This is my first journal in English. Ok! What should I write about? The different levels of privacy in every language! What does this mean? I am going to explain. My maternal language is Persian, in last two years i was learning French, and now I am learning English. Then I learned that comparing those languages is interesting. I don't want to delve into linguistics; instead, I think the differences are tangible. Pay attention to this example: if we want to say something about our friend or introduce him in French you have to choose between “une amie”, “un ami” or “mon amie”. If you choose any of those expressions anybody would understand the gender of your friend. “une amie” it is mean that friend whom you talk about is a girl or if you saying “un ami” that friend is a boy.
But in Persian or English if you say “friend” or “doost”( friend in Persian) you didn't mention the gender. As a Persian speaker I don't understand why that when I speak in French this language forces me to give this extra Information. Moreover, this is not all of the history. Let’s return to our example. For saying some things about your friend in french we also have to choose between “un(e) ami(e)” and “mon ami(e)”. In French mentioning your friend with possessive adjectives means that the relationship is kind of girl/boy friend. I remember one of my french professors asked me “how many girlfriends do you have?”. I was surprised and said “actually none”. “why you introduce your friend with mon ami?” she asked me. In Persian or English when we introduce our friend with possessive adjective it does not mean she is our girl/boyfriend. Maybe for the French the extra information doesn’t matter, but for me as Persian speaker I feel that the French language does not respect my privacy and forces me to expose some extra information that isn't necessary and more importantly I have no choice. Also I feel that English is more respectful to my privacy. For example if I say “I did my homework with my friend” does not reveal whether that friend is female or male nor the kind of relationship we have.
