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I'm having trouble finding how to say "I only speak one language, which is English" in the following context.

Person 1: Which languages do you speak?

Person 2: I only speak one, which is English.

So far I have:

Personne 1: Quelles langues parles-tu ?

Personne 2: Je ne parle qu'un qui est l'anglais.

Is this correct?

Stéphane Gimenez
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  • I think that someone has either been hacked or else power has gone to their head. – Papa Poule Aug 29 '19 at 13:34
  • Answers should answer “Is it correct?” (which requires explanations) or provide phrasings similar to the one suggested, ideally explaining the differences, and not just mention one of the many ways to say “(I speak) only X”. – Stéphane Gimenez Aug 29 '19 at 19:04
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    "I only speak one, which is English" is very awkward phrasing for an English speaker. And that response doesn't even match the question. It would go with "How many languages do you speak?". An appropriate response to "Which languages do you speak?" would be "Only English". ¶ Is this question asking for a good French translation of bad English? That is, the answer should be equally awkward French? – Ray Butterworth Dec 14 '21 at 13:49
  • @RayButterworth I agree completely. Bad English. "I only speak one; English". – Lambie Dec 14 '21 at 16:54
  • @Lambie I'm among those who find that editing and correcting non native English speakers on this French language question & answer site is more helpful and much much nicer than pointing out to their "mistakes" being so judgmental. – None Dec 15 '21 at 08:11
  • @RayButterworth Same applies to the last part of your comment. Is your French always flawless? (This is of course a rhetorical question, I'm not expecting an answer). – None Dec 15 '21 at 08:14
  • @None, I agree in general, but in this case the question is specifically about the sentence "I only speak one, which is English.". Its awkward English makes it difficult to find a "correct" translation. The rest of the question has quite good English ("I'm having trouble finding how to say … in the following context."), so my question about wanting a translation that includes the awkwardness was serious. – Ray Butterworth Dec 15 '21 at 14:15
  • @None You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. We might as well just not bother. – Lambie Dec 15 '21 at 14:23
  • @RayButterworth What I meant is that OP was probably not aware their English was not idiomatic English. Using the word "bad" was to my mind not the best choice of words, personal opinion. – None Dec 15 '21 at 14:25
  • @None, agreed. If I could edit the comment, I'd change that one instance of "bad" to "clumsy" or "unusual" or something similar. – Ray Butterworth Dec 15 '21 at 14:32
  • @RayButterworth Just the fact you acknowledge it is probably a great step for the OP. It's quite annoying not to be able to edit comments... – None Dec 15 '21 at 14:36
  • @None, I should add that I wrote my original comment because I noticed that none of the answers considered the possibility that the quotation was deliberately written that way. I definitely should have made that more obvious. Thanks. – Ray Butterworth Dec 15 '21 at 14:41

3 Answers3

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Regarding your proposal:

  • Langue is feminine, so you have to use une and not un.
  • If you do not repeat langue in the answer you have to replace it with the personal pronoun en.

Je n'en parle qu'une qui est l'anglais.

is correct and would be a possible answer.

But I find it would be much more idiomatic to say:

Je n'en parle qu'une (seule) : l'anglais.

And that's what I would say in such a situation.

None
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  • Il me semble qu'il faudrait rajouter une virgule dans la première phrase. Sinon, il est évident qu'on ne "parle qu'une langue qui est l'anglais" (l'anglais) même si on parle aussi l'allemand et le français. C'est la même distinction qu'entre "that" et "which" en anglais. – Eric Duminil Aug 27 '19 at 11:45
  • You can also avoid the use of "en": > Je ne parle qu'anglais or > Je ne parle que l'anglais – sapienz Aug 29 '19 at 13:20
  • @Laure When you say: "Je ne parle que l'anglais", it can't means that you speak more than "one" language. "one" is used here implicitly (subtleties of the french language). – sapienz Sep 05 '19 at 07:17
  • @Laure "commentaires inutiles" ?? Les vôtres sont certainement les plus utiles. – sapienz Sep 05 '19 at 07:31
  • Désolé mais j'ai trouvé votre dernier commentaire non seulement peu clair mais en plus tout à fait inapproprié en faisant dire des choses qui n'étaient pas écrites. Si vous expliquiez en quoi je n'ai pas répondu à la question : " is this correct?" votre commentaire aurait été plus pertinent (et moins impertinent). – None Sep 05 '19 at 07:37
  • @Laure Moi j'ai proposé une réponse pour cette question, et vous, vous l'avez transformée en commentaire. Cela n'engage que vous. – sapienz Sep 05 '19 at 11:52
  • @sapienz: c'est moi qui ai transformé votre réponse en commentaire. La question ne mentionnait pas « en », donc votre réponse était forcément une réponse à celle-là (la seule qui mentionne « en »). Voir aussi la banderole ajoutée sous la question. – Stéphane Gimenez Sep 05 '19 at 19:04
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    @Stéphane Gimenez Les 3 réponses proposées pour cette question utilisent le complément "langue" ou "en". La réponse que j'ai proposé explique que l'on peut se passer de ce complément, tout en indiquant que "je ne parle qu'une seule langue". – sapienz Sep 06 '19 at 10:19
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Other idiomatic variants:

"Je ne parle qu'une langue, à savoir l'anglais"

"Je ne parle qu'une langue et c'est l'anglais"

jlliagre
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a3nm
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2

If you want to sound as formal:

  • Quelles langues parles-tu?

  • Je n'en parle qu'une, et c'est l'anglais.

A bit more colloquial:

  • Quelles langues parles-tu?
  • Je n'en parle qu'une (seule): l'anglais.

which would be closer to this:

  • Which languages do you speak?
  • I only speak one: English.
Community
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Florian Castellane
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