La langue anglaise

 

 

 

 

L'anglais est une langue que je connais relativement bien puisque je l'ai étudiée pfiou-là-là je ne vous dirai même pas combien d'années, et je la connais surtout "scolairement". Heureusement que les films, les livres en V.O. sont là !

Alors sinon on dit bien souvent que notre langue française est envahie par les anglicismes, mais bon, histoire de pô râler trop, ifô se souvenir qu'auparavant, c'était bien les termes français qui inondaient la langue anglaise. Souvent il y a deux noms pour dire à peu près la même chose en anglais : un nom d'origine anglo-saxonne, le mot courant, et un nom d'origine française, le mot un peu plus soutenu. Voili voilu !

 

 

Voici quelques petits 'tongue twisters' :

 

How many yaks could a yak pack pack if a yak pack could pack yaks?

 

How much wood would a woodpeck peck if a woodpeck would peck wood ?

 

She sells sea shells on the sea shore, but the sea shells that she sells on the sea shore are not the real ones.


What noise annoys an oyster most? A noisy noise annoys an oyster most.

Betty bought some butter but the butter was bitter so she bought some more butter to make the bitter butter better.

If two witches were watching two watches, which witch would watch which watch?

 

Voici maintenant deux textes rigolos. Un premier "HINTS ON PRONUNCIATION FOR FOREIGNERS" qui joue avec les prononciations en anglais ; l'autre (je ne lui connais pas de titre) qui fait remarquer le côté tout à fait illogique de certains pluriels anglais !

 

I take it you already know

Of tough and bough and cough and dough ?

Others may stumble, but not you,

On hiccough, thorough, laugh and through ?

Well done ! And now you wish, perhaps,

To learn of less familiar traps ?

 

 

Because of heard, a dreadful word

That looks like beard and sounds like bird

And dead : it's said like bed, not bead -

For goodness' sake don't call it "deed" !

Watch out for meat and great and threat

(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt)

 

 

A moth is not a moth in mother

Nor both in bother, broth in brother.

And here is not a match for there

Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,

And then there is dose and rose and lose.-

Just look them up - and goose and choose,

 

 

And cork and work and card and ward

And font and front and word and sword,

And do and go and thwart and cart.-

Come, come, I've hardly made a start !

A dreadful language ? Man alive !

I'd mastered it when I was five.!

We'll begin with box, and the plural is boxes;
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes

 
Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese

 
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice

 
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?

 
The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But the plural of vow is vows, not vine

 
I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
If I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?

 
If one is a tooth, and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

 
If the singular is this and the plural is these,
Why shouldn't the plural of kiss be named kese?

 
Then one may be that, and three may be those,
Yet the plural of hat would never be hose;

 
We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren

 
The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim!

 
So our English, I think, you all will agree,
Is the craziest language you ever did see.

 

 

Et ici, un petit lien pour entendre comment on prononce les mots en anglais ; très pratique, notamment pour être sûr de lire correctement le texte du dessus !!

 

http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~harel/news/word.htm

 

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