Book & Review Forums: Anna Karenina
French
I thought this passage was fascinating: ""Forgive me for coming, but I couldn't pass the day without seeing you," he went on, speaking French, as he always did to avoid using the stiff Russian plural form, so impossibly frigid between them, and the dangerously intimate singular."
I don't know much about Russian, so the idea that it would be easier for them to converse in French is interesting. But in French, do you think they use the vous or the tu form? (I'm guessing vous, but isn't that also very formal?)
Replies (4)
Posted by
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It has been many years since I learned French but I was taught that 'vous' was formal and 'tu' informal. As such I wonder if using 'tu' allowed the characters a middle ground between the 2 Russian extremes.
Nov 29, 2007 10:47 am
by cresswga -
I learned the same thing when I learned French (ages ago) - but I learned that the "tu" form was what one might use with an intimate, or with a child, and would be inappropriate among anyone except close friends or family members. (They certainly are close - but would the "tu" form have been acceptable to those around them?)
by angelina -
I just ran across this passage, when Anna's husband is writing to her - I thought it might be relevant: "He wrote without using any form of address to her, and wrote in French, making use of the plural "_vous_," which has not the same note of coldness as the corresponding Russian form."
by angelina -
Well that clears up that!
Thank you for the extra information.
by cresswga
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