French - the language of ‘trois possibilities’
When we first went to French lessons in France, we soon learnt the words ’simple’ and ‘logic’ belonged on another planet. We were chock full of confidence, or was that hope?! Ringing in our ears were the comments from all our friends back ‘home’, you will be speaking it fluently in 3 months. Yea, and Elvis is still alive too.
Whenever we asked a question of our tutor, her immediate response was, well il y a trois possibilities. (there are three options) Well, we said just the most correct option will do, merci. No, no she would respond, it all depends on who is talking to whom, what is the situation and what is the context. There is the ‘classic’ expression, the ‘academic’ and the ‘familiar’. Oh, we would say and slink back behind our text books.
It dawned on us that neither our ears nor our mouths were in ‘French’ mode. Listening to one audio tape, I thought the conversation was about someone called Thomas. (Tom-ah) Turns out it was about someone’s stomach.(l’estomac) I also thought I said ‘le cou’ (neck) but how it sounded was ‘le cul’ (a coarse term for your bottom!) As for being able to discern the difference between ‘dessus’ and ‘dessous’, forget it, that took a couple of weeks on its own. From another tape we were asked to write down how many times we heard a particular sound. Anne’s total was zero, while I hadn’t realised the tape had even started. Oh dear!! Our tutor was very patient!!
When you don’t have the pronunciation down pat so many words can sound very similar. Take words like le vent (wind) vente (sale) vingt (twenty) and le vin (wine). I was trying to explain to our Tutor about the ratio of sheep to people in New Zealand (for some obscure reason) which at the time was 20:1. While I thought I was saying ‘vingt’ Chantal heard the word as ‘vente’ which made her believe that all New Zealanders had a quota of sheep to sell!! I had this vision of all these street stalls scattered across the countryside!!
As we look back on those early days in France it is hard to imagine we were so ignorant, but at the time we were! No doubt many of the French had a good laugh at our expense but you would never know it. They are very good at restraining themselves when you are strangling their poetic language. They do at least credit you for trying to speak French and once you get to know each other they will often correct you in a helpful manner. I am sure some enterprising person could easily write an entertaining book of ‘faux pas’ statements made by foreigners!!
A Bientot,
Bruce.
March 7th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Hi, there.
I am living in France (a Dutchman, so neither French nor English is my native tongue) for over a year now, and have similar experiences (who has not?) I was engaged in a conversation wit friends and teacher, and the teacher started talking about a film where the Manchu emperor was one of the main characters. Ah, I said, knowing that the French translate, and often change film titles; yes, I know that one, it’s Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, a very long movie! (as you see I like to show off my general knowledge!). Everybody was baffled, needless to say.
The Manchu dynasty was indeed the last dynasty of Chinese emperors, but the teachrer was talking about Manchot Empereur, a type of penguin, and the subject of a recent and popular film!
But, luckily the French are a forgiving people, even when one undeliberately tries to kill their language…..
March 7th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Both Mancu and Manchot seem complex subjects Cees. I can understand the blank looks!! I’m pleased to read it is not just those of us from south of the equator who face these language challenges!!