Ep 65 - Navigating “Tutoiement” with Ian Winick

If you start to get along fairly well with a new French acquaintance, you might field the question... On peut se tutoyer ? "Can we say tu?" This phrase allows you to change registers from the formal to the informal at the drop of a hat – something that English doesn't allow quite so easily, as translator Ian Winick is here to discuss.

https://www.ianwinick.com/en/how-do-you-du/ https://www.reddit.com/r/learnfrench/comments/gv1vqt/a_handy_chart_for_those_confused_by_the_usage_of/


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Credits
Host: Emily Monaco. @Emily_in_France; Website: http://www.tomatokumato.com and http://www.emilymmonaco.com
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Music Credits
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About Us
rom one Emily in Paris to another... just speaking French isn't enough to understand the intricacies of the locals, but it's definitely a good place to start. Famously defended by armed "immortals" of the Académie Française (no, we're not making this up) the French language is filled with clues that show interested outsiders what, exactly, makes the French tick.

Each episode, listen in as Emily Monaco and an expert take a deep dive into a word that helps us gain a keener understanding of the French.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You are listening to Navigating the Frenchon Paris Underground Radio. For more great
content and a bonus episode of Navigatingthe French, please join us on Patreon.
Hello and welcome to Navigating the French, the podcast where each episode we
take a look at a French wordand try and see what it tells us

(00:21):
about French culture. I'm your hostEmily Monaco. Today I'm joined by translator
Ian Winnick, who's here to discussthe way in which the French can so
quickly and easily change from a formalto an informal register thanks to a concept
known as chrutois monts. I amso excited to welcome Ian Winnick to the

(00:46):
podcast. Ian, thank you somuch for joining me today. Thank you,
Emily, thanks having me absolutely Andbefore we start talking about this discrepancy
between yous, which is a topicthat people have been requesting for a very
long time on this podcast, soI'm so excited to finally get into it,
could you and you, I sayin English, with only one choice,

(01:07):
tell us a little bit about whoyou are, what you do,
and what sort of led you tostart thinking about the various forms of you.
Right, I'm originally from Dublin.I've been living in Germany for twenty
five years, and I've been afreelance translator and copywriter for the last twenty
years. I translated from German andFrench to English. Awesome. Yeah,

(01:32):
French was always my first love linguisticallyspeaking, and because I've been living in
Germany for the past twenty five yearsand I sort of lost touch with it
a bit. When I first arrivedhere, I had lots of French friends
and I sought out French speakers,but they gradually moved away or moved away
from me, I don't know,so I sort of lost touch. And
then a couple of years later,I was playing tennis with a French friend

(01:55):
and we started chatting in French,and then all of a sudden, all
sorts of words like, for example, fan, this Lang word for brother,
but they all sort of bubbling upfrom the surface, words I hadn't
used in fifteen years or so,and I kind of thought, Okay,
it's all still there. It justneeds to be coaxed out, it just
needs it just needs practice. Youknow. All the grammatical basis was there
because they used to teach French,so that was all there and solid,

(02:17):
but it was just a matter ofpracticing and a matter of yeah, bringing
everything to the surface again. Soit's more a voiage of rediscovery rather than
actually discovering. Okay, amazing,And I love that you used to teach
French too, because I think thisdifference between chu and who is something that

(02:37):
just feels so insurmountable. As anative Anglophone learning French, it's so hard
to figure out when to use which, and you having the German background as
well. I mean, I don'tknow if there are tons of differences between
the way that Germans use formal andinformal you and French. But before we
even get into that, I'm gettingahead of myself part of the course.

(03:00):
So in French, for those whoaren't familiar, for those who didn't know,
we have two different forms of thepronoun you. So we have chu,
which is the informal you, andthen we have vu, which is
both the formal and the plural you. And to use the word too in
French is a practice we call chuto, which is a noun that means to

(03:24):
say too, and we use theword vu. We use the word vu,
so to use the word vu.But learning these differences is one of
the most difficult things to traverse.I've seen flow charts. I'll stick one
in the show notes that basically showsthat, you know, if you if
you're a child, who's a prince, we use VU if you're the I

(03:45):
mean, do you have a sortof understanding of what the rule or what
the rules are for when you usetruth when you use VU in this day
and age. Yes, In mostcases it's it's quite simple, and in
fact, for at school, themain thing is getting their head around the
fact that there are two words foryou, you know, okay. For
Germans and other languages where you havetwo words for you, it's not a

(04:08):
problem. But for US anglophones it'syou have to get your head around that.
And once you get your head aroundthat, if you're if you're at
school and you're twelve or thirteen,it's not all that difficult really, because
you would use the informal to yourfriends and to your family and pretty much
everyone else is woo, you know, so it's not really all that difficult.
In practice, it's more difficult forthe teachers, for example, because

(04:30):
it's a bit of a gray area. If you're talking to a sixteen year
old. And if you use TOor if you use the formal WU,
it really depends on your teaching style, you know, because it is a
gray area, and I think thereare schools that have hard and fast rules,
you know, as of a certainage or as of a certain class,
you have to use the formal you. But for the kids themselves,
really it's not much of a It'smore of a mental roadblock that you have

(04:56):
to get past first. I wouldsay, okay, So the way that
I originally found you was actually througha blog post that you shared on your
website where you talked a little bitabout a translation conundrum that you had faced,
where you had seen someone translating thisswitch, this code switch from Vu
to chu as the use of someone'sfirst name, because that was kind of

(05:19):
the closest equivalent that we had inEnglish, and I was just wondering,
you know, when we're thinking aboutpropriety and we're thinking about familiarity, do
you get the sense that that issort of the equivalent in English that like
going from you know, missus soand so to ethel is the same as

(05:41):
calling someone by chew. Basically,are those cultural equivalents? Yes, to
a certain extent, but for example, in the business context in the in
the UK or in the US,where first names are standard, a French
person could be forgiven for thinking thatthere's no hierarchy there because everyone is on
first name terms or not. Sothere are more subtle ways of phrasing that,

(06:03):
or there are more subtle ways ofconveying that. And in the same
way, it's harder for learners ofEnglish to actually convey the respect that you
have to show to people that youdon't know, because in French, for
example, or you would just usethe vu form and that would do most
of the heavy lifting, as inyou would just phrase it in the vu
form and it's automatically polite and you'reshowing the required amount of respect. Whereas

(06:26):
if you're in a cafe, forexample, in England and you want someone
to pass the salt, some strangerto pass the salt, you would say
something like, excuse me, wouldyou mind passing me the salt, So
you would phrase that differently, whereasif you were at home with your brother,
you might say you pass me thesalt, or pass me the salt
or something like that. Okay,So like you know, it's almost as
though the respect that you need iskind of baked in when you have two

(06:48):
different forms of you, whereas inEnglish you're going to have to find a
new way to convey that yes,exactly, okay. Cool. So one
thing that I find interesting as wellwell as I think that one sort of
innate understanding that Native English speakers werelearning French, I think erroneously into it
is that French is over formal becauseit has this extra you, and we

(07:13):
always seem to into it, orat least I did that VU is more
formal than what we have in English. But actually English, you know,
when we think about Shakespeare and English, we used to have our own chu.
We used to have thou, andwe don't have that anymore. So
we're using a formal you with everyone. Now. Obviously that's something that even

(07:35):
as a native English speaker, Ididn't into it. So, I mean,
do you get the sense that nativeEnglish speakers are more formal all the
time than French speakers are or lessformal, or do we have are we
sort of somewhere in the middle becausewe don't have multiple two. It's like
what I said about the example withthe salt, because you don't have the

(07:58):
distinction between the two. Fom ofyou, you'd be more aware of how
you're phrasing something something gods, Sothere'll be lots of different ways of saying
can you pass me the soult,whereas in French there might just be a
couple, because the vou conveys therespect that you need to have towards people
you don't know in order to beblack basically, and because we don't have
that line, and specifically because wedon't have this question which I remember having

(08:20):
to ask. I mean when Ifirst moved to France, when I was
fourteen years old and living with afamily, I used vu with the parents,
and I remembered in my textbooks therewas this question of and I feel
like that happens now in my professionallife a lot. You know, when
I meet people I'm going to beworking with. I'm a freelancer, so

(08:41):
I'm meeting a lot of new temporarycolleagues frequently, and every once in a
while, you know, you'll startsaying vou to somebody and then you say,
oye, can we say two toone another? And it breaks that
boundary and suddenly you don't have tospeak in that formal context. Whereas in
English because we don't have that linein the same And do you think that

(09:01):
we're more formal with one another forlonger or do you think that we're less
formal with one another from the outset? I mean, how do you intoit
the difference between how formal one beginsa relationship in France versus how formal one
begins a relationship, let's say,a working relationship in an angle phone context.

(09:24):
I think this is a certain wallof formality you have to go over
first of all. In France,for example, so if you're working together
with somebody, you might use WUto begin with, and then you're working
with them every day and you're gettingon well, and then it's just it's
perfectly normal for one of you tosay to suggest using the informal two,
or you might use it by mistakeand the other person says, oh,

(09:45):
yeah, it's fine, let's staythat way, you know. And so
this sort of thing happens quite often. Yeah, and that would have happened
often. I would notice that,for example with colleagues. For example,
if somebody recommends a frenchhip translated tome and eye contact them, then I
might use the two form automatically youknow, if I know they're roughly in
my age or whatever, or ifwe're both good friends with our common contact.

(10:05):
For example, so you obviously spendmost of your time in Germany,
and German has a similar structure.I'm not personally familiar with it. I
don't speak German. So would youcan you share a little bit about how
the German you system compares to theFrench one. For example, by and

(10:26):
large it's the same. I mean, you have a German word for you,
which is z, and then youwould have the informal word, which
is do, which is pretty muchtoo. So by and large it'll be
the same thing. I would saythe Germans are slightly less formal. They'd
be more inclined to switch to theinformal do a bit sooner than a similar
situation in France, for example,I've been my experience anyway. And also

(10:48):
I think one of the difference isthat in France sometimes you have a situation
where you use a first name andvu. For example, I have a
new French customer and she calls meIan, but she uses Vu the whole
time, whereas in German you wouldn'tdo that. Excepting game shows on television.
You know, you have an oldman whose name is Dta, because

(11:09):
you know, to have Heirschmidt orwhatever on the panel would look weird,
so you call him Vita, butyou would use the formal Z. And
you see that in France as wella lot, but not just on TV.
You would see that in schools.For example, a teacher might call
it a sixteen year old kid Olivier, but you might use Wu because he's
sixteen, because the teacher thinks that'sappropriate. But you don't get that in
German outside game shows, so Ithink because you don't have this step in

(11:33):
between, which which is quite comfortable. You know, if you can be
semi formal. So like with thiscustomer who calls me Ian and calls me
Wu, I would imagine that thatsituation will stay that way forever. Whereas
if I have a new German customerthat I get on well with, it
might be heavenic to begin with,but then you know, if you're working
together for a couple of weeks orwhatever I're getting on, then it'll be

(11:54):
quite natural for one of us.What you did, customer, to suggest
that we drop that busy and movethe form will do and that suggestion is
so interesting. But you also mentionedsomething that I think we need to resurface,
which is that often and this happensto me all the time, even
you know, I've been here along time. But because I don't have
that break of cheu and vu,I'll make the mistakes sometimes if I'm getting

(12:18):
along with somebody accidentally say true andthen you, as you said, sometimes
you'll be like, oh, yeah, that's fine, let's just let's just
do that. And it really doesfeel in that instant as though a barrier
has been broken and you get tocompletely switch language registers. Now you're in
a professional context. You're not goingto go start using, you know,
swear words all the time, althoughthe French are more comfortable with swear words

(12:41):
than at least Americans are. I'mnot sure about the Irish. Yeah,
but it's a very quick evolution.Yes, when you switch from vou to
chu and in English, I thinkmaybe because we don't have that strong barrier,
it's a little bit more of aslow drip towards the chain. That
being said, there's there's a muchmore macro level change happening right now in

(13:05):
France that I'm witnessing, and Iknow that you don't spend maybe as much
time here. I'm not sure ifyou've seen this at all in your travels
or in your communications with French people. But I remember when I was in
Spain, for example, in certainneighborhoods, like waiters would use the informal
you and I'm starting to see thatin France. Yes, where there's you

(13:26):
know, you walk into a veryhipster cafe or you know, a really
there's a bar that I go tothat is, you know, just this
side of communist and they don't useVU at all. They used to with
everybody. Is this something that you'reseeing, Is this something that you're expecting
to happen more and more where Francebecomes less and less formal. Yes,

(13:50):
I think that France is gradually evolvingin the direction of the Netherlands, who
used to have well, who stillhave a formal and informals a little,
but the form is pretty much dieout. It's very rare that you would
actually use the formal one except invery very formal contexts. And yeah,
I've noticed last time I was inFriends that I went to restaurant and the
waiter, who was about my age, he used the informal two as well,

(14:13):
which probably wouldn't have happened twenty yearsago. So I have noticed that.
I think that we mostly in bigcities and the younger generation. That's
been my experience. That makes sensebecause it's continuing in this vein we've had
of a devolution of I mean,I think one of the funniest ones,
at least from the perspective of moderneyes, was the way that former President

(14:37):
Jack Sharak and his wife Bernadette spoketo each other. Yes, so do
you want to tell us a littlebit about what that was. Yeah,
they used the formal voot to eachother despite having been married for I have
no idea how long, but theywould there's something slightly aristocratic about that.
I think you only really find thatin I mean, I've seen it in
television series as well, and it'syeah, where a husband and wife who

(15:00):
have been married half the lives,who have had kids together, they still
use the formal voo in the sameway as Jane Austin's and Missus Bennett.
For example, in Private Purchace theycalled each other mister and missus Bennett,
which you know if you're reading itnow, and it sounds very very weird
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Navigating the French. If you hada text, for example, where I
mean I see this in literature onoccasion where it's either a married couple who
are using WU with one another,or even in like a modern film or

(16:10):
a literary setting, if you havesomeone engaging, for example, with a
sex worker, sometimes you'd have theformal you even in a very informal perhaps
the least formal context possible. Howwould you kind of translate that for an
English reader? I would probably usemore still phrasing sort of phrasing like that

(16:33):
you wouldn't use talking to your friendor whatever, the kind of language you
might use to a waiter in arestaurant, for example, So polite,
but a little bit, a littlebit of a distance. Interesting. I
don't actually translate literature. I doscreenplays and stuff like that occasionally, but
that's not really my area. Butoff the top of my head, that
is how Yeah, And I supposein a screenplay that would work really well

(16:57):
as well, you know, usingmore stilted language, and then hopefully there
would be some kind of note thereso that the director would know that there
is this distance and this linguistic respect. Even though I mean, it just
seems so I guess yeah, toa native English speaker, it just seems
so backwards to use such formal languagein such an informal setting. But is

(17:25):
it to convey distance? Is itto convey respect? What do you think
the sort of mindset behind that is? If you had to guess when this
tendency, yes, I think it'sa convey respect. And perhaps in the
exact case you're talking about, perhapsit's you know, we don't have a
relationship. This is a business transaction. It could be to convey that absolutely,

(17:45):
yeah, And I mean, Iguess that's sort of also when you
were saying with schools, when you'reconveying distance between teachers and students, and
the students but also the teachers arerequired to use vou with one another is
another thing. We're not friends.I'm not your friend. Yeah, In
the same way that you don't usuallycall teachers by their first names, for

(18:07):
example, so you have to keepa certain amount of distance in order to
have a certain amount of respect.Now that there are teachers for example,
I remember my sister had an artteacher that she used to call by her
first name. But that is verymuch the exception. And do you get
the sense that, you know,when adolescents are starting to come into their
own and want to be a littlebit daring or you know, voluntarily not

(18:30):
show respect to adults, is saying, true to somebody in charge something that
a young French adolescent would experiment with, do you think or would it not
even occur to them to be disrespectfulin that way? Yes, I would
say, for example, if ifa French teenager is vandalizing a wall or
something, and the police arrive andhe's just trying to be snotty and trying

(18:53):
to just say I don't care,do what you want. Then he's not
going to use the rule. He'sgoing to use it too in order to
show that he doesn't respect at all. Okay, So it is, I
mean, it is this sort ofsignal, this linguistic signal where if you
don't have the tools to decode it, you might not even know you were
being disrespected. You totally could beYes, that is true, but I

(19:15):
think in most Okay, for example, I remember this was a long time
ago, talking to an irishwoman whoused to teach French and German. I
think it was at a French conversationexchange somewhere, and she told me that
her superpower that wasn't how she phrasedit, but her superpower was starting conversations
without using to a rule, sothat she could follow the French person's lead.

(19:37):
And this was the kind of obsession. And I often think about that
because I think that that hasn't beenmy experience. My experience is that it's
usually quite clear from the context.For example, if I'm in the kind
of bar that you mentioned, forexample, or if I'm playing at a
tennis competition with people I don't know, or if I'm making music or whatever

(19:57):
with people I don't know, there'sa sort of of shared camaraderie where it
will be quite weird to use theformal ze or to use the formal rout
in French. So yeah, Ithink that, Okay, it's good to
be aware of these things. ButI don't think you need a flow chart.
I really don't think you need aflow chart. Fair enough, that
is an interesting superpower. I actuallyknew some a French person who was able

(20:22):
to do that by saying ill likeif he encountered somebody that he knew but
wasn't sure if he was supposed tobe saying too or vou. He would
look at this man and say atAva or Cova like how is this?
How is he doing? But talkingto the person in their face, or
saying how are we doing? Yesand waiting. So yeah, there's there

(20:45):
is some some linguistic gymnastics that youcan do to get around it. I
suppose. Yes. I have asimilar situation in German actually, which I
think is peculiar to Cologne. Wehave a window cleaner who has has been
cleaning my wife's windows since before mytime, and now who cleans our windows?
And when I first met him,he used to use the plural informal

(21:06):
form. So in Germany, ifyou're talking to one person, you would
say do. If you're talking totwo people, you know, he would
say yeah. And that's what hedid to me. So I kind of
afterwards, I kind of went outto my wife and I said, why
is he talking to me like I'mseveral different people? And he says he
doesn't know whether to use the formalor the informal, so he's up in
for this halfway thing. And Ihad never heard that anywhere before. And

(21:29):
apparently it's peculiar to Cologne and couldthere could be a French influence there because
the French spent a lot of timein Cologne around the time of Napoleon,
for example, So there are alot of words in use here that are
influenced by the French. And itcould be because vu in French is not
just the formal singular, but itselvesof the plural, then it could be
because of that. I have noidea. I was just thinking about that

(21:51):
yesterday. That's fascinating. Yeah,because in Spanish there's a difference as well,
of you know, the formal singularversus the informal plural. And in
French, you're right, like youknow if you're saying if you say wooh,
you might mean multiple views or youmight mean one one debut. Yes,

(22:11):
wow, okay, very cool.Well, thank you so much for
joining me today on the podcast andfor sharing all of your knowledge my pleasure.
I think before I let you go, I just have one additional question,
yes, which is what is yourfavorite word in French? One expression
I really liked. When I wasstudying in Front, I did my erasmus

(22:33):
here in France, so at mythird year of university, I spent two
semesters studying in Lyon and one expressionthat I really loved was tumeeton, which
is sort of like you bet oryou don't say, or something like that.
And when I went back to Irelandthere was a tu maeton shaped hole
in my life for three months becauseI kept wanting to say this, but
there was no equivalent because I wouldn'tyou know, you bet or you don't

(22:57):
say isn't something I would say inEnglish. So if you if I had
to choose, and the spur ofthe moment, I would probably say something
like that. But there are loadsand loads of lovely words and expressions in
front. Another one, for examplesvila mobile literally to save the furniture.
It means to make the best ofa bad job. So if some project
is really going to pot then youcould save what you can. Okay,

(23:18):
those are some great expressions. Ilove I love idioms and you're right,
you know when you when you're missingone. In the other language, there
is almost like a whole what doyou what would you say now if you
had to say tumtun or would youjust not say it in English? I
don't have that whole in my lifeanymore. You'll have to go back to
Lyon, Yes, I probably will. Amazing. Well, thank you so

(23:41):
much for joining us f a realculture speaking with you. Have a really
fantastic rest of your day. Okay, thank you, Emily Rabbet. This
has been navigating the French. Youcan find more from me Emily Monica at
Emily Underscore in Underscore France, onTwitter and Instagram. This podcast is produced
by Paris Underground. To listen toother episodes of this podcast, or to

(24:02):
discover more podcasts like it, pleasevisit Paris Underground radio dot com. Thanks
for listening and abientu. This episodeof Navigating the French was produced by Jennifer
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