Mitt Romney Speaks French!

Vive les sous-vêtements magiques!

As a follow up, interesting that the two Mormons each speak a second language (Huntsman is fluent in Mandarin Chinese). A second language is not a liability for Mormons, a great many of whom (including my two half-brothers) have done their two year mission work in foreign countries.

As regards the “freedom fries”, I have always been rather puzzled about the little thing about which the right-wingers seem to be completely oblivious: that the Revolutionary War probably would have been lost by the Americans if France had not intervened from 1778 on, offering logistical and naval help.

So much for the fries, but, well, historical knowledge always tends to block the way of patriotism. At least we Germans have learned this lesson, and where booed by the general US public accordingly, when our gouvernment said “no” to the war.

Nele

The fact that speaking another language is actually a bad thing for a sizable portion of my countrymen just makes me shake my head

Well, if that can reassure you: this is the current level of the “debate” in Europe:

-The Euro crisis is destroying our economy!

-We’re suffering from the lack of a strong European central government.

-But we can’t have a strong central government! We don’t speak the same language!

-What about English?

-But If we start speaking English, it would be a sign of submition toward the USA! Europe is dooooooomed!

@robertfaber: Actually, Huntsman’s Chinese is worse than Mittens’ French. The way he speaks Chinese would get his a lot of covered snickers in China. He probably never had to actually use the language as ambassador…

The dumbest one I heard was about a high school basketball player named Bobby French, who had himself introduced before a game as Bobby Freedom. Nothing says loyalty like ditching your family name.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go cook up some “liberty cabbage” and go look for some dachsunds to boo.

(That’s a WWI reference, for you non-history majors.)

Killed By Fish

jjgdenisrobert:

Actually, Huntsman’s Chinese is worse than Mittens’ French. The way he speaks Chinese would get his a lot of covered snickers in China. He probably never had to actually use the language as ambassador…

Not that it matters, but worse or better than Obama’s Bahasa? I ask only because Obama’s second language experience (and his years in Indonesia more broadly) were played up significantly during the campaign (and even the early part of his tenure), and while I do think that significant experience outside the US is a desirable (but not requisite) attribute in a candidate, I can’t help but feel like there’s a double standard at play here.

I Really Want You To Do My Vice-America President.

Re Area Man @ #16

The commentors on the Slate article seem to think that its author is full of shit.

I’m learning Arabic right now. Can you imagine what the right would think of that.

You mean, “what the right would REACT of that.”

but rather how they are cut.

or how they are fried, depending on who’s history you accept.

Sigh.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même.

Sigh.

A few points:

1. Yes, what Huntsman speaks is “mandarin” (there’s really no such thing as “mandarin”, though; The technical name is putonghua).

2. Obama never made a point of the fact that he spoke or didn’t speak Bahasa. He didn’t need to.

3. I’m a native French speaker, and I’ve never heard the expression “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”. I’ve always heard (and used): “Plus ça change, plus c’est pareil”.

4. And yes, Mittens’ French pronunciation is pretty horrendous. But he’s no worse than most Anglos in Montreal (where I was born and raised).

@25

I went to school in France until quatrième. The expression is frequently abbreviated, especially orally. At any rate, it isn’t incorrect to drop ‘chose’.

These things never go away…following up on feralboy’s comment at 12, American Jews whose names end in -stein (pr. “-shtine”) are still pronouncing it “-steen”, so it’ll sound less “German”! Hey folks: It’s all over, we Canned the Kaiser! You can stop now!

I’m a native French speaker, and I’ve never heard the expression “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”. I’ve always heard (and used): “Plus ça change, plus c’est pareil”.

I’m not a native French speaker, but my Cajun grandmother was. I’m pretty sure she said it with pareil, but I thought it was simply a Cajun corruption of something else. Anyone who’s ever heard Cajuns bend French to the breaking point know what I’m talking about.

Everyone else I’ve ever seen use the phrase said même or même chose, but it looks like she was actually using proper French.

For once.

Well, it’s understandable really, speaking French, as we all know, is just one step away from eating snails

The Christian Cynic says:

Not that it matters, but worse or better than Obama’s Bahasa?

Just to be pedantic, and for your information: the name of the language is either Bahasa Indonesia (in Indonesian) or Indonesian (in English). Never “Bahasa” without qualifier, the word really just means “language”.

Bahasa Inggris is English.

Meanwhile, up here in Canada, it’s controversial if the candidate for anything Federal isn’t bilingual, specifically fluency in French and English.

It’s at the point where “bilingual” is used as shorthand for fluency in both of those two specific languages. Spanish doesn’t count, nor Mandarin, nor German, nor Japanese, etc. etc.

Christian Cynic said –

I meant that people who may have been likely to see Obama’s knowledge of Bahasa as an asset may be the same ones finding Romney’s and Huntsman’s relative disfluencies in French and Chinese (respectively) as shameful or worthy of disparagement. It has nothing to do with the “constituencies” of either.

This double standard is probably very rare, if it even exists at all.

There are people who see knowledge of languages as a plus. I am one of them, even though the current state of my abilities is speaking bad French and having a limited knowledge of Spanish.

Then there are anti-intellectual right wing bigots who resent knowledge of languages. In this article, it is conjectured by commentators that such people would resent Romney’s ability to speak French. No actual French-hating right wing bigots are quoted for the article, but I suspect that the conjecture about them is correct.

I cannot imagine anyone thinking that it is positive for President Obama to speak Indonesian, yet simultaneously disparaging Romney for speaking French (I disparage him for many other reasons, but certainly not for speaking French).

It is probably very rare for people to disparage Romney specifically for being able to speak some French, while simultaneously praising Obama for speaking Indonesian.

Mitt Romney parler Francaise? My respect for him has multiplied considerably from zero to about a millionth or billionth of a point. I haven’t been to France but have known French from a few different walks of life in India as well as here in the US. There is a remarkably greater tolerance for Anglais/Allgemaine/Italienne/Hindi accented French among native speakers of the language than one would normally imagine. The French ethos of our time encourages assimilation, you speak a little of the language, bring your own patois, sing the Marsellaise, jive to Johnny Halliday (Jerry Lewis and Eddie Murphy for good measure) and you’re family! Last summer in Quebec (the city as well as the province and of course Montreal where I left my liver and heart) was an eye opener. My French proficient friend had to keep us mono-linguals at the back of the line so that we with our mangled, “Monsieur, la carte svp,” wouldn’t prompt an obliging wait staff to hold forth in English. Because our friend was finding it difficult to practice her French!