{"id":22551,"date":"2015-10-15T23:21:58","date_gmt":"2015-10-15T21:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=22551"},"modified":"2017-10-24T12:06:17","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T10:06:17","slug":"french-hard-hakuna-matata-learn-french-through-disney-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/french-hard-hakuna-matata-learn-french-through-disney-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"French Hard? Hakuna Matata! Learn French Through Disney Songs!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever been speaking a foreign language and you suddenly forget a simple word? It\u2019s happened more times than I\u2019d like to admit, but that\u2019s part of foreign language experience. (Who am I kidding? Happens to me in English sometimes, too :-p ). Maybe I should start taking ginkgo biloba? Anyway, I\u2019ll be speaking completely fine, and suddenly j\u2019ai un trou <\/b>(I have a hole[=I draw a blank]). Instead of standing there thinking forever, I\u2019ll end up describing it just to get the point across. That\u2019s the point of communication. I may forget the word for sidewalk (le trottoir<\/b>) in the middle of a sentence, but certain words will never, ever escape me.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of those words is un phacoch\u00e8re<\/b>. Don\u2019t know it? Not a problem. It\u2019s not really a term people use in daily conversation. In fact, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve used the word in English in ages! It means warthog. Why would such a random word that may seemingly fit better as part of my \u2018passive vocabulary\u2019 be so ingrained in my memory? Well, we can thank Disney for that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Allow me to explain. When I started learning French, YouTube was still in its bootstrap stages, so finding multilingual versions of your favorite Disney songs wasn\u2019t easy. I was able to get a hold of some movie soundtracks in French and found les paroles <\/b>(the lyrics) online. I already knew the words in English, so why not learn them in French?<\/span><\/p>\n

Studying language through something you enjoy makes learning more entertaining and much easier to retain. By studying some of those Disney songs, I learned an awful lot of vocabulary, expressions, and constructions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gr\u00e2ce \u00e0<\/b> (thanks to) Ariel<\/a>, I learned the word les claquettes <\/b>(tap dance shoes). I learned that a necklace is accroch\u00e9 \u00e0<\/em> u<\/strong><\/span>n cou <\/b>(hung around the neck). I learned what barboter <\/b>means (to splash around). Je m\u2019en fiche <\/b>(I don\u2019t care) was a new expression for me!<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s through Shang<\/a> in Mulan that I learned une fillette <\/b>was its own word to describe a little girl – I wouldn\u2019t have to always say une petite fille. <\/b>Thanks to the soldiers, I learned s\u00e9cher les cours<\/b> means to skip classes. I also learned through Shang that when you have a plural adjective before a plural noun, the des<\/b> article can be shortened to de<\/b> [je saurai faire <\/b><\/span>de<\/b><\/span> vrais hommes de vous !<\/b> I will know how to make real men out of you].<\/span><\/p>\n

Even good ol\u2019 Phil Collins<\/a> taught me a construction. For the film Tarzan, Phil recorded his song \u201cStrangers Like Me\u201d en anglais, en espagnol, en italien, en allemand et en fran\u00e7ais <\/b>(in English, Spanish, Italian, German, and French). It\u2019s thanks to him that I know the construction for a command with a direct and an indirect object. Je veux savoir ! Montre-les-moi ! <\/b>(I want to know! Show them to me!). Merci, Phil \ud83d\ude09<\/span><\/p>\n

With The Lion King<\/b> I learned the most vocabulary, and it\u2019s because of the French version of Hakuna Matata that I know the word for warthog. <\/span><\/p>\n

*****<\/span><\/p>\n

Today I hesitated between 2 songs to share, but I decided on Je voudrais d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00eatre roi <\/b>(I already want to be king). You may have noticed that the translators didn\u2019t do an exact translation of the English title, I Just Can\u2019t Wait to Be King. There are a few reasons for this. Word-for-word translation can be disastrous. Not all languages work the same. The translators work hard to find equivalents of what\u2019s being said, and when it\u2019s in a song or being dubbed in a movie or show instead of just translating a text, there is a limited amount of time that line can be delivered. In a show, if the actor speaks for 5 seconds, the translation needs to take up roughly the same amount of time. Songs are even harder – many of them rhyme, and you have to follow the same beats. Phew. Congratulations to the translators!<\/span><\/p>\n

I enjoy reading the translations and comparing them to the original. How successful is the translation? What needed to be changed and why? How would I translate it differently?<\/span><\/p>\n

Below I\u2019ve included the lyrics to Je voudrais d\u00e9j\u00e0 \u00eatre roi <\/b>and the translation of what\u2019s being said. Compare it to the original English version. What is different?<\/span><\/p>\n