The ten best untranslatable French words
The Earful Tower: Paris
Oliver Gee
4.8 • 749 Ratings
🗓️ 17 August 2020
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Throughout my time in Paris I've come across many an untranslatable word in the French language. I've talked about these before, even discussed them in my memoir, but for this episode I've rounded up my ten favourites. Or the ten best, if you will.
The rule to be classed as untranslatable: That it doesn't exist in a single word in the English word.
Enjoy the episode :)
If you want more about French words and France and Paris, grab a copy of my book here: https://theearfultower.com/memoir/
Become an Earful Tower member here: https://www.patreon.com/theearfultower
And subscribe to my weekly newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/gzMRhT
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone. You're listening to the Earful Tau podcast. This is a show about Paris, |
| 0:04.1 | hosted by me, Oliver G. It's not just about Paris. It's also about France, people in France, |
| 0:09.5 | people around the capital, but also sometimes it's about the French language. And today is |
| 0:15.2 | exactly that. I've collected 10 on my favorite untranslatable French words. I'll explain |
| 0:20.8 | what that means later, |
| 0:21.5 | but they're 10 really cool words that we absolutely don't have in English, don't even try to find |
| 0:26.4 | them, and I'm going to share them with you. So I'm going to be the host today and the guest. |
| 0:30.6 | It's just me chatting with you, all about language and why I love the French language. |
| 0:34.3 | But if you're sitting there and you're thinking, hang on, Oliver, it sounds like there's a little bit of a spring in your step, |
| 0:39.5 | a little bit of joie de vivre that you don't usually have. |
| 0:42.6 | Well, it's absolutely true. |
| 0:44.8 | It's because big news here, I've got, in fact, |
| 0:48.9 | big news here with the trumpet. |
| 0:58.2 | Yes, that's right. |
| 1:03.6 | The big news is I've brought on my little brother Eddie to help me out with the earful tower, meaning, as you would have heard from that trumpet there, he's going to be doing |
| 1:08.8 | things like editing the episode, helping me out behind the scenes, and that's really exciting for me because he's going to be doing things like editing the episode, helping me out |
| 1:11.0 | behind the scenes, and that's really exciting for me because it's going to, well, not only does it |
| 1:16.1 | take a big load of work off my shoulders, but that also means I can focus on making the |
| 1:21.9 | Earful Tile podcast and everything that comes with it even better. But I should be fair here, |
| 1:26.5 | it also means that Eddie can add his magical touches, like that |
| 1:29.9 | trumpet that I just, I guess, made him do. |
| 1:32.5 | But it means that he can help me out with this show to make it better as well. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Oliver Gee, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Oliver Gee and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.