J'adore cette langue

Despite going to a concert last night, I did wake up long before noon, so I came back to the university today to enjoy a little tranquil Internet time, and of course to post the answer - it's in the comments of the preceding post.

French is beautiful but it can sometimes be annoying. Here's a paragraph from last night's program, desribing the accomplishments of Christophe Coin, director of l'Ensemble Baroque de Limoges:

Egalement professeur, Christophe Coin est chargé des cours de violoncelle baroque et de viole de gambe au Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris et à la Schola Cantorum de Bale. Il participe tous les ans aux Acamédies Internationales de Granada et d'Innsbruck et donne des masterclasses dans différents conservatoires français.

That's nearly English. You can understand it. Here's what I want you to notice:

Egalement professeur, Christophe Coin est chargé des cours de violoncelle baroque et de viole de gambe au Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris et à la Schola Cantorum de Bale. Il participe tous les ans aux Acamédies Internationales de Granada et d'Innsbruck et donne des masterclasses dans différents conservatoires français.

You see, they can't just say "Christophe Coin directs baroque violoncello courses..." - they have to say "Christophe Coin has charge of courses of baroque violoncello..." I could have dug up a more extreme example.

Let's face it, French is wordy. It has lots of ofs, and lots of passives: e.g., the above verbal construction est chargé de (has charge of) instead of simply dirige (directs) or enseigne (teaches). Furthermore, a French person will often repeat the same phrase two or three times for no apparent reason... maybe for emphasis, maybe to taste again those words he (or she) so masterfully strung together. Didn't you know it's elegant to speak and write like that?

In English, you're guilty of murder before the WEP (written expression police) if you say something like this:

This girl, whose brother plays on the highschool soccer team with my brother, plays the piano.

But that's how you do it in French.

Culture experts and culture books always told me that conversation is an art for the French. I think maybe they just like words, spoken or written.

No doubt that French is a little wacky, at least to an English speaker. But I'm going to miss it. J'adore cette langue.