A Brit In Need…

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…

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…

Tags

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.

Lost In Translation…?

Tags

books, English, France, French, funny, Humor, languages, Learning, Linguistics, Sayings

‘Why are those two people going at it in that casserole dish’ I say to my partner, showing her an illustration of said people going at it in a book. ‘It says ‘passer a la casserole’ and there’s all arms and legs being flung about in a big casserole dish’. ‘Ahhh’ says my partner, drawing on her 30-odd years* of being an actual French person ‘It means ‘the one who is guilty”. I look at her then at the image. ‘Oh’ I say ‘That’s not what the group said tonight’.

Dial it back half-an-hour and I’m sat in the middle of my French/English group, leafing through a book called Ciel Mon Mari’ which translated into English is Sky My Husband it’s a book that Isabelle the chemist has agreed to loan me and is full of literal – very, very literal – translations of English and French sayings.

The French use this book as  way of learning the English language. It’s been in Isabelle’s family since she was little, and she’s dug it out of her parent’s attic to bring it to show the group, as well as to confuse the English guy.

It works.

It’s not until I get to page 27 that one of them actually makes any sense.

‘They are very, very literal’ chimes in Christine, noticing my furrowed brow.

‘Yes’ I say.

‘And they don’t all work’ she adds.

I nod my head in agreement. No, they don’t all work.

I see one that is meant to be the representation of the English saying ‘Raining cats and dogs’. That saying means heavy rain – I know, because I’m English, but just to be doubly sure I’ve Googled it. It doesn’t mean that you go out with an umbrella, and if the weather is particularly bad, cats and dogs climb on your umbrella and urinate on you.

I notice one with some frankly odd activity on it, and show it to the whole group. ‘Why are those two people going at it in that casserole dish’ I say to them ”It says ‘passer a la casserole’ and there’s all arms and legs being flung about in a big casserole dish’.

The group draws on its 300-odd years of being actual French people to inform me that it means to lose one’s virginity. They say this while laughing.

Or maybe cackling is a more apt description.

I look at Christine, as I put two and two together.

‘So does that mean that the casserole is…..and you put the sausage in the casserole…?’

She doesn’t say anything, just sits there nodding her head and laughing along with the rest of the group at the look on my face.

The missus isn’t sure she believes this group and is going to ask her mum for clarification.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall during that conversation.

 

*Ages have been changed to protect the innocent**

**Me***

***The term ‘innocent’ is here used in its loosest possible sense

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Strange Food Contest…

Tags

cultural differences, Culture, England, English, food, France, French, funny, Humor, uk

 

We were sat outside in the fading light, enjoying a delicious meal at a local restaurant. I was busy shovelling a fruits de mer pizza into my mouth.

As another tentacle disappeared into my gob, my French friend commented on the contents of my meal: ‘English people eat some strange things’.

I looked at him, the setting sun glinting off my dark brown eyes.

I made the universal sound for a horse.

I made the universal sound for a frog.

I couldn’t make the universal sound for a snail as I’d forgotten about that one. Plus they aren’t very noisy.

Ha! I thought to myself, let’s see what my French pal comes back with now.

‘You know’ a voice piped up from my right ‘They eat crisp sandwiches in the UK’.

I looked at the owner of the voice, it was none other than the mother of my children, the light of my life, my moon and stars. Et tu Brute?

She then went on to describe, at length, how one makes a crisp sandwich, to the astonishment of my friend.

He looked at me aghast, asking with his eyes is this was true.

I held his gaze and said ‘The bread’s got to be white’, his mouth already yawning open, now stretched even further, coming within touching distance of the table.

‘And my favourite flavour is salt and vinegar*’ I added, without batting an eyelid.

I may have just lost a French friend.

 

*Actually it’s a toss-up between Seabrook’s Salt and Vinegar or Pickled Onion Flavour Monster Munch, but I think there are things that some people’s minds just can’t cope with.

Back To Night School…

Tags

English, France, French, funny, Humor, Language, Learning, Travel

 

Well after a brief (two months!) break for a variety of reasons including; partners working away in Paris (mine), expensive cruises (theirs), and Easter holidays (everybody’s) the English/French group was back last night.

For anyone who has forgotten (I wouldn’t blame you) this is the weekly group I attend where I speak French to a group of retirees, and they speak English to me – and we correct each other. Last night’s meeting revolved around another presentation by Christian, the retired something-or-other (I think he has told me, but I’ve forgotten, so I just imagine he used to be a lumberjack).

He was quite keen to show us a cruise around the Canary Islands, until we pointed out that he’d already showed us that a couple of months back. He seemed to disagree with this – even when I told him the name of the cruise ship he sailed on.

I think he just likes the Canary Islands.

So after he grudgingly accepted that we’d already seen it and – thanks but no thanks –  didn’t want a repeat, he treated us to a PowerPoint presentation covering his trip to China in 2001.

Christian  had travelled (by bus this time, cruise ships tend to struggle inland in China) through the country with five of his friends. I couldn’t work out who his wife was, and didn’t want to question the group…’dynamics’ for fear of causing offence, but they all seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Well, except for a dark haired lady who resolutely refused to smile – but there’s always one, isn’t there?

I pointed out the fact that some of the fashions appeared to be from 1991, as opposed to 2001 – and this seemed to greatly confuse the other members of the group, as they went off on a tangent about something else. I used the universal mime-symbol for massive shoulder pads, but they didn’t get that either.

It was a bit of an eye-opener to someone who has never been to China (me) seeing vast parts of the country that have remained relatively unchanged, for centuries. Using traditional methods that their forebears employed.

These traditional methods even extended to the bus that Christian and his chums were travelling on, as it had to navigate a slight ‘step’ in the road. To overcome this the bus driver used the traditional Chinese method of forcing the occupants off the bus to gather stones to create a ‘ramp’ for each wheel of the bus, so that it could pass over this hump. Then he employed the traditional Chinese method of making the travellers push it too.

I double-checked this with Christian – twice – and he said it did actually happen.

And you thought travelling on a bus in the UK was bad?

Christian also informed me that the Chinese – at this point in time – had still not seen many Europeans, so he and his friends were something of a novelty and they had lots of photos taken of them, with the locals, by the locals. I suggested that he should have charged 10 pounds for a photo, and 15 pounds for them to stroke his head. He responded – very seriously – that it was a win-win situation as they got to take photographs with the Chinese as well.

One of these weeks I am going to have the group discuss British humour – with an emphasis on sarcasm.

Littered here and there, as a subtitle on the photographs, was the term ‘long noses’. Apparently – and I’m just passing this on – this is the term the Chinese use to refer to Europeans. As I said, these photographs were taken in 2001, so they may not use this term any more. It was a new one on me anyway.

The odd spelling mistake cropped up throughout the presentation, I corrected most of them for him (not too many though, don’t want to annoy a possible-ex-lumberjack), with the most interesting one being where Christian had referred to a small street as ‘smalls street’. I explained to them – after correcting it – that ‘smalls’ in English referred to underwear. They told me the name for underwear for ladies (culottes) – which I knew, and men’s underwear, which I did not. For men in France underpants are referred to as a ‘slip’, which, I told them, was an exclusively female term in the UK, referring to a – and I struggled here with my explanation – somewhat sexy, sheer undergarment.

They immediately knew what I meant, and gave me lots of additional details.

The saucy devils.

The funniest correction of the night for me – and for the rest of the group too I’d say judging by the laughter – was learning that I had been calling my French teachers by the wrong name for the last few months*. I had been referring to them as ‘maîtresse’ when I should actually have been calling them ‘professeur’. Maîtresse is fine if you are a pupil, or you are referring to a pupil’s female teacher at a primary school in France. If you are an adult calling your teacher that at college, you are effectively calling them your mistress.

So that explains why my ‘professeurs’ kept laughing at me when I said this.

I’ve got three of them though, all ladies.

Not one of them has corrected me…

 

 

*Yes I also go to a French class twice a week,  for two hours at a time. What can I say? I obviously like having a near-permanent headache. I love this language and all its crazy ways.

English vs French Proverbs…

Tags

English, France, French, funny, Humor, Language, Learning, Proverbs

‘What is a feather? what is ‘flock’?’ we focused on proverbs at last night’s English/French club meeting, and there was quite a bit that was lost in translation.

The best approximation of ‘Qui se ressemble s’assemble‘  in English – according to my French chums – was ‘Birds of a feather flock together‘. However flock does not exist in French, and feather is a different word too, so there was a bit of explaining on that one.

This was proverb 23 out of about 90 or so.

It was quite a long evening.

My personal favourite was the translation of ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks‘ (or ‘You can’t teach granny to suck eggs‘) which in French is ‘Ce n’est pas à un vieux singe qu’on apprend à faire la grimace‘  – you can’t teach an old monkey how to make faces.

I discovered that they have a specific name for people lacking in the standard number of eyes in France, as ‘In the valley of the blind the one-eyed man is king‘ translated in French to ‘Au royaume des aveugles, les borgnes sont les rois‘. ‘Borgnes’ being the name of a person with one eye.

When they queried me if there was a name for them in English, I dismissed their suggestion of ‘pirate’ (thinking they were kidding) and suggested ‘Cyclops’. They informed me that this would not go down well at all In France, and in fact would be taken as an insult.

So that’s something to keep in mind for this year’s Borgnes Convention.

Probably the highlight of the evening was when we read ‘Les petites ruisseaux font les grandes rivières‘ – little streams can make big rivers. This then had us all googling key words from the English translation of it – myself included.

There are now at least five inhabitants of a sleepy French town who are fully aware of what a ‘mickle’ is in relation to a ‘muckle’.

They are, however, still somewhat unclear on exactly how many mickles it would take to make a muckle, but they get the general idea.

A Virtual Cruise With The French…

Tags

Cruise, English, entertainment, France, French, Humor, Language, Learning, Travel

 

The cruise ship that Christian and his wife travelled on.

The snow obviously had an impact on attendance last night at my English/French club (where I teach them English and they teach me French), as there were only five of us in attendance. We didn’t let the weather dampen our spirits though, and so Christian, one of the members of the group decided to take us on a cruise. Not literally (though that would have been nice), but rather  via Christian’s holiday photographs from last December, which he displayed for us with a Powerpoint presentation.

He wasn’t just showing off though, he was actually using it as a learning tool – for himself and the other members of the group. What he had done – on nearly every photograph – was to put a subtitle describing what was going on – in English.

‘You must correct me though’ he said, just before we started to enjoy the ‘show’ ‘After all that is what you are here for’. The cruise had taken Christian and his wife around five of the Canary Islands and, despite looking a tad overcast, he had still taken some lovely shots. The interior of the ship itself – The Horizon – looked like it was ripped straight from the late 80s; lots of orange and brown. Seeming to notice this Christian pointed out that it was ‘Very dated inside – but it did the job’.

He had done very well with his subtitles, with just the odd spelling mistake here and there. One example of this was when he was trying to illustrate the fact that he was taking a picture of an island that was far away, he had put ‘Fareway, one island’. I explained to Christian, and the rest of the group, that fareway meant something else and that he could put ‘One faraway island’ or ‘Far away, one island’ (I also said that you could equally just put ‘A faraway island’, but then everybody got confused and started arguing with each other in French, so I dropped it).

The best correction of the night however came from a photograph he had taken on the island of La Palma. In the photograph, taken at the base of one of the mountains, in the crater of the volcano on La Palma, there is a statue of Christ. The subtitle accompanying this read ‘You can pray before on mount’.

I knew, as did the rest of the group, exactly what he was trying to convey – you can pray before you climb up/start your ascent. I then explained what ‘mount’ meant in English.

Now I know that there are other meanings for the word, but I decided to plump for the most basic one. So I then, using only my hands and a few sound effects,  mimed a pair of horses ‘getting it on’. I’ve only been there three weeks, but I like to think I’m a fairly decent judge of what kind of ‘vibe’ a  group has and, luckily, I’d judged this lot right. They didn’t throw me out of the class for this, but rather burst out laughing, immediately grasping the point.

I also spent a while at the end of the presentation explaining  why ‘bog’ and ‘lav’ are nicknames for toilets in England. I doubt they will find my ‘lessons’ on the curriculum in any French school.

Being Interrogated By The French: Part Deux

Tags

English, France, French, Humor, languages, Learning

 

I enjoyed another great evening last night at the English speaking group (where I teach them English and they teach me French) which has swelled from the 6 attendees last week to 8 (or 9 if you count me).

 

Our chat ranged over a variety of subjects, at one point moving from Badminton, to Winston Churchill’s best quotes. One of the ladies that attends writes down phrases that she wishes to go over, and so asked me to spell out a particular word from one of the war-time PM’s famous sayings. She seemed to struggle with the English translation, so I switched to French.

 

This, however, meant I had to pronounce the letters ‘e’ and ‘o’, one of my weak points in French, which the group immediately noticed. I then spent five minutes practising how to pronounce them with Isabelle, the chemist, who was sitting opposite me. If anybody had passed the window at that point, and heard the sounds emanating from within, they would have thought that we were either A. Filming the world’s worst pornographic film or B. Re-enacting Planet Of The Apes.

 

Following on from this they also wanted to know if I could say the alphabet in French, which I said I could and, knowing they would ask me to anyway, I recited it. I was then treated to a round of applause from the assembled French upon completion of it and, when I told my partner about this when I got home, she started laughing. ‘They applaud you like you would a performing monkey!’ which, given the sounds I was making earlier in the evening, was quite apt.

 

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, I’ve stopped ‘cutting them slack’ and was correcting their English at every opportunity.

Belote – A Dummies’ Guide For English Players. Part 3: Using The Online App

Tags

Apps, Card Games, Cards, English, entertainment, Ex-Pats, France, French, fun, Learning, Teaching, technology

 

In the final part of my Belote guide I’m going to introduce you to the online app that allows you to play this game on a daily basis. I cannot emphasise this enough – if you want to get good at Belote USE THIS APP. It’s a fantastic, easy to use way of sharpening up your game and taking you from the player who gets on everyone’s nerves – because you keep forgetting the rules – to the player that people have to watch out for, because you’ve suddenly become much, much better.

The app can be found here is free to download, and can even be played while you are browsing Facebook. A word of warning on the ‘free’ part. Like all of these other free games there is a definite hint that you can, if you wish, spend money on this game through the process of buying more chips to play DO NOT DO THIS. I have been using this app to refine my game for the last few years, do you know how much I have spent? Nothing. Not a single penny.

The way to do this is easy. When you sign up for it you are given 2,000 chips to play. Each game you play ‘professionally’ that is, with other players, costs you 200 chips to ‘buy in’. You will then win 250 back if you are successful (so a 50 chip profit). There are different levels you can play at, where the stakes are higher, but stay on the ‘Relax’ level (that’s its name) and you won’t go far wrong.

Every day you go online and play, the app will invite you to ‘spin a wheel’ that grants you free chips. This can be anywhere from 100 – 400 chips (rarely 400 though). This helps to top up your chips for free. Another way of adding free chips is to ‘befriend’ other players during gameplay. This is not like adding friends on Facebook – they won’t suddenly start ‘liking’ your statuses. No, they are your friends on the Belote app, and that’s the only place they will see you, and you will see them.

These players can become your friends by simply hovering above their faces whilst playing – the options to add them are there. In the early days of playing I would say add as many players as you can. What happens then is each day these people can send you presents, and you can send them presents back. These presents take the form of chips and range from 11 – 18 chips (or so). These chips are not taken from your existing pot, but rather are a bonus amount that you have in seemingly infinite supply (but only to give as presents). This may not sound like much but if you have 20+ players sending you chips per day, coupled with the free spin each day and conservative play (stick to the relax level) you can see what I mean when I say you never have to spend a penny.

If you do ever run out of chips however there is the training mode of the game that you can fall back on, until you have enough chips from free spins and presents to get back in.

The training mode sees you pitted against three computer players, and costs you nothing. This is where you will start out on the app, before you are deemed good enough to move up to the relax level. I would strongly recommend you stay at this level – training that is – until you have enough confidence in yourself to play with real people on the relax level. each day you practice at this you will also be entitled to free spins, so do make the most of them.

If you do have the odd losing streak – and I’ve had more than my fair share of them – then simply turn it off and call it a day. Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

If I had anything negative to say about the app it’s this – it will have the occasional glitch. This could be down to too many players, system updates etc I don’t know, I’m not a programmer. What this means though is that from time to time your game may freeze, other players may disappear and strange things may happen. Sometimes this passes, but sometimes it doesn’t and you will need to reset the game. Unfortunately this may often cost you your stake – so bye bye 200 chips. People have told me that you can complain on the Twitter feed of the game makers, and they will send you your chips plus extra for your time. I don’t know if this is true because, to be honest, I couldn’t be arsed with that – I just reset and reload. If it happens more than twice in a short period of time though then give it up for the day – there’s clearly an issue.

That’s about all you need to know about the app. In case you are wondering I have no stake in people clicking on the link to the game’s site. I get nothing back financially, and I am not affiliated with the creators in any way. I just recognise it for the fantastic learning tool that it is. Play it, learn from it, then take it and let it loose on your French friends – they won’t know what hit them!

 

 

So that’s all from my guide on how to play Belote. I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and I hope it all made sense. I think that a combination of reading this guide, using the app and playing with friends, should be all you need to become a seasoned pro at Belote!