"It's complicated in French", yeah no shit.

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[–]haveanicedaytoo 14 insightful - 2 fun14 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Imagine being in high school French class, you can barely get the spelling and pronunciation right, and some asshole decides to derail the whole thing by trying to force imaginary genders into the language.

[–]Jesus-Christ 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is something I've considered before.. now that there are all these bullshit terms, it'll make it even harder to learn a new language now. As if it isn't hard enough as it is. Can you imagine a "woke" person's reaction when a none-native speaker misgenders them in their language? lol, hopefully this cancer doesn't spread outside of America, UK and a few other European countries.

[–]ArthnoldManacatsaman 7 insightful - 3 fun7 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 3 fun -  (8 children)

What, exactly, would French non-binary agreement look like?

Ils sont allés au cinéma hier soir.

Elles sont allées au cinéma hier soir.

Ilx sont alléx au cinéma hier soir??

It's fucking ridiculous.

Edit: This really bothers me on a quite fundamental level so I'm going to keep going.

This is part of a French class. It's bad enough having to remember Ze / Zem without the extra level of agreement that French demands. Depending on how many people are in the class, is this poor teacher going to remember to use masculine agreement for Tom and Harry, feminine agreement for Beth and Claire, and gender-neutral agreement for Ocean and Starchild?

This adds a whole new dimension to the French language. The kind that, sure, some genrechic French teacher might be happy to advocate in their classrooms, but if any of these kids go to France and start spouting their nonsensical 'gender-neutral agreement' to an actual French person, their reaction will be basically be quoi the fuck?

How can someone teach this bullshit? Your role, as a language teacher, is not to just invent woke bullshit and shoehorn it in wherever you feel like it. The Académie Française are usually a bunch of stuffed shirts whom nobody cares about but I'd be interested to hear their opinions on this kind of bullshit. If they're against neologisms like le shampooing I have a strong suspicion they will be against Ze sont alléx au cinéma.

[–]Silverdarling 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Yeah, as a native English speaker getting the right form of tu/vous is social minefield enough. I can't imagine the French being down with this Anglophone wokist assault on their whole language and culture - they don't have much respect for trash American values at the best of times. Nobody in France is going to listen to foreigners abuse their language like this. I mean, it IS bad enough for hipster Americans and Brits to butcher English, but I cannot even imagine having the sheer bloody gall to stand up and tell another country that they've all been speaking their structurally-gendered native language 'wrong' for all these centuries.

[–][deleted]  (2 children)

[deleted]

    [–]Silverdarling 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    This is certainly a helpful flowchart! I'm actually a mathematician by trade, but doing this kind of social calculus breaks me out in a cold sweat. I will study these rules and try to be more French. I guess if you get it wrong you just give your victim a cold-eyed stare and a dismissive Gallic shrug?

    [–]LasagnaRossa 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

    What, exactly, would French non-binary agreement look like?

    I guess as Italian: the non-binary person tells if they prefer to be addressed in feminine or masculine pronouns/adjectives.

    [–]ArthnoldManacatsaman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

    But that's not non-binary agreement, is it? It's masculine / feminine agreement. The survey in the post specifically contains an option for non-binary agreement, which is, presumably, a third agreement paradigm that is neither masculine nor feminine.

    Does Italian have such a thing? Is there a gender-neutral pronoun equivalent to 'they'?

    [–]LasagnaRossa 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

    You're right, but it is an agreement within a gendered language, and it kinda works for these people. It's literally impossible for us to neutralize pronouns, verbs and adjectives. A simple question like "where did you go last summer?" becomes "dove sei andato(m)/andata(f) la scorsa estate?"

    Is there a gender-neutral pronoun equivalent to 'they'?

    If you mean the third person singular, then no. It's either he or she. If you mean the third person plural, then yes.

    But that's not the problem, the true issue is when you're talking to the person: it's impossible to avoid gendering the language and you must choose the masculine or feminine form. Hence the agreement.

    That's why, from our perspective, it's laughable when your people get upset because to another person you addressed them with the wrong pronoun. Why the hell do they care?! They weren't even there!

    By the way, fun fact: when we talk in general or address to a group of people of both sexes the rule is to conjugate everything in masculine form. This cause some odd situations, such as asking "dove siete andati(m)" to a group of friends where 9 are female and 1 is male.

    [–]ArthnoldManacatsaman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

    It's literally impossible for us to neutralize pronouns

    Exactly, French is the same. The language doesn't have the mechanisms necessary to be 'non-binary', which makes what this teacher is attempting to do equally ridiculous.

    That's why, from our perspective, it's laughable when your people get upset because to another person you addressed them with the wrong pronoun.

    Oh don't worry, most normal people find it quite laughable in this language too!

    [–]jet199 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

    TRA - the gender binary was invented by the evil West and is oppressive colonialism.

    Also TRA - our ideas don't work in any other language than English.