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There is an entertaining video "If Americans spoke like French" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DFgJVk-9QG0 where French is overly literally translated into English, so a sentence might be "Sorry, what is this that you have said?" (instead of "I'm sorry, what did you say?")

I wonder if there is a linguistics term meaning "the way people speak" that could be properly applied to the above situation.

For example,

  • Grammar is different between these two languages.
  • The spelling varies, between these two dialects.
  • ___ is different, between these two languages.

where ___ means something like "the way people speak".

In fact, this "the way people speak" adds complexity to language learning, since you cannot simply translate word-for-word. Entirely different expressions are required.

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    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiom_(language_structure)
    – LjL
    Commented Jun 12 at 18:04
  • @LjL thanks. Yes this is probably the answer: "Idiom, also called idiomaticness or idiomaticity."
    – Sam
    Commented Jun 12 at 22:49
  • That has a grammar mistake: If Americans spoke like the French do. The funniest one if you know French is cowly owl. It's because they are not translating meaning, they are translating the words literally. That's where the humor comes from.
    – Lambie
    Commented Jun 13 at 18:05
  • You might be interested in this comic genious' interpretation of Thanksgiving: Le Grande Thanksgiving by Art Buchwald, The Washington Post theboldsoul.lisataylorhuff.com/the_bold_soul/2013/11/…
    – Lambie
    Commented Jun 13 at 18:09
  • @Sam I'm suspecting it is the answer, but all I have is that Wikipedia article which isn't even very good, so I decided to just leave it as a comment...
    – LjL
    Commented Jun 13 at 18:54

1 Answer 1

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Syntax describes how words are related and ordered to form larger units like phrases and sentences. One common element of syntax is word ordering, like how some languages typically use subject-verb-object but some use verb-subject-object, or how different languages may put adjectives before or after the noun they modify. Directly translating word-for-word between languages often does not work well because of different syntax rules between languages.

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  • Thanks! That makes sense. There may be multiple answers that apply to this same question. On some level I am also imagining, even after you apply rules for let's say "verb inflection", and "word ordering", there still remains more differences. A selection of entirely different words could be used to communicate a concept, for example.
    – Sam
    Commented Jun 12 at 16:07
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    @Sam there are many ways that languages can differ. E.g. it's common for languages to lack words for "to have" or "to be", and a number of languages lack conjunctions like "and" and "but".
    – Someone211
    Commented Jun 12 at 18:51

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