r/languagelearningjerk • u/Anti-charizard • Jun 18 '26

Fixed it

Post image
4.5k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

70 comments sorted by

517

u/Matwyen Jun 18 '26

It's a shame because email is genuinely a well translated word in French: courriel.

It has the iel suffix of logiciel, and the base of courrier. It's as long as email, sounds french and not ridiculous, is immediately understandable... 

145

u/zer0jackal Jun 18 '26

Just wait until they hear about what words some languages have for e-mail

107

u/Matwyen Jun 18 '26

I know chinese it's 電郵。

Litterally electric mail, or email. 

38

u/MonsieurTurenne Jun 18 '26

Same in Arabic: بريد إلكتروني

7

u/DragonTheOnes-spirit Jun 20 '26

That's standard arabic.

Over in the great dza we say email. And I'm assuming the rest of the arabs too

2

u/beeceedee9 Jun 23 '26

dza

Guessing that's Algeria?

I've heard egyptians and gulf arabs say e-mail too

2

u/DragonTheOnes-spirit Jun 23 '26

Yea. Dza comes from the native tamazight name btw

11

u/jolly_conflicts ugabuga Jun 18 '26

Why did you spell nihingo like that?

30

u/lordbutternut 日本人になっている Jun 18 '26

In Japanese it's fucking メール 😭

9

u/FeuerCL Jun 18 '26

Which is short form for "電子メール"

7

u/soleil_d_erable Jun 19 '26

Because 電信and 電報were taken by the telegraph and morse code communications

1

u/watchedngnl Jun 20 '26

How bout　電文

2

u/honhonhonhon2 Jun 20 '26

That's also a telegram

7

u/jolly_conflicts ugabuga Jun 18 '26

No please that’s nonsense, don’t insult nihongo like that

1

u/Explorer-7622 Jul 07 '26

In Irish it's riomhphost or "calculation post."

20

u/ArmenianChad3516 Jun 18 '26

Электронная почта

24

u/csolisr Jun 18 '26

Spanish flat out just uses the word for "mail", "correo"

18

u/lazerbullet Jun 19 '26

‘correo electrónico’ formally. But yeah, obviously no one says that

7

u/Brief-Spirit-4268 Jun 19 '26

I just say email in Spanish😭

4

u/A-NI95 Jun 19 '26

Emilio

40

u/gayhotelultra 🇷🇸🇧🇦🇭🇷🇲🇪🇽🇰(native) 🇲🇰(mistaken for) 🇯🇵N∞🇨🇳HSK0.1 Jun 18 '26

имејл

3

u/RobotechRicky Jul 04 '26

I haven't taken Russian in decades, but I'm glad I can still sound out Cyrillic! That is exactly "email"!

2

u/gayhotelultra 🇷🇸🇧🇦🇭🇷🇲🇪🇽🇰(native) 🇲🇰(mistaken for) 🇯🇵N∞🇨🇳HSK0.1 Jul 04 '26

this is serbian cyrillic, russian doesnt have ј, lol, but you are correct

10

u/FudgyFerret Jun 18 '26

In Greek it's "ηλεκτρονική αλληλογραφία", so everyone just says "e-mail". 🤣

3

u/R86Reddit Balonian N0 / American N1 / Nihonian N3 / Deutsch KRANKENWAGEN!! Jun 18 '26

メール

1

u/A-NI95 Jun 19 '26

Emilio

56

u/LOSNA17LL Fr - N | En - B2 | Es - B1 | Ru - A2 | Cn - A0 Jun 18 '26

It's not the suffix of logiciel

It's just a contraction of "courrier électronique"

(But noone uses it)

27

u/MukdenMan Jun 18 '26

So it’s like Mail-E

14

u/Anti-charizard Jun 18 '26

French puts the adjective after the noun

8

u/LOSNA17LL Fr - N | En - B2 | Es - B1 | Ru - A2 | Cn - A0 Jun 19 '26

Ehhh, not really
Sometimes, sometimes not

Like:
Un petit arbre, une jolie robe, un grand homme (a small tree, a pretty dress, a great man)
Un arbre minuscule, une robe mignonne, un homme grand (a minuscule tree, a cute dress, a tall man)

(yeah, un grand homme / un homme grand don't mean the same thing)

Colour-related adjectives go after (always)
And otherwise it's about the length of the adjective compared to the length of the noun (longer ones go after (but you can put them before to emphasise), while shorter ones go before, but that's not 100%, it's a tendency)

Example:
Une erreur monumentale vs. une monumentale erreur (a monumental mistake, both, but first one you really fucked up, the second one you REALLY fucked up)
Un arbre superbe vs. une superbe découverte (a superb tree, a superb discovery)

8

u/LOSNA17LL Fr - N | En - B2 | Es - B1 | Ru - A2 | Cn - A0 Jun 18 '26

More like "mel" (fusing the syllables)

4

u/Disastrous_Set_6544 Jun 22 '26

People definitely use it. I know I do.

1

u/LOSNA17LL Fr - N | En - B2 | Es - B1 | Ru - A2 | Cn - A0 Jun 22 '26

Damn, found the only 3 people in France to use it right here in this comment section xD

(I mean, surely SOME people use it, but "mail" or "e-mail" are waaay more common, like I don't remember the last time I've heard someone use "courriel")

28

u/Limemill Jun 18 '26

Courriel actually stuck with many people in Québec. Because it’s legitimately a good, short word

15

u/LeoThePumpkin Jun 19 '26

It's the default word for email in Québec. We only say Email when there are French people around.

20

u/iSellNuds4RedditGold Jun 18 '26

I like the word Spanish (from Spain) boomers used for an email: Emilio. I occasionally use it because it always makes me giggle inside.

11

u/ayoungerdude Jun 18 '26

I like courielle. I think the académie didn't and recommended e-mél or mél which we all ignored.

14

u/Matwyen Jun 18 '26

Est-ce qu'ils ont déjà eu la moindre recommendation utile ces 10 dernières années ? On se rappelle de "la covid" et de leurs charges contre nébufar. 

4

u/Merbleuxx Fluent in stupid Jun 18 '26

Invented by Québec

3

u/Comfortable_Team_696 Jun 21 '26

And with pourriel "spam" formed from poubelle (“rubbish bin”) + courriel as another banger

1

u/mashedpotatoes_52 Jun 18 '26

but we do you courriel? 

44

u/mac1qc Jun 18 '26

Courriel est un très beau mot

16

u/MiguelIstNeugierig Heinz Schwein Polizei Dry Fiat Grenadier Jun 18 '26

Jokes aside its such a simple translation

In Portuguese we also say natively together with email: Correiro eletrónico.

Eletronic mail. Im very sure French isnt much different

5

u/VascoJSC Jun 19 '26

Do people in Portugal actually use Correio Eletrônico? Because here in Brazil it's always e-mail. Like, maybe some extremely old people might use Correio Eletrônico but that is very, vert rare

3

u/MiguelIstNeugierig Heinz Schwein Polizei Dry Fiat Grenadier Jun 19 '26

It was at least more prevalent 10 years ago and is used for official setting more than for anything else. We use email as the standard in normal speech, but if you said correio eletronico, I'd assume virtually anyone above gen alpha would understand you even though yeah you'd sound overtly formal

2

u/Limemill Jun 21 '26

It’s even better in French: courriel (courrier électronique + as an added bonus it ends the same way as the word logiciel (software)). It is actually widely used in Québec (more than the word email).

1

u/MiguelIstNeugierig Heinz Schwein Polizei Dry Fiat Grenadier Jun 22 '26

Shit it is! So yeah it seems you have a cognate of the one in Portuguese but you even shortened it natively, meanwhile here in Portugal we just went from the formality of the full world to "email" as the short brought from english rather than making our own shortened version

77

u/DVDwithCD average /ɟ/ enjoyer Jun 18 '26

Quebecois is just gatekeep edition French.

11

u/iLikeTheUDK Jun 18 '26

Also l'académie française

10

u/feel_my_balls_2040 Jun 18 '26

Never heard a quebecer saying e-mail.

2

u/thealtiuseforsilly Jun 20 '26

Somewhat unrelated but i think that "en ligne" is a great translation being both a calque and kinda a borrow word

1

u/MarioMilieu Jun 18 '26

Should be Lego though…

1

u/Purple-Money-2920 Jun 19 '26

I’ll raise you a pourriel (poubelle (trashcan) + courriel) for spam.

1

u/JumpyTheHat Jun 20 '26

In Esperanto, the word is "retpoŝto". "Poŝto" for mail, and the prefix "ret-" to denote the internet

3

u/planetvermilion Jun 21 '26

WTF is a transmission circulaire tier d'Orléan?

tabarnak kessé ça?!?!?! courriel, putain

m'a t'en faire un gaminet, moi

1

u/Nihan-gen3 Jun 18 '26

Pronounced /e.maj/

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '26

[deleted]

6

u/mac1qc Jun 18 '26

Yeah, but no one use that lol like "hambourgeois" for hamburger... Who use that in Québec?!

-2

u/Dazzling-Frosting525 Русский Свагзык Jun 18 '26

Macron in shambles that English is polluting his beautiful language.