Are these words common among English speakers?
voila
s'il vous plaît
merci beaucoupe
ca va
oui
je peuxI often heard these words on movies.
Search from various English teachers...
Answers · 8
2
In terms of how commonly used in English, I'd rank them as follows (from most common to least common):
Voila - commonly understood.
Oui - not commonly used, but often understood. I would only use it with a friend while speaking playfully.
Merci beaucoupe - less common. Again, playful English.
S'il vous plaît - Rarely used, and only playful.
Ca va - Almost never used. Only playful, maybe a little eccentric.
Je peux - I've never heard/read it used in English, in any situation.
2
Amongst English speakers? All those words are French. People might occasionally use 'voila' but these are French words, not English. So no they're not common at all.
1
"Voila" is in fact considered to be an English word. That is to say, it's a "loanword" from the French, like "envelope" or "fuselage" or "menu." (Oddly, in recent years I've noticed some people misspelling it as "walla.")
"S'il vous plaît" is not frequently heard in speaking, but occurs in the initialism "RSVP," which is put on an invitation to mean "please reply."
People occasionally will pepper their English speech with short, well-known common phrases from foreign languages. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it is a way of showing off that they've traveled to Europe. It's not very common.
Many English speakers, even those who have not studied French, would recognize "merci beaucoup" and "oui."
I'm not quite sure why but people who've served in the Armed Forces will use "beaucoup" to mean "a lot," and this, too, is now included in English dictionaries.
Other French phrases, fairly commonly used and understood by English speakers who don't actually speak French, include "au revoir," "bon voyage," "bon appetit," "c'est la vie," "haut couture," and "haut cuisine."
1
Voila and Oui are fairly common, but the others not so much.
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