I know that in regards to writing, there are tons of cognates but that’s only in text (such as: hôtel / hotel, table, garage & etc). Instead, can speakers of either language understand each other when having a verbal face to face conversation? Both languages are from different backgrounds: French is part of the Romance group while English is a Germanic one.

  • Mereo@piefed.caEnglish
    3·
    17 hours ago

    Yes, but everyday speech does not solely use Germanic words. Usually, Germanic words are mostly used in the realm of the familiar or personal, while words of Latin origin are mostly used outside that realm. This is why I think people will be able to understand the context.

    • m_‮f@discuss.online
      5·
      17 hours ago

      I tried translating the sentence to French with a machine translator and it came up with this:

      L’hiver rigoureux approche, une tempête de neige va s’abattre. Viens te réfugier dans ma maison bien chauffée, mon ami. Bienvenue ! Viens ici, chante et danse, mange et bois. Voilà ce que j’ai prévu. Nous avons de l’eau, de la bière et du lait tout frais de la vache. Oh, et de la soupe bien chaude !

      I would understand “bière” and “soupe” out of all that, I think. There’s cognates in there like mansion/maison, but they’re spelled/pronounced differently enough that I don’t think they’d help.