What does C Est La Vie Mean in English?

Here are some examples of French words and phrases used by English speakers. English contains many words of French origin, such as art, competition, force, machine, police, publicity, role, routine, table, and many other Anglicized French words. These are pronounced according to English rules of phonology, rather than French.

Around 28% of English vocabulary is of French or Oïl language origin, most derived from, or transmitted by, the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern English. This article, however, covers words and phrases that generally entered the lexicon later, as through literature, the arts, diplomacy, and other cultural exchanges not involving conquests. As such, they have not lost their character as Gallicisms, or words that seem unmistakably foreign and "French" to an English speaker.

The phrases are given as used in English, and may seem correct modern French to English speakers, but may not be recognized as such by French speakers as many of them are now defunct or have drifted in meaning. A general rule is that, if the word or phrase retains French diacritics or is usually printed in italics, it has retained its French identity. Few of these phrases are common knowledge to all English speakers, and for some English speakers most are rarely if ever used in daily conversation, but for other English speakers many of them are a routine part of both their conversational and their written vocabulary.

They may however possibly be used more often in written than in spoken English. Through the evolution of the language, many words and phrases are no longer used in French. Also, there are those that, even though grammatically correct, do not have the same meaning in French as the English words that derive from them.

International authorities have adopted a number of words and phrases from French for use by speakers of all languages in voice communications during air-sea rescues. Note that the "phonetic" versions are presented as shown and not the IPA. It is a serious breach in most countries, and in international zones, to use any of these phrases without justification.

See Mayday (distress signal) for a more detailed explanation. Francoise Blanchard, Jeremy Leven. Say Chic: A Collection of French Words We Can't Live Without.

Simon and Schuster. , Je Ne Sais What? Hutchinson Dictionary of Difficult Words, Helicon Publishing, Ltd.

Online Etymology Dictionary, Harper, D. Mathematical Words: Origins and Sources (John Aldrich, University of Southampton) See Section on Contribution of French.