[sebastienbarre]

As a French who used to live in NY, it really is a STRANGE feeling to visit a French-speaking country like Canada and bump into a word you can FEEL is French, but have never heard of before.

For example, we use the literal words "airbag" or "showroom" in France, in the middle of an otherwise French sentence.

During my first visit to Montreal, I saw the word "chambre-a-montrer" in a storefront, and it took me a good 30 seconds to decipher it. Every compound word in "chambre-a-montrer" is French, but I still had to reverse-translate it back to English to realize that "chambre" = "room", "montrer" = "show", therefore I was looking at an actual French word for "showroom". Same goes for them using "coussin-a-gonfler" ("inflatable pillow") for "airbag".

They do that a lot, so in a sense they speak better French than us French people. Sure, the French Academy, the council for matters pertaining to the French language, comes up with French translations of common English words, but they are mostly derided for being a bunch of out-of-touch geezers.

[jgalar]

I'm from Montreal. It's not "chambre-a-montrer", it's "salle de montre". Also "coussin-a-gonfler" is "coussin glonflable".

As for computer-science related words, I think the OQLF (French Language Office) does a great job overall. "Courriel" (e-mail) is one of their best contributions and is used regularly.

[jobigoud]

Day-to-day language favors short words though, English is good at that. Do people in Canada really use "coussin-à-gonfler"? It's a mouthful and sounds weird. Also why not "coussin gonflable" or "coussin d'air"?