The French and the love of English

I was chatting with an American friend and mentioned a French cover band that played Muse. She was really surprised to learn that the French liked Muse. It might be surprising for Americans to learn then that the French listen to and watch a lot of American music, tv shows, and movies.

For instance, B grew up listening to Michael Jackson. He admits that even now that he speaks English pretty well, he doesn't understand all the lyrics. People can often sing along to the chorus of a song in English, even if they don't really understand what they're singing, and this doesn't seem to bother the French. Perhaps it's the Americans who are so closed minded that they don't want to listen to music in another language.

Listening to French radio can be misleading at times as well. Even with the quotas (minimum amount of French music required by law), you could go 30 minutes without realizing the station was French. They record their station ids in English with an American accent as well. Muse, Justin Timberlake, Evanescense (sp?), Madonna, Radiohead; you name it, you can probably hear it on the radio here. There's even a "Oldies but Goodies" station, and they play American music from the 60's, like the Mamas and the Papas and Dusty Springfield and lots of others. It's kind of weird at times.

The population (and thus audience size) of France and restrictions on advertising during tv shows has made buying shows from the US and then dubbing them much cheaper than producing original French series. There are a handful (look back to my post about tv in France), but the hit series are mostly American: Desperate Housewives is huge, as is Prison Break, 24, and even Heros is becoming popular. I heard they're going to start showing How I met Your Mother, but without translating the title. The new fad in France as well, is to not translate things from English into French, but to mispronounce them and then change the meaning slightly.

Here's a list of things I've heard recently, many during the news reports at noon on France 3:
(French=English)

bike park= bike park (for off-road, mountain biking)
le burnout= burnout
shampooing= shampoo (those French can't identify a verb or a noun it seems)
matcher= to match
catch= Pro wrestling (isn't this one strange? how in the world did they choose catch to mean wrestling?)
spray= spray
un bestseller= a bestseller
le top= the best
c'est hype= it's in, it's hip
soft= easy listening (for music)
hard= hard rock
underground= underground
le best= the best
le making of= the making of

I could go on, but I have to get back to my job searching. I'll have to post about the French people who love country music and rodeos later. I swear it's true! They have huge get-togethers and everything where they wear cowboy boots and hats. And all in France!