#and i am learning french

[bidisastersanji]

Was thinking about French gendered terms and Zoro trying to suss out if Sanji’s into men and I had some thoughts and oops now i wrote a thing so here you go:

In the early days Zoro drives himself nuts trying to figure out if Sanji bats for his team too or not. He listens in intently whenever the conversation steers the cook towards talk of his past dalliances, but, just his luck, none of the words used indicate their gender. And there ain’t no fucking way in hell he’s asking him or anyone on the crew directly, lest they immediately understand how bad he has it for the stupid cook.

He bides his time, surely someday he’ll slip up and mention something about the people he’s slept with, right? And sure enough one day, at a feast, a drunken Usopp starts asking what people’s types are. His face still schooled into a nonchalant, neutral expression, he does his best to hide how desperately he waits for Sanji to speak up about his type, only to once again be met with more general terms about people- someone with a kind heart, dependable, an equal… he’s so concentrated on trying to pick out any gendered terms he doesn’t notice the weird look Nami throws his way at each new descriptor in Sanji’s list of desirable traits.

He’s always known Sanji speaks French, finding it endearing whenever the cook curses (even at him), whenever he goes into small little rants to himself, or the face he makes when he can only think of a word in French, rapidly snapping his fingers until it comes back to him. But it’s only when they get to a town where Sanji starts speaking to a vendor excitedly about his produce that he realizes just how much this thing, this endearing thing that’s always been there, truly affects him, and his face burns at how different the cook’s voice sounds when he actually speaks it, how enchantingly low and throaty the foreign syllables ring in his ears.

Attached to living another day, he decides that stealing a book from Robin is a bad idea, and resigns himself to ask her directly for a favour. He swallows his pride and asks if she can lend him a French learning book and a dictionary, curious as to whether he can learn it a bit, and understand whatever the hell Sanji keeps cursing and muttering about around him, and what kinds of insults he’s been throwing his way. With her ever mysterious smile plastered on her face, a chain of Robin’s arms retrieve two books from her library and hand them to him. “Do come to me if you have any questions, Mr. Swordsman. My French is pretty good if I do say so myself.”

He’s out of the room, red as a beet, before she even finishes that sentence.

Learning the curse words comes to him unsurprisingly quickly given how often he hears a litany of « putain de merde », « fait chier! » and « enfoiré! » spilling from the blonde’s distracting mouth.

He’s very happily surprised when he learns that French is apparently a heavily gendered language- and that he can glean someone’s gender just from whether the adjectives applied to the subject are masculine or feminine. Now if the stars aligned and the cook would talk about his love life in French…

Zoro starts by going through the basic first chapters, taking great pains to hide and quickly dissimulate it in his haramaki anytime someone walks in on him- especially the witch. It definitely changes his usual routine on his watch in the crows nest, he muses to himself.

Weeks, months pass, and he advances further in the lessons, his vocabulary slowly growing, while he often goes to his dictionary for the more… colorful insults Sanji throws his way. He never says a word of French himself, not knowing how he could even justify knowing any without looking suspicious, and pretty sure his pronunciation would be way off anyways. But he starts to really enjoy it, being able to understand even a tenth of the things Sanji thinks he can say without the crew (save Robin) understanding.

And then Saobaody happens. And now he doesn't have time to think about learning French, not if he wants to get strong enough. Not if he wants to protect his crew.

He's at the table with Mihawk and Perona when his mentor asks for the salt (Passez moi le sel, s'il vous plait), and he executes himself without thinking. A quiet settles over the room and he looks up to see those intense red eyes boring into him, unnerving as ever.

"You speak French?"

"Not really," he grumbles, not wanting more excuses to think of the shitty cook, and his shitty cooking, and his stupid curly brow.

"Then you will. Consider this a natural continuation of my trying to beat some manners into your brutish mind."

Two years later, and he can't wait for dartbrow to show up. His pronunciation may still be shit, but he can't wait to use his newfound skill to his advantage.

With his now solidified grasp of the language, he slowly begins to understand that what he at first though was a mistake on his part- that he must’ve missed a part of a sentence, or mixed up some words- was not an error at all. It turns out, some of the French things that Sanji yells at him aren’t insults at all.

In fact… they’re sometimes downright complimentary.

And that's definitely a problem for Zoro, who now not only needs to keep pretending that he doesn’t know what Sanji is saying, but needs to pretend he doesn’t understand it when Sanji screams at him that he has a “stupidly pretty face” or that his “tits are even bigger than Nami’s and how is that even fair” . He doesn't know what to make of it.

And then one day… the stars align.

It’s another post battle party, and the cook has been drinking a bit more than usual, a tightly gripped glass of wine in his left hand, a cigarette in his right. Zoro is nursing his very own barrel of Ale when he hears the conversation turn to more gossipy topics, as it usually does the further into the night they are.

“Chopper was really into that nurse on Zou, wasn’t he?” Usopp starts to poke fun at the crew’s youngest member, laughing as the reindeer turns all red and tries to deny it.

“I mean it makes sense that she’d be his type! Right Nami?”

Nami nods at him, grinning wickedly. “Yeah, not all of us can be into rich little blonde girls can we?”

“You’re right, some of us are into rich blue-haired princesses,” he shoots back.

"At least I had the balls to do something about it before I left her island-"

Zoro is already tuning them out when Sanji sits down next to Robin just a few feet away, across from him and the campfire, his tongue loosened from a few too many refills and unconsciously reverting to his native tongue.

"Ils ont de la chance, ces deux là." he gestures to Usopp and Nami. (They're lucky, these two.)

Robin smiles at the cook, wordlessly prompting him to continue his thoughts.

"Qu'est ce que je donnerais pour pouvoir avoir quelque chose de plus qu'un coup d'un soir." Sanji sighs wistfully, lighting his cigarette. (What I wouldn't give to have something more than a one night stand.")

Robin chuckles. "Ne sont-ils pas satisfaisants?" (Are they not satisfying?)

At this point Zoro has tuned everything out, intensely focused on hearing what the blonde has to say, and not at all feeling a small churn of jealousy in his stomach for whoever shared Sanji's bed. His heart initially skips a beat at the plural masculine pronoun ('ils') used by Robin before remembering its actual neutrality in this context, as it's referring to the ""one night stands", a masculine word. Damnit. French is so dumb.

"Tu sais bien que je ne dirais jamais de mal à propos des belles demoiselles qui ont bien voulu m'accorder ne serait-ce qu'un baiser ou une étreinte. J'ai de la chance rien que d'avoir pu exister en leur présence."

(You very well know I'd never say a bad word about any of the beautiful ladies who've been kind enough to give me even a kiss or an embrace. I'm lucky just to have existed in their presence.)

Zoro feels his heart drop, a heavy feeling settling in his stomach. He's always known the pervert cook has been into women. Why was this confirmation hitting him the way it was? His eye darts up at his two crewmates, confirming that only Robin has noticed his eavesdropping. She opens her mouth to say something but Sanji continues, the glow of the flames dancing against his flushed skin beautifully.

"Et dans mon état normal tu sais que, par respect pour les sensibilités d'une dame, je ne te divulge pas beaucoup de détails sur ceux qui font l'affaire le temps d'une nuit. "

(And in my normal state you know that, out of respect for a lady's sensibilities, I don't divulge many details about those who do the trick for a night.)

Ceux. That's a masculine word for "those", isn't it? Zoro shakily takes another sip of his drink.

The archeologist's smile widens. "Oh, ne te fait pas de soucis pour mes sensibilités. Je brûle d'envie d'en savoir plus, et ne m'épargne pas les détails..."

(Oh, please don't worry about my sensibilities. I'm burning to know more, and don't spare me the details...)

"Je ne suis que ton humble serviteur...si ça peut te faire plaisir" (I'm but your humble servant…if it pleases you). Sanji's cheeks seem a tad more flushed than before. "En vrai ce n'est pas qu'ils ne sont pas satisfaisants...c'est qu'il ne sont jamais... assez."

(It's not that they're not satisfying…it's that they're never...enough.)

"Ah? Et que recherches tu? Qu'est ce qui serait..."assez"?"

(Ah? And what are you looking for? What would be… "enough"?)

The cook exhales another cloud of smoke, and nervously looks around. His eyes settle on Zoro, and indecision flits across his eyes for a second before continuing. Zoro can feel his gaze, can almost make out the deliciously unfocused expression on the blonde's face in his peripheral vision as he continues speaking French. His heart feels like it might beat out of his ribcage.

"Lui." (Him.)

Zoro forgets how to breathe.

Part 2 up now , and part 3 part 4

#zoro x sanji #zosan #zosan fic #this was SUPPOSED TO BE A LITTLE TEXT POST #and then #AND THEN THIS HAPPENED #should I continue this #let me know in the tags #sanji x zoro #i can say french is dumb because i am #i have so many more thoughts about french speaking sanji #share yours with me pleaaaseee #zoro learns French #zoro learns french fic

[hypogryffin]

Erina and Sophie....

erina and sophie..... perhaps even sophie and erina....

#persona 5 #p5 #asks & requests #p5t #p5t erina #p5s #p5s sophia #sophia persona 5 #persona 5 sophia #persona 5 strikers #persona 5 scramble #persona 5 tactica #i will fill the p5s tag my fucking self if i have to #comics #chef recommended #good lord is that all the tags i need. am i done am i free. YEESH okay #anyways i think theyd be so silly together #no one utilises the comedic potential of erina living in the fantasy french revolution but i think deep learning ai sophia is a good match #either way theyre so good as parallels like hold on SPOILERS FOR BOTH GAMES PAST THIS POINT #both of them were created as last-ditch efforts. erina is the manifetation of toshiros suppressed hope and rebellion and sophia is ichinose #attempt at understanding the human heart and her own repressed emotions #theyre both constructs of the heart in one form or another even if they were created in v different ways

[arataka-reigen]

Today's embroidery project was a little cherry blossom tree, and the one that took me the longest to complete so far

#i am addicted to making only french knots and refuse to learn anything new 😔 #i'll try out the fishbone stitch and the leaf stitch tomorrow istg. i've been avoiding these two lol. #gi talks #gi embroiders #p #cherry blossom #pink #embroidery #1

[calqkey]

my sun and stars

#quackity #qsmp #qsmp tilin #calqkey #today i found out that my laptop colours are fucked and so if this looks like a slapped a piss filter over it im so sorry #qsmp fanart #is it rude to say ive been learning spanish but when I try to speak i start speaking french #i am not #french

[djsherriff-responses]

Bullfrog: This time of year reminds me of when the assassin brotherhood were all lost and I became the sole survivor of the entire creed

British branch of the Assassins creed: QUIT TELLING EVERYONE WE’RE DEAD

Bullfrog, who is French: les salauds britanniques ne comptent pas

#captain laserhawk spoilers #captain laserhawk #Assassins creed #Until we learn more I refuse to believe the entire assassins creed order is gone #So I’m choosing to believe it’s the French branch Bullfrog is the last off and he doesn’t wanna team up with brits or something #Also sorry I used Google translate I’m British and cannot learn languages #I am trying to learn a different language (korean) it’s just hard

[apologydanceenthusiast]

Hello, sorry-- is this seat taken?

No?

Thank you.

*sits down and folds his hands mysteriously*

"Oh, I learned that the hard way." Aziraphale replies when Crowley asks him about his shitty french.

You know, the french he learned from a teacher who's name translates to Nightingale.

French, you know. Like the language of love.

He learned it the hard way and still to this day can't seem to find the right words for what he wants to say.

That's all, thank you.

*gets up and mysteriously disappears into the void*

#what i am saying is #i need there to be french in season 3 #and i need aziraphale to learn how to be fluid in it #good omens 2 #go2 #go2 spoilers #good omens #good omens spoilers #neil gaiman #gos2 #good omens season two #gos2 spoilers #aziraphale #french #ik this is probably common knowledge by now #but i thrive on not looking at other people's interpretations and theories and coming up with them on my own terms

[bookwyrminspiration]

"there are around 7,000 languages in the world"

bro I have a human lifespan i'm never gonna be able to learn them all :(

#shitpost #languages #language learning #linguistics #THiS IS NOT OKAY THERE ARE /SO MANY/ LANGUAGES I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO LEARN #LANGUAGES I WILL NEVER EVEN KNOW EXIST EXCEPT AS PART OF THIS COUNT #starting my 4th (5th if you count the french) and that's already more than most people ever do. at least where I am #and yet that is PALTRY IN THE FACE OF 7000 #rgahoeragnwegja

[worm-on-the-moss]

The natural heir!! You know what I mean???

#this came to me in a dream and i am still reeling with the implications #did nimona beat up vi in an alley #did she give it to nimona because she missed having a little sibling #(eating drywall about that) #has the jacket been the object of generations of bloody coups in dark alleys of the undercity? one punk to the next? #nimona #nimona fanart #nimona arcane #arcane #arcane lol #arcane fanart #everything i do (drawing painting learning french) is in pursuit of the unattainable (rendering for fortische)

[lotus-pear]

i never knew i needed to see blonde Chuuya until you drew him omg tysm 🥲 on a related note, i think this is the perfect time to spread my strawberrry blonde Chuuya agenda ‼️ allow me to present my evidence…

(et j'aime aussi tellement ton art « skk in paris » ! merci bcp !!! <33333)

OHHHHH MON DIEUUUUU🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 IL EST SI PETIT ET MIGNON MON AMOUR MON CHÉRI JE T'AIME CHUUYA........................et tu as tellement raison he is definitely strawberry blonde in harukawa's style c'est précieux <3333333 day 39743286942504 of lamenting the fact that chuuya is a ginger

#harukawa did NOT have to make him a ginger i am so sad. ik it's part of the look but he could've been blonde like big bro verlaine :( #also rly unrelated but #i regret learning french bc now i act like i have a superiority complex and that's bad bc i'm not even close to fluent #need tumblr user haliaiiii to come and strike me down w their fluent french #lotus’s asks

[stuckinapril]

I’m actually so in love w my schedule right now. Daily 8-hour study sessions, reading before bed (slowly but steadily working my way through It by Alexa Chung & At the Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell, among others), snacking on so many tasty fruits, volunteering every week, organic chemistry research every day, marathoning Audrey Hepburn movies bc I’m officially obsessed w her, flash cards on the treadmill, deep-conditioning my curls while studying, I live at my local library and coffee shops and my favorite boba place, going out w my friends on the weekends, carving pumpkins and watching spooky movies w my bsf, vibing to songs on sunset walks, and like actually minding my own fucking business. I would ask for nothing more

#except maybe piano lessons bc I am dying to do it already #and learning French!!! and Arabic calligraphy #but each thing at its own time. now is not the time. but soon #rn I’m fulfilled and having so much fun #p

[mmyashas]

Hello after psrty thoughts. I think etoiles was my best qsmp find . Hes literally perfect

#Not in the like putting him on a pedestal thibg. But as in #god i wish that was me #i too am learning culture stuff But heknows so much hes so real #I want to know as much as him #also the accent is beauitukf To my ears...... #Love thay flr him #everyday i learn french its for etoiles #le chien est marron.........

[beanghostprincess]

I need to write a Sanuso fic, not necessarily OPLA fic just-- Sanji being Spanish instead of French. Because that way I can actually write something about him speaking in another language to Usopp

#i refuse to learn french #but i am spanish so...... i can work with that #once i. like. find out what to do with that #one piece #sanuso #black leg sanji #usopp

[deeeens]

tout suffocant et blême, quand sonne l'heure, je me souviens des jours anciens, et je pleure. (chanson d'automne)

#fun fact abt me!! i do also speak french. not 'fluent' fluent but ive been learning consistently and formally for 5-6 years :) #that is not to say i am excellent btw im piss at holding conversations but i can read just fine #LOL #team fortress 2 #tf2 #tf2 spy #woooopsie his tie n undervest are layered incorrectly :) #doodle #my art

[kappaology]

human knight doodles, this time trying out krita's fill brush. more under the cut!

i don't often see knight fanart that showcase human headcanons of him so i am feeding myself and other enthusiasts </3 his character design really intrigues me because he's mainly defined by his "absence," so it was a fun challenge to imagine what he'd look like without shedding his original personality and such.

i also like how he canonically tries to be more modern as well (even to the point of wanting to be pink) so it opens up more design possibilities. that being said. have a comfy gamer knight

#martin doodles #r1999 #Reverse 1999 #A Knight #i love my french wife who carries the guilt of the battlefield with him but tries to be kind anyway #look as much as i enjoy raunchy works of him i want more works that explore him as a character #apologies for the inaccuracies of his medieval fit and sword #i drew durendal from memory #that was also an excuse for me to not draw his armor. that will come in the future #i am deadset on learning how to draw armor and fabrics and hands for this man

[safewavess]

I love love love that the ccs will be forced to use the translator in order to communicate with the new ccs joining qsmp because that’s what it’s there for!!!!! it’s a translator!!! use it to translate, even if both of you are able to speak the same language!

I don’t see enough people use the translator, especially when the ccs are both able to speak (usually) english, and it’s still great that they can speak easier if they speak the same language, but the language barrier is one of the causes for the creation of the qsmp! Let the language barrier be a barrier in the first place, and let the translator do the work it was meant to do!

Let people who physically can’t speak the same language interact! It’s part of what makes qsmp qsmp, and even though it has impacted hugely just from adding people who generally create content and talk in different languages, I do think it somewhat lacks in the people speaking different languages category, because while that is true, it is also somewhat untrue in that all of the ccs can speak one of the same language (usually english), even if they’re not a natural at it!

Now, that’s not a bad thing at all! But, it does blur the speaking different languages problem that was meant to occur in qsmp. They speak different languages! Let them speak whatever language they want and let the translator do the work! Again, that is what it is there for! It is a translator! (I’m looking at you twitter)

And even if it takes a million repeats of the same sentence for someone to finally get what another person is trying to say, a hundred fuck-ups of the translation or a thousand language barrier/cultural miscommunications, again, qsmp was made for this to happen! It was made so people who come from different backgrounds and are usually unable to interact because of cultural/language barriers can interact, whether it start out negative or positive!

And I trust them (the ccs and fans) to communicate if controversy/confusion happens culturally and language-wise, and (hopefully) for the fans to not turn anything minor** into a huge drama, so I am extremely excited to see the ccs be forced into using the translator!

#I love love love when people use the translator so much like YOU CAN SPEAK DIFFERENT LANGUAGES AND STILL UNDERSTAND EACHOTHER #I just find it so fucking cool as someone who can only speak english fluently #qsmp #qsmp 2024 #I love hearing people talk in their native langauges even if I don’t understand shit it’s like woah you can speak and understand this whole #vocabulary without a second thought and I can’t??? Speak to me more in hopes that I will someday because I WANT TO #I want to learn languages so bad but I am caught between two to learn first because i cannot speak my own secondary language that more than #50% of my relatives CAN so I’m like I should learn that first but also spanish french and portuguese is RIGHT THERE and the one I should #learn first is so much harder to learn because of accessibility to lessons and just people who can teach it in general and also school lol #I’m not gonna say the language because I’m 90% sure nobody will know what it is but it is a tonal language which makes it much harder to #learn

[cadmusfly]

The One Time Marshal Soult Called Thiers A Little Pissant And Then It Got Into A Dictionary

Happy birthday, you grumpy asshole curmudgeon military man who I'd probably hate if I lived at the same time as you (for I am a modern day leftist) but with the distance of time I'm utterly fascinated by what is wrong with you! I'll post a weird drawing/animation of you later probably.

So I've been perusing a 1870s biography of Soult written by someone who met him with the help of very dodgy AI machine translation, getting through a chapter or two per night, and I got to this chapter called

So that translates to "A WORD ABOUT A WORD". It's about 500 words long, not a long chapter, but I laughed so hard when I discovered it's entirely and literally about one word.

And the worst part is that the author refuses to write what the word actually is.

On the occasion of dissent, real or supposed, which had determined Marshal Soult to leave the Ministry, the press hastened to indulge in the most hazardous conjectures. According to some, Mr. Thiers and his adversary had come to the most lively explanations, the most personal recriminations, the most incisive reproaches; according to others, everything would have been limited to a single word from the mouth of the old soldier, a word to which his young opponent would not have known how to respond. This word is not that of Cambronne, but it is of an origin just as abject. Therefore, I will not write it. Its origin is linked to a low phrase, whose root is a verb not listed in the dictionary, and which has very little time. In the present indicative it serves to say: I don't care; in the future: I will put my hand on your face; in the infinitive it is only a swear word; in the past participle it energetically replaces an adjective always expressing an idea of loss, or a feeling of bad mood. This word is familiar, trivial, dirty, common, vulgar; and if, for some time, it has been introduced into conversation, it is with the help of a Germanic ending which almost completely distorts it.

More quotation from the chapter under the cut, as well as what the word actually is.

Was this word, in the beginning, Romance, Gallic or French? One could easily attribute this first character to it, if one paid attention to the quantity of applications that have come from it. Thus, with a completely patois ending, it means simpleton, dullard, deceived husband, etc.; welded to a very respectable first name, since it appears twice each year among the saints of the Gregorian Calendar, it becomes French and applies to a man who deceives, by not keeping his promise; finally in the southern countries where the Romance language is still spoken, it produces an epithet very accurate by its expression, but very difficult to define in any other language. This very euphonic epithet, very easy to pronounce, very expressive in its meaning, applies to any individual endowed with a certain natural wit, but using it badly, always talking a lot, but often saying very little, not fearing difficulties, but creating them, calling for the help of others, but hindering them in their exercise by a multitude of objections, having more thoughtlessness than malice, more malice than wickedness; this spirit denotes a man always ready to have his say on any question, penetrating enough to grasp its form whatever it may be, except sometimes to make light of the substance; not very moral, moreover, that is to say not attaching his feelings, his ideas, his conduct to any superior belief, to any religious dogma, to any philosophical principle; this is the developed explanation of this word attributed to Marshal Soult, and which he obviously never pronounced with the spelling and accent that disfigure it, if tradition is to be believed. Indeed, he would never have substituted the letter r, inappropriately inserted in the second syllable, for the letter s, which ends the second syllable; above all, he would never have given the French sound to the final vowel, he who was so accustomed to expressing another sound quite particular to the patois idiom.

(1) Here, moreover, as to the authenticity of the word attributed to the Marshal, is how tradition tends to establish it. We read in fact in a newspaper of September 13, 1869: "It was told, last night, in a circle where one likes to politicize between two cigars, that, under the July government, when a fiery Marshal of France treated Mr. Thiers as a 'little f.... iquet', Mrs. Dosne asked, the same day, to the statesman, her son-in-law: -- 'Well! what do you intend to do?' -- 'That's fine! but.... revenge? What do you want me to do to that animal? He is Marshal, Duke and Peer of France; he has everything he could dream of and even more....' -- 'Well! write the history of the conquest of Algeria, and don't put his name in it once: he will burst with spite! ' Did Mr. Thiers ever begin this history-vendetta?"

It took me a little bit to find out what the word was with all this word charades and me not knowing French, but I found it in the end:

"foutriquet"

I don't need to speak french to know what that second definition is referring to. And that second screenshot is from a French dictionary website, so this word is in the dictionary, take that, biographer writer who also trips balls about Soult's daughter!

Wiktionary claims it means "weedy man", which is also very funny. I'm guessing that it used to be a much ruder word but now probably just sounds quaint/historical/dated. I'm curious about the "s" form that the author alludes to, it seems that might have been supplanted by Soult's usage of the word.

Anyway yeah, I'm still cracking up that Soult dunked on Thiers so hard it ended up in a dictionary. Happy birthday you fuckin asshole, I might bake a cake in your honour or something.

#jean-de-dieu soult #jean de dieu soult #napoleon's marshals #cad rambles about dead frenchmen on main #french history #cadmus rambles #i am learning more about french political history than i ever wanted to