#french references

"Regarde maman ! J'ai bien progressé ! ...mince on dirait le bonhomme de Cételem, mais en beige...".

Le modèle :

You’re baaaaack! Hi lovely! (Really, you should give me your name or something at some point. I won’t bite, and I’ll still reply to your messages, but at least I’ll have a name to put on that anon icon!)Haha. You know what? It’s odd for me not to gender things! Actually, about that, I admire the German way of putting things: feminine, masculine and neutral, which seems fairer to me, and quite poetic (the moon is masculine and the sun feminine (while the our French moon is feminine and our sun is masculine) and a looot other things… But I’m going on a tangent). It’s also quite strange to me to read you referring to a table as a “boy or a girl”. I don’t think about it as that specific but more as a general feminine and a general masculine. What I found odd about English? Sometimes it’s too simple. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not thinking highly about French, or underestimating English, but for a lot of things… English has shorten the ideas to their simplest forms somehow and as a French it’s quite hard to reduce… The way I think. It gives me the impression English is more a language you can speak, that you can understand easily, while French is all about complex expressions of the thoughts. (Basically we just use 10 words when you use 3. Haha. First example that comes to my mind: English says “you”, end of the story. French says “Tu”, “Vous” and the rules on how to apply that to another person is ridiculously complex for a foreigner. Even Québébois say “tu” to everyone it seems!)

Are you learning French Anon? 

Haha bonjour Anon-language-question! 

So, first of all auntie/aunt translates into “tante” (that’s the formal one) and “tata” / “tatie” (that’s the familiar one, same as auntie).

Uncle translates into “oncle” (formal one) and “tonton” (the familiar one).

There is no grammatical distinction between which side you’re talking about. You have to be precise when you talk to someone: ‘it’s my mom’s mom’ (for grandmother), or ‘it’s my father’s sister’ (for your aunt).

The common way to make the distinction (inside your family) is to use the name of the person with their family ties. 

For example : tata Françoise (auntie Françoise), or tatie Delphine (auntie Delphine). They’ll know for sure if you’re talking about your dad’s sister or your mom’s. 

Same goes with grand parents: “pépé Jean” (grandpa Jean) or “mamie Lili” (grandma Lili). They know that Lili is the mother of your father and not your aunt or something. 

But, you can use the different words to make that distinction, too. Let me give you an example. 

In my own case, my grand parents, my mom’s parents, or my dad’s parents are “pépé” and “mamie”, but my great-grand parents were “papy” and “mémé”. So, inside my own family, they know if I'm talking about my parents’ parents or my grandparents’ parents. 

In conclusion, no grammatical distinction, you just play with the name and/or nickname and family ties, which means there is no way for someone outside of your family to know which side of the family they are from.