2009-05-28

Expressing Intent: The French Touch

Sometimes, interacting with native French speakers may become somewhat challenging for the vectorial psychology practitioner. As we already know, vectorial psychology practical foundation lays in well known intents that are efficiently communicated. And as much as we would like to believe that being human transcends cultural boundaries, and as much as we would like vectorial psychology to be equally suited to kick any human ass with gusto, enthusiasm and effectiveness sometimes, just sometimes, we are faced with the fact that some people brain wiring does not really seem to match with what we have always considered to be human. There, being humane and considering these poor souls linguistic plight may be helpful.
You see, when I say that I will act in some manner in the future, what I am saying is that I am both willing and intent on doing that. For us, future tense carries with it intent and disposition. We are using the magic word: will. Simple, efficient and quite logical when you look at it. Well, not so in French. Except by using some periphrase like "J'ai l'intention d'agir", there is no guarantee that the person telling you "J'agirai" is indeed willing to act... Well, it carries a subtler text, where "Avoir l'intention de" means being just possibly willing but not being really intent.
Still, the point here is that the future French is more often than not closer to the English conditional, because while as in English it allows for external circumstances to affect the action outcome, it does not carry with it the speaker's expression of its intent and will.

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