Parlez vous Francais?

Last year, when I had nearly completed the introductory Pimsleur Swedish conversational course, I was bubbling with enthusiasm and bought the French Pimsleur course as well.

I have always wanted to take French, which I considered a romantic language (hmm, it technically is a romantic language!), but my mother insisted that Spanish would be more useful to me and therefore I took Spanish courses in high school and then college.
On occasion, though, I have studied a teensy bit of French, and I've found it interesting how similar French and Spanish words are--even sometimes deciphering a smidgeon of French writing with my Spanish background (both Latin roots). I believe though, because French drops the ending of so many words in actual speech, that actually interpreting the French spoken word is much more challenging. I'm not fluent at all in Spanish, though, so I really couldn't say!

Anyhow, after actually finishing the Swedish course and not making it to Sweden (I figured we weren't going to from the beginning, honestly...the course was a hopeful just-in-case measure with linguistic entertainment benefits), and then seeing the language skills fall away immediately, I lost enthusiasm for starting a new course at that time. The bug has struck again, though, and I am now newly immersed in the Pimsleur Conversational French beginner's program.

Thus far, three curious thoughts have struck me while listening. Please forgive my largely phonetic spellings, as this course is purely via CDs and without a manual (good for listening to while getting chores done). Here they are:

1. The word for 'where' sounds like 'oo'...not overly similar to 'where'...BUT 'Where is the street?' sounds like 'Oo eh la rue?' Spoken quickly, 'oo-eh' sounds awfully close to 'where'.

2. Okay, back to the whole stereotype thing. Know how I related certain words to the Viking mentality? As with the Swedish word for 'speak' being interpreted by the strong, silent types as 'pratar' (prattle, in my mind)? Well, the French word for 'speak' is 'parlez' (sounds like parley). In English, parley refers to discussing terms, settling disputes and such. So, the Vikings view speech as a nuisance, 'prattle', whereas the French view speech nearly as a sport--conversation is an artful maneuvering of words, a parley! Love the stereotypes!

3. The French word for yes is 'oui' (pronounced 'we'), but they have a common phrase 'but yes' when they disagree, and the word 'yes' here is like 'si' (pronounced 'see') in Spanish. I find this interesting. Are the fiery Spaniards so contrary that they took up the dissenting yes as their sole form of saying 'yes'? Really curious! Additionally, don't we say in English 'but see...' when we disagree, often? Is it a French vestige? Perhaps the French picked it up from the English, as 'but see' seems more logical than 'but yes' (or maybe I'm just so used to it...)? Could it be related or am I really stretching things?

I love thinking about how languages have evolved. Linguistics are fab!:)