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humorist-workshop
translation please?
ok quick question what does "jenna say qwa" mean? (its french but i dont know how to spell it in french so that just how you pronounce it.)
kthxbye
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Well, whenever I've talked to anyone originally NOT from America that is a fluent French speaker, I've been told this isn't really something someone would say. Yet, Americans seem to use this with aplomb, and if you actually google "je ne sais quoi" you'll get a ton of hits, not to mention dictionary defintions for it. I've heard this used on television, and in normal conversation, in english - yet I had one college-level French instructor (she was actually French, Strausbourg I think) who recoiled in distate when a classmate asked her about the phrase.
Irregardless, it is out there, and it's easy to find definitions for it. As to whether or not its 'proper' French, or if its simply some mish-mash of French words put together and used by English speakers...I think I'd side with those who are actually raised speaking French myself, lol.
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
I've heard before that this has more of a root in English literary traditional, which (supposedly) is why this phrase seems to be popular amongst many who are actually quite educated - though I hadn't before been interested (or bored) enough to look at this before. Fortunately I happened upon this interesting tidbit, concerning a poem titled "The Je Ne Scai Quoi" (yes, scai!). Written in 1757 by the then poet-laurate William Whitehead. Odd, and similar to the phrase in question - even written nearly 250 years ago.
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
Of course, I have to give thanks to Everything2.com (thats squared I believe, lol) for an interesting take on this:
[Link](Mouse over link to see full location)
ESPECIALLY the last 2 paragraphs at the bottom! Its interesting, but thats all I can come up with. I'd really like to ask someone more familiar with this in a historical sense, as I'm still not sure this is where the phrase generated from, or if its simply been outdated in modern, spoken French.
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are you trying to write -- je ne sais quoi?
because that doesnt really make sense. that would be saying i dont know what, and thats with bad grammar
je ne sais PAS means i dont know
quoi means what
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I speak French fluently and I can tell you that Je ne sais pas, means I don't know. It wouldn't make sense to say Je ne sais quoi, because that doesn't complete the negative phrase. My best translation for you would be je ne sais pas [juh nuh say pah; jeuhn say pa] which means I don't know.
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Haha. It is spelled je ne sais quoi and leterally trnaslated it means " I do not know what"
Je means I
Ne (usually paired with pas after the verb) creates the negative.
Sias means know or to know.
Quoi means what.
Hope I helped!
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