to French
TOPIC STARTER | | Domaine de l'informatique/logiciel | Apr 6, 2005 |
Merci Esther.
Je dois relire en texte dans le domaine de l'informatique/logiciel. Il ne devrait pas trop y avoir de differences alors?
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xxx00000000
English to French
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| | Attention aux mots anglais | Apr 6, 2005 |
Rebonjour Guylaine --
Tu avais raison de mentionner les anglicismes. Les Français de France laissent beaucoup de mots anglais en informatique. Dis-toi qu'à peu d'exceptions près, un mot anglais dans un texte en français du Québec/Canada est vu comme un mot non traduit.
Il y a une terminologie très développée dans ce domaine au Québec. Tu pourras chercher tous les mots anglais dans le GDT pour avoir leur équivalent français.
Pour les différences de prépositions entre les deux variétés, c'est agaçant mais pas très grave.
Bye!
Esther
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Guylaine Ingram
United States
English to French
TOPIC STARTER | | du F-CA vers le Fr-FR | Apr 6, 2005 |
En fait, je dois relire un document ecrit en francais canadien et le modifier pour qu'il soit en francais de France. Je me demandais donc s'il existait deja des documents de reference presentant les differences entre les deux langues... mais bon je vais utiliser "mes oreilles francaises de France" et modifier lorsque ca ne sonnera pas juste !! Merci encore.
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xxx00000000
English to French
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En général, pour les textes FR-FR, on met des espaces insécables devant le point-virgule (et les deux-pints, mais en FR-CA aussi), les points d'exclamation et d'interrogation.
Autre différence : le FR-FR raffole des majuscules, qui sont strictement circonscrites en FR-CA.
Bon travail!
Esther
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sylvie malich
Germany
Local time: 13:37
German to English
| | Aw, that's so unfair! | Apr 7, 2005 |
I really wanted to read the differences, but don't understand French. Can somebody give me a condensed version of what was posted above? Or point me towards a website address?
Thanks,
sylvie
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Guylaine Ingram
United States
English to French
TOPIC STARTER | | Minor differences | Apr 8, 2005 |
Don’t take it wrong Sylvie, but if you don’t know French… well what’s the point?
In a nutshell, differences are very minor… some differences in punctuation (Fr-FR uses a space before a semicolon, Fr-CA does not), and Fr-Fr tends to use expression in English, like “week-end” which is unacceptable in Fr-CA, etc. Unfortunately no formal guideline seems to exist, only the native speaker own judgment. That's about it.
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sylvie malich
Germany
Local time: 13:37
German to English
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Guylaine Ingram wrote:
Don’t take it wrong Sylvie, but if you don’t know French… well what’s the point?
In a nutshell, differences are very minor… some differences in punctuation (Fr-FR uses a space before a semicolon, Fr-CA does not), and Fr-Fr tends to use expression in English, like “week-end” which is unacceptable in Fr-CA, etc. Unfortunately no formal guideline seems to exist, only the native speaker own judgment. That's about it. |
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Guylaine, no I won't take it personally. I ask because as a Canadian who took French from grade school through high school (though without practice none remains )C: ) and having had no contact with French Canadians until I entered the work world, I was disappointed that the school French I was taught was French French which did not bring me any closer to my French Canadian colleagues and heightened the feeling of being foreign when trying to communicate when in Quebec. I was often told by both French French speakers and Canadian French speakers that there is a *world* of difference, which made me curious. (I'm surprised that the English "week end" is accepted by the French French and not the Canadian French. Without trying to bring politics into the posting I realize the language policies of both countries, but thought it equal in its rejection of English. I also would have thought that English would have more of an influence on the Canadian French just in its proximity to it.) We were often told that the French Canadian branched off during colonial times shown by some redundant words which still remain today. Or is this a Canadian urban myth? The French French often complain about the "way" French Canadians speak. Without giving details.
A French Canadian native speaking acquaintence of mine tells this anecdote with a twinkle in her eye: She went to a restaurant with her German husband in Paris. Her husband ordered in his broken French, she ordered in her native Canadian French. The waiter answered in French to her husband but continued to stubbornly respond to her Canadian French with English!
So can the difference be more than slight?
still curious,
sylvie (who left Canada 20 years ago)
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Guylaine Ingram
United States
English to French
TOPIC STARTER | | Agree, more than slight... | Apr 8, 2005 |
Hi Sylvie,
Yes I agree with your comments. What I meant is that there are not many rules of thumb you can apply (like the EN expressions, spaces, etc.). In my case for exemple, I have started to proofread the Fr-CA text and already have rewritten several paragraphs just because they quite didn't sound right. I noticed "ci-inclus" was used several times, I prefer "ci-après" but it is just a personal preference or is it a difference between Fr-CA and Fr-FR, not sure...
Have agood day!
Guylaine
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NancyLynn
Canada
Local time: 07:37
  Member (2002)
French to English
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MODERATOR | | French Canadian is its own lingo | Apr 13, 2005 |
I'm very close to no longer accepting jobs from Europeans because even when they request French Canadian translations, they come back with questions similar to the one you pointed out, Guylaine.
Ci-après, ci-inclus, ci-joint, ci-dessous are all terms with nuances directly related to the content of the document, IMHO.
Sylvie, the language we speak here was indeed transported in colonial times and being geographically isolated, it has evolved differently. The anglicisms referred to are banned (by law!) in an effort to stop the erosion of the French Canadian language. Please, I have no desire to begin a discussion on the language laws in Québec. I am merely clarifying Sylvie's point.
As stated before, the differences involve vocabulary and word combinations as well as punctuation (and of course pronunciation and different meanings for the same word). For another punctuation example, accented letters remained accented in their capitalised form in Canada, but not in France. This is quite a bone of contention, as you can see by other forum threads on the subject!
It's a fascinating subject to me, so I can but accept Sylvie's interest in the subject with joy.
Nancy
[Edited at 2005-04-13 14:11]
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Bruno Magne
Brazil
Local time: 10:37
English to French
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| | le FR-FR raffole des majuscules !!??!! | Apr 17, 2005 |
Hi, Esther
From what I know, only proper names (I mean "nouns") and acronyms use "majuscules".
Cheers
Bruno Magne
[Edited at 2005-04-18 01:23]
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Guylaine Ingram
United States
English to French
TOPIC STARTER |
Indeed : only proper names, acronyms and the first word of a sentence off course use "majuscules" and we do accentuate them.
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sylvie malich
Germany
Local time: 13:37
German to English
| | Thank you, Nancy Lynn... | Apr 18, 2005 |
Sylvie, the language we speak here was indeed transported in colonial times and being geographically isolated, it has evolved differently. The anglicisms referred to are banned (by law!) in an effort to stop the erosion of the French Canadian language. Please, I have no desire to begin a discussion on the language laws in Québec. I am merely clarifying Sylvie's point.
As stated before, the differences involve vocabulary and word combinations as well as punctuation (and of course pronunciation and different meanings for the same word). For another punctuation example, accented letters remained accented in their capitalised form in Canada, but not in France. This is quite a bone of contention, as you can see by other forum threads on the subject!
It's a fascinating subject to me, so I can but accept Sylvie's interest in the subject with joy.
Nancy
[\quote]
... for answering some basic questions and the friendly support for my curiosity, I was beginning to think I was the only one on this site.
sylvie
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Jeff Allen
France
Local time: 13:37
Member (2011)
English to Haitian-Creole
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The translation workplace 
