How Much French Do You Already Speak?

The Norman conquest had an enormous impact on the English language. French became the language of the ruling class while English withered away to almost near extinction. We retain that sense of classism in the history of our words. “Fancy” things use French words, “mundane” things use English words.

Think of food: in English, the animal is one word, but when it’s cooked and served, it becomes another. A pig, cooked, becomes pork (French: porc). A sheep becomes mutton (mouton). A cow becomes beef (boeuf). To this day, we still think of French as the ooh la la so frickin’ fancy language, with a twinge of weird resentment.

As a result of English cobbling together words from the languages of its ruling classes and conquerers, we actually speak a lot more French than we realize, especially in the trades.

While this list is hardly complete, here’s a good starting point to see how much French you already have in your daily vocab on a jobsite. These aren’t words just with French roots—these are words that are actually still used in French as well (with very minor spelling differences). Pardon my French on the jobsite.