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Mr Mum: The 'joy' of a stay-at-home dad

Tag Archives: English

Two Countries. Two Attitudes. The Same Result…

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Posted by Phil in Work

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cultural differences, English, France, French, funny, Humor, Humour, Work

I was chatting to one of my (French) colleagues at work today. He was annoyed because the machine he was working on was playing up, and he had to wait for the engineers to fix it before he could continue. I had the exact same problem.

‘What do you think about it?’ he asked me. I just shrugged my shoulders in response, as if to say ‘These things happen, what can you do?’.

‘Ah!‘ he said ‘That must be the English way, you aren’t bothered about it at all. Me? I’m really annoyed and I’m going to let the boss know how I feel!’

‘That’s one of the differences between our two countries‘ I replied. ‘It’s like when the price of fuel goes up. In England we just shrug our shoulders and accept it, at least the French do something about it – you go out and protest‘.

‘Yes we do go out and protest‘ he replied ‘But you know what? The price still goes up anyway!!‘

The Top Ten Questions That French Kids Ask…

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Posted by Phil in Language

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children, English, France, French, funny, Humor, Humour, kids, Language, Learning, Teaching

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I teach French kids English. I try to do it in a way that’s fun, but educational. I try to immerse the kids in the culture of England, to transport them there, for however brief a period of time it may be. I show them films that feature lots of intrinsically English things, I play games with them that feature lots of English words, I play songs to them with English lyrics; all in the hope that some words might, just might, slip in and stay there.

I also encourage them to ask questions; where in England am I from? What’s it like over there? What is the weather like? Do we eat similar foods? What are the schools like over there? What do I think of the current situation vis-a-vis the ongoing problems facing the country following Brexit? etc. etc.

I also encourage them to ask questions regarding the language and how to ask questions, directions, what the days of the week are, general conversational matters and so on and so forth.

With that in mind, here are – in no particular order – the top ten questions I get asked:

  1. ‘How do you say ‘Bottom’ in English?’
  2. ‘How do you say ‘Fart’ in English?’
  3. ‘How do you say ‘*INSERT SLANG TERM FOR A PENIS HERE*’ in English?’
  4. ‘How do you say ‘Poo’ in English?’
  5. ‘How do you say ‘Boobs’ in English?’
  6. ‘How do you say ‘Burp’ in English?’
  7. ‘How do you say ‘You smell’ in English?’ (this one made me sniff my own armpits)
  8. ‘How do you say ‘*INSERT SLANG TERM FOR A VAGINA HERE*’ in English?’
  9. ‘How do you say ‘*INSERT ANOTHER PUPIL’S NAME* smells’ in English?’
  10. ‘How do you say ‘I don’t want a bath’ in English?’

Well, that’s the problem when you work with kids between the ages of seven and eleven – you might have lofty ambitions about what you want to achieve, but they’ll bring you back down to earth very, very quickly.

Trying To Explain The Outback To French Kids…

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Posted by Phil in Language, school

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Australia, Culture, English, France, French, fun, funny, Humor, Learning, Outback, school, Teaching

Today with the aid of a cartoon I tried to explain what The Outback was to the French kids in my English class.

Me (In English and French): ‘So all the people mostly live around the edges of Australia’

Them: ‘D’accord’

Me (In English and French): ‘They live around the edges because the centre – The Outback – is very, very hot’

Them: ‘D’accord’

Me (In English and French):’ As you can see on the cartoon, Velma, Daphne and Fred are wearing jumpers and thick clothing, that’s not realistic, you couldn’t do that in real life there as it’s too hot’

Them: ‘D’accord’

Me (in English and French): ‘You’re just saying ‘d’accord’ so I’ll stop talking to you and let you finish watching the film, aren’t you?’

Them: ‘D’accord’

French Kids Say The Funniest Things…

18 Friday Sep 2020

Posted by Phil in school

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Corona Virus, Culture, English, France, French, funny, Humor, kids, Language, Learning, school, Teaching

I teach English at a local school. I’ve mentioned it before, in fact it was in my last post :-).

The kids say some priceless things to me.

Here’s a selection from this week.

French kid #1: (in French) ‘Why don’t you speak English to us all the time?’

Me: (In English) ‘If I spoke English to you all the time would you understand me?’

French kid #1: (In French) ‘What?’

French kid #2 (After 45 minutes spent colouring by numbers in English while watching a cartoon in English and having questions asked by me – in English): ‘When are we going to start the English?’

French kid #3: ‘You speak French with an English accent’

Me: ‘Because I’m English’

French kid #3: ‘You’re English?’

Me: ‘Yes’

French kid #3: ‘Oh, I thought you were from Paris’

One, Deux, Three, Quatre…

02 Sunday Feb 2020

Posted by Phil in kids

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English, France, French, funny, Humour, kids, Language, Learning, Parenting

Just had a lovely little Franglais moment with my son while helping him with his maths homework.
Me: ‘What’s eight times nine?’
 
Him: ‘Seventy-twelve…’
Me: (laughing)
Him: (laughing) ‘No, I meant because it’s soixante-douze’
I knew exactly what he meant when he said seventy-twelve: his English brain and his French brain had a fight and merged their answers together.
Sometimes it’s the little things that make you smile.

Understand Can’t My Boss I…

23 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by Phil in Language

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Culture, English, France, French, Humour, Language, Learning, Life, Relationships

 

My boss talks through his top lip.

This adds an extra delicious layer of difficulty to my daily struggle with the French language.

A normal everyday exchange goes a little something like this:

Me: ‘Nice weather today’

Him: ‘Plap plap, plappety plap plap sunny plap plap, plap plappety plap January plap plap plip plap plip brown. Plap, plap plap banana!’

I can’t complain too much about this, as he’s just trying to be nice and make conversation, but I really run into problems when I need to check with him when I am and aren’t working. I’ve managed to get it to the point – after verifying with my other colleagues, and checking the rota – where the response should be a simple yes.

This doesn’t change anything though.

Me: ‘So I finish at 12.30pm today?’

Him: ‘Plip plip plap, plappety plap plap, plap plap 12.30pm, plap plap small plap plap plip, plap candles PLAP! Plip plap, plop plap plip trousers plap plip plap brown plap plap plappety plop banana. Plap plap plap?’

(looks at his assistant to verify something, she looks at me, she talks mainly in vowels)

Her: ‘Oaui, oaui oaui, ooooooooa? 12.30pm, oaui oaui eh? Ooooaui ooooo, oaui. oaui oaui oaui, banana ‘

Me: (nodding head, waving hand like Obi-Wan Kenobi) ‘So I finish at 12.30pm, yes?’

Him:‘Plip plip plap, plappety plap plap, plap plap 12.30pm. Plip? Plap? Plop? Plappety plap plap, fish fingers? 12.30pm, banana plip plap plap‘

Her: ‘12.30pm, oaui oaui, ooooooooa’

Me: (backing away, nodding head) ‘Okay, 12.30pm. I’ll finish then’

Due to these exchanges so far I have turned up twice when I shouldn’t have done. Thankfully the plaps and plips are getting less and less as my ears adjust.

There’s been no improvement when I talk to my father-in-law though, as he also talks though his top lip. Except his top lip has a moustache.

Me: ‘How’s it going Andre?’

Him: ‘Mwaf, mwaf, mwaf mwaf cold mwaf mwaf mwaf mwaf mwaf, mwaf mwaf mwaf?’

Me: (smiling, nodding vaguely) ‘Great, yes’

 

 

Conversationus interruptus…

07 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by Phil in Language

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

English, France, French, funny, Humour, Language, Learning

 

Personally I never know when to politely enter a conversation with French people. I feel like a novice driver trying to join the roundabout of the Champs-Élysées. The French people in the English class I go to on Monday evenings don’t half like to interrupt conversations though. They just jump straight in whenever they feel like it.

Case in point last night at class. The aim was to go round the group (approx 15 people) and have each classmate speak a bit in English about what they did during the Christmas holidays, and once that was finished we would all then read a lengthy text at the end about Downton Abbey.

A lengthy text about Downton Abbey – and here was me thinking Christmas was over (that’s sarcasm BTW).

This all fell apart rapidly, because they insisted on cutting in and asking questions about the most minor of details when people were speaking.

Example: Evelyn.

Evelyn had a lovely Christmas. She spent time with friends and family. She had some lovely food. She saw in the New Year with her in-laws and her daughter. Her husband had to pick up their other daughter from Paris, as she couldn’t get home any other way due to the strikes. Evelyn also painted during Christmas.

This was how it was supposed to come out. How it actually came out was like this:

Evelyn: ‘I had a lovely Christmas with friends and family, and I painted…’

Pierre: ‘What did you paint?’

Evelyn: ‘What?’

Pierre: ‘Did you paint a painting or a wall?’

Evelyn: ‘A wall’

Christine: ‘What colour?’

Evelyn: ‘errr, blue’

Bertrand: ‘What sort of blue?’

Evelyn: (struggling somewhat) ‘Strong blue’

Bertrand: ‘Strong blue? You mean dark blue?’

Evelyn: ‘errr no’

Christine: (pointing at Martine’s jumper) ‘Blue like that blue?’

Evelyn: ‘No’

Christine: (pointing at Isabelle’s scarf) ‘Blue like that blue?’

Evelyn: ‘No’

Bertrand: (pointing at the dark blue curtains ) ‘Blue like that?’

Evelyn: ‘Yes, a bit’

Bertrand: ‘That’s dark blue’

Evelyn: ‘Ok. And so after I painted…’

Bertrand: ‘What brand was the paint?’

It went on like this all evening. Every time someone would get a decent ‘flow’ going, somebody else would interrupt them.

The class was due to finish at 9.30 pm, however I had to excuse myself at 9.45pm.

They hadn’t even started reading the Downton Abbey text either.

A Brit In Need…

24 Saturday Aug 2019

Posted by Phil in reading

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Tags

books, English, France, funny, Humour, Language, reading

I’m working in a tourism office in France at the moment. A desperate-looking English woman came in today. They usually look a bit desperate when they come in here. Either for an English-speaker or for the toilet.

Or both.

‘Can you help me?’ she says to me ‘I’m out of books, are there any bookshops round here that sell books in English?’.

I lean out of the doorway and scan the sleepy French high street for a WH Smiths, not finding one I report back to her: ‘No’

However not wanting to leave a fellow Brit bereft of books – especially as she’s here for two more weeks and she’s  read both of her John Grisham’s and her one (large) Harlan Coben* – I tell her that I will see if we have any at home.

‘My partner likes Harlan Coben’ I tell her ‘She’ll probably have a few tucked away, come back tomorrow and I’ll give them to you’ .

‘But you have to promise to take Fifty Shades Of Grey and Bridget Jones’ Diary as well’ I silently add in my mind.

She comes back the next day, a hopeful smile beaming on her face.

‘She didn’t have any’ I tell her, instantly crushing her dreams of detectives or lovers or vampires or aliens or whatever Harlan Coben writes about.

She looks so crestfallen that I tell her I’ve got some English-language books lying around she can have, but they’re nothing like Harlan Coben (or maybe they are?) but she is welcome to them. And some of them may be Fifty Shades of Grey and Bridget Jones’ Diary.

‘Anything!’ she says joyfully ‘I’ll take anything!’

She may regret that when she sees what I have found for her.

Have you ever seen such an eclectic mix of books?

 

*She showed them to me as some sort of ‘proof of readership’ or something, I’m not really sure.

 

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Great, Now I Hate My Voice In Two Languages…

19 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by Phil in Language

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

English, French, funny, Humor, Humour, Language, Learning

I teach retired French people English every month.

You may have heard me mention it before.

Last night I took them a handout ‘18 Tips To Help With Your English Pronunciation‘.

How to make the ‘th’ sound was covered.

It had pictures and everything.

They liked that.

This was great because, amongst other things, I’m trying to help them say ‘the’ and ‘this’ and ‘that’ properly.

So then when they want to say ‘Hello, is the theatre this way, or that way?’ they say ‘Hello, is the theatre this way, or that way?’ and not: ‘Hello, iz ze see-a-ter zis way, or zat way?’ or: ‘Hello, iz ve ve-a-ter vis way, or vat way?’

There were suggestions for how to improve your English e.g: watch Youtube, listen to podcasts, watch the news in English and practice in the park by asking other English speakers if they sound alright.

It also suggested recording yourself, and then playing back your recording so you could hear where you were going wrong.

‘This is great’ I thought ‘They can do that later’.

‘This is great’ they said ‘We can do that now’

They all pulled out their mobile phones, which were far more impressive than mine, (which struggles to play ‘Snake’) and started recording themselves reading from the handout.

‘This is great’ I thought ‘My work here is done’.

It wasn’t.

Michelle looked at me. I like Michelle, she looks like everyone’s favourite grandma. And I bet she bakes really nice cakes.

‘Why don’t we get Phil to read some French?’

I’ve gone off Michelle.

‘We can record it and listen to it’ she added.

Now I think she looks more like that woman with the gingerbread house, the one in the forest that tried to shove those two bread-crumb kids in the oven.

‘Here, you can read this advert from my Aldi flyer’ she finished, handing me the brochure, and indicating what she meant.

I bet her cakes taste horrible.

I looked at the advert. It was on my personal favourite, Mastermind subject: hen houses.

The word for hen house in French is a nightmare to pronounce, for me anyway. It’s ‘poulailler’, which is really easy to copy and paste from Google (after three badly-spelled attempts, anyway) but horrible to say.

The closest I’ve ever gotten to a hen house is buying one for my French mother-in-law, and it’s this one awful word that makes me remember it so vividly.

‘You want a hen house?’ I’d said to her, on the sunny day of June 12th, 2018 (12.43pm) ‘Yes’ she said to me ‘From Amazon UK, I don’t have an account’ I clicked on Amazon France, ‘What about all these hundreds of hen houses?’ I said to her. ‘No’ she said to me ‘I want that one’. ‘Right’ I said to her ‘And what is it in French? a poulailler?’. ‘No’, she said to me, ‘It’s pronounced ‘poulailler”

‘Poulailler?’

‘No, Poulailler’

‘Poulailler?’

‘No, Poulailler’

‘Poulailler?’

‘Nearly, it’s Poulailler’

‘Poulailler?’

‘No, Poulailler’

‘Poulailler?’

‘No, Poulailler’

This went on for three-and-a-half days. Actually it was probably only ten minutes, but when you can’t pronounce something in French and you’re sat opposite an implacable French person repeatedly saying it perfectly, blinking at you like that penguin from ‘Wallace And Gromit: The Wrong Trousers‘, time seems to go funny and stretch out.

So back in class and I read the passage out. Poulailler didn’t disappoint and was still no friend to my tongue.

I finished and they made positive noises. ‘Hmmm’ they said and ‘Bien’  and ‘pas mal’ and stuff like that.

Then Christine pressed play on her phone.

Now I hate my voice, with a passion, and have been affectionately referred to as ‘Orville’ in the past by friends. So I was not looking forward to what was to come.

I was not let down.

The room was filled with a God-awful noise that sounded like Inspector Clouseau met that bloke off ‘Allo, ‘Allo’ and somehow managed to conceive a child. A child that took all the very worst aspects of their voices and dialled it up to 11. I felt like a French Borat.

My mind has thankfully blanked it out, as though it can’t keep such an awful memory in. Surely, I thought on the way home, I can’t be that bad.

I turned to my rock, my moon and stars, the mother of my children, my partner – surely she would reassure me?

Oh, and she’s French too.

‘Hey’ I said to her.

‘Hmmm?’ she looked at me.

‘What do I sound like when I speak French?’

She looked at me, blinking like that penguin from ‘Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers’.

‘Weird’ she finally replied, sticking it and snapping it off.

The Honesty Of Kids…

08 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by Phil in school

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children, English, French, fun, funny, Humor, kids, languages, school, Teaching

 

Teaching English today.

Little girl looks at me quizzically.

‘You talk English?’ she says, sat in my English class, blinking her eyes in confusion.

‘Yes, because I am English’ I reply.

‘But you talk French too’ she continues (blink, blink).

‘Yes, but I speak better English than I do French’ I counter.

(Blink, blink) ‘But you speak French well’ she says, making my day.

‘Thanks, I try my best’ I reply, feeling quite pleased with myself.

‘But not too well’ she adds (blink, blink).

I don’t think there’s anything quite as honest as a 7 year-old child.

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