How to support England in ‘French’ at Euro 2016
Heading to France this summer to see The Euros? Well you are going to have to hunt down your old French to English dictionary and you have got to brush up on your GSCE level French or if you have the budget, invest in some professional translation services because you will have to know how to get about the country and look out for yourself but most importantly you are going to have to know what the French are saying about their national football team and how to counter back in French from an English point of view.
Luckily for you we are here to help and have put together just some of the current trending French lingo surrounding the UEFA European Championships 2016. Here is a list of French to English translations of some of the most trending general French footballing terms.
Let’s start with an obvious one ‘Les Bleus’ or ‘Allez les Bleus’ which is the most popular chant or saying when it comes to roaring on the French national team. The English translation is ‘The Blues’ or ‘Come on the Blues’, so England fans should use the term ‘Allez les Anglais/Angleterre’ which in French would be ‘Come on the English/England’ but in all honesty you are better off getting Italian translation services and backing Italy this tournament but, we still believe!
Another catchphrase the French are using in support of the national team is ‘fiers d’être bleu’ which means ‘proud to be Blue’ something that immediately sends out positive French patriotic signals. Now how can a proud Englishman respond to this? Shout back ‘Allez les trois lions!’ or ‘Come the three lions!’
Now one thing that has been so successful about these Euros, other than the late drama and intense matches has been the fanzone or ‘le fanzone’. Fairly simple to remember you just put ‘le’ instead of ‘the’ and your best but none the less dodgy French accent and that’s how you say the fanzone. The most popular fanzone is based in the French capital Paris which is free of charge and open to the public. With the commercial success of this tournament resulting in a very positive financial translation so far, these free-to-use fanzones have been a major success.
Last but not least the French use the term ‘Le 12ème homme’ or the English translation, ‘The 12th man’ something that we use already to liken the fans to an extra player on the pitch. There are many more footballing terms but these should see you up to England’s usual final stage, the quarter finals. But you never know with Jamie Vardy on the team.
Who do you think will win the Euros?
Image: Patrice CALATAYU
