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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Advertisements

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.

Really Dodgy And Inappropriate Advertising On Kids’ Go Karts In France…

Tags

Advertising, Cigarettes, Driving, France, French, funny, Humor

We came across the following go-karts on a day out to see one of the many lighthouses on the il d’Oleron during our holiday. They were on one of those unmanned tracks where they just leave the karts and it’s up to you to insert the required 2 Euros for upwards of two minutes of mild amusement for the kids.

The first one, as you can see, is littered with lots of almost-but-not-quite official sponsors, see if you can spot them all:

I particularly liked ‘Tec Tyc’ because when I think of racing, I think of Tic Tacs.

That was really amusing though, but I found the next one not so funny:

There’s no dodgy, knock-off attempts made here. If you put your 2 Euros in this baby, your child will soon be riding round the track advertising one of the world’s most popular brands of cigarettes, with no ambiguity whatsoever.

What’s the message here? Start them young?

France eh? You’ve got to love it.

I Still Love Hunting For Crabs Under Rocks, Because I’m Just A Big Kid Really…

Tags

Crabs, France, funny, holidays, Humor, kids, photography, Sealife, stay-at-home Dad

This is the equivalent of finding a ten pound note to me – albeit one that you can’t spend, and can’t keep either. Alright, bad analogy.

 

Ever since I can remember rock pools have fascinated and attracted me. Those areas that trap a bit of sea water and contain so much life, a tiny little microcosm of the ocean. Of particular interest are the rocks themselves, because upon lifting them up they generally reveal a bounty of treasures: crabs.

I bloody love crabs.

Not eating them though, if I’m honest, never really developed a taste for them. But seeing them revealed, under a rock, and then scuttling away or – even more entertaining – seeing me as a threat and holding their claws aloft (just like the crabs in Finding Nemo).

This appetite for uncovering these crustacean critters has spread to my kids, and especially to my son.

I’ve always known he loved these crab-hunting trips, but it really came to the fore during our recent trip to Ile d’Oleron, a beautiful island off the west coast of France. We spent a lovely week there – well, after the first three days of rain had buggered off anyway – and pretty much from day one my son was pestering me to take him crab hunting.

I love when you find something that you have in common with your kids and, if I’m being honest, I was probably having more fun than they were. I was definitely having more fun than my partner – their mum – anyway. As evidenced on the many occasions when she would sigh ‘Come on! It’s tea time, let’s go!’ and we would slowly, slowly head back towards her, stopping to collect shells, or look under more rocks as her face got longer, and longer.

We didn’t just discover crabs though, my son and I, as the following photographs show. I won’t even try to pretend to know what some of these things are, they just look bizarre. I will tag them with what I think they are but, as I’m no marine biologist, apologies if I’m wrong.

I can say with absolute certainty that this is a crab.

 

Claws aloft, ready to bring the pain if I put my fingers near those pincers (I didn’t)

 

An incredibly brave/stupid crab here. Hiding under an excitable 7-year-old’s shoe is not a great idea. Happy to say that both crab and shoe are safe and sound*. (*unless a seagull ate it after we left… the crab I mean, not the shoe, nobody would eat my son’s shoes).

 

This one is a tad smarter, he knows I won’t hurt him, look at how comfy he looks, his face just screams ‘I have found my haven! Hurrah!’. Also he’s definitely a crab. 

 

This one isn’t too clear but that is actually a hermit crab on the rock, in the centre. First one my son had ever seen and, of course, he wanted to keep him. You may notice the lump of slime to the right, but that’s no ordinary lump of slime because it’s… 

 

….a sea slug thingy!!! Yes I can say with absolute vagueness that this is definitely some kind of slug-like sea creature. I thought it was just some inanimate slime at first till it started moving. Funnily enough, my son did NOT want to keep him.

 

The underneath of a limpet (I think), not something we see every day, but they are by far the most popular shell that the kids find on their shell hunts. 

 

Here we see, floating amongst the sea snails, a (drum roll)….possible small jellyfish, or something like that. Definitely not just a piece of floating tissue paper, or a large amount of phlegm, which was my (and your) first thought.

 

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.

Moving From Formal To Informal In France…

Tags

France, French, Friendships, funny, Humor, Language, Learning, stay-at-home Dad

 

Pierre works at my local bureau de poste – or post office, for people who don’t live in France. He’s a very helpful, friendly, patient man. He has had to be a patient man, because since moving to France just over a year ago I have abused the poor chap’s ears on a weekly basis with what I laughingly refer to as French.

 

Pierre has effectively been the whetstone that I use to sharpen my language skills on. He’s built for the task, as he stands there, calmly and politely listening to this foreigner trying to get his message across in an incredibly broken way.

 

It’s getting better now – although I will always, always lag behind my kids – but in the early days our exchanges probably went something like this:

 

ME: ‘Hello’

PIERRE: ‘Hello sir, how may I be of assistance?’

ME: ‘Send this quick. Need send quick. Need see on computer. Online track? See on computer? Yes? Send quick?’

PIERRE: ‘Of course, will you need a signature?’

ME: ‘Can you track it online? Online? See it on computer online?’

PIERRE: ‘Yes of course, do you need a signature?’

ME: ‘So I can track it on the computer?’

PIERRE: ‘Yes of course, do you need a signature?’

ME: ‘And I’ll get to track it on a computer?’

 

…and so it would go on for a while, until the message he was trying to convey would slowly sink into my hardened, adult brain. He never complained though, not once. Always a smile on his face has old Pierre (I just hope he never turns out to be a serial killer, because then I’ll have to say such trite things like ‘But he seemed like such a lovely man‘ ‘He never had a bad word to say about anybody*’ and all his neighbours can say that ‘He kept himself to himself‘).

 

As the weeks rolled along I continued to pester this man with my packages, and his smile never faltered. Even when I had to send something to the UK and needed it to be tracked AND signed at the other end.

 

I thought I’d pushed him too far, and at any moment his head would explode.

 

But it didn’t.

 

His glasses just got a bit steamed up.

 

So it was with some surprise that he said to me one day, as I was yet again posting various items and whittering away to him, that I could move from formal to informal French with him. And he sealed this ‘deal’ with a handshake. From that day on I dropped the ‘vous’ and moved to the ‘tu’ form, and have been shaking his hand ever since.

 

It’s not something I experience very often, and there are no clear signposts as to when you should broach the subject, or who should make the first move. It’s a bit like if you are on a date with someone, and you want to kiss them, and think they might want to kiss you, but you don’t want to risk it and be left floundering. It was perhaps a bit like that with me and Pierre – and maybe it will be like that with you, and your postman.

 

Only with less tongues and awkwardness.

 

Well, depending on your relationship with your postman anyway.

 

So no, there are’t really any clear signs for it here in France, or if there are no one has told me about it. The timeline for this shift in the relationship with postman Pierre has been approximately one year, I don’t know if it could have been progressed quicker, as I’m a newbie at this game. Also I’m too busy concentrating on just speaking most of the time, and so miss some of the subtleties of day-to-day life that I would pick up on in my native country.

 

I do of course talk to many other people using informal French, but in those instances we’ve just sort of fallen into it by accident – one day I might thank them in the ‘tu’ form and that’s it, we stay that way. Or in the case of my partner’s work colleagues I was told by my partner to use the informal with them, almost immediately. I went along with this because when you are a stay-at-home dad and your wife is the breadwinner, if her boss wants you to talk to him as a friend, you bloody well talk to him as a friend.

 

But I’ve never had someone specifically ask to make this move, as it’s not something that exists in the UK, it’s a whole new world for me. Back in England you just used to see someone a few times and that was it, you could be friendly with them.

 

Unless they were miserable bastards (lots of them around) and then you just said hello, goodbye and that was it**.

 

So that’s Pierre onboard with me, now I just need to work on my mother-in-law. I mean, it’s been over 17 years since I met her daughter, you’d think that by now she would allow me to start using informal French with her…

 

 

*Of course I’m saying he’s never had a bad word to say about anyone but as my French isn’t the best he could call me a big sack of shit to my face and I wouldn’t know.

 

** If you were lucky – the next door neighbour’s father would have his teeth pulled out through his arsehole before he said hello.

Watch Out! Watch Out! The Scam Artists Are About!

Tags

Family, France, French, fun, funny, Humor, Relationships, stay-at-home Dad

 

I have endured a spate of thefts since arriving in France and I am under no illusions, and in fact know that it is being perpetrated by a couple of ex-pats.

 

This happens every day, at all hours and can sometimes even happen while I am in my own house, asleep.

 

It’s not huge amounts – but the amount is irrelevant, it’s the fact that it continues to happen that annoys me.

 

I’d like to warn anyone in the 18 region of France to be on the lookout for them – one is seven and the other one is four. They will be all smiles and laughs but then later on you will realise that you are 50 Cents lighter and someone’s nicked all your Ferrero Rochers.

 

Their usual technique is to say ‘Daddy I love you, can I have a cuddle?’ while batting their eyelids. Then while you are cuddling them the other one will be standing on a chair and hunting for your chocolates.

 

I have looked into this but unfortunately it appears that there is no escape, and this scam will continue, unabated, for the next 14 – 20 years and will evolve into other, more sophisticated scams involving lifts home, radio controlled cars and ‘lending’ them a few quid ‘Just till Friday’.

Wednesday Fun With The Animals…

Tags

animals, Countryside, Farms, France, fun, Humor, Photos, Relationships

Due to French teachers enjoying a glass of wine (or six) with their dinners to mark the half-way point of their working week, I pick the kids up early on Wednesdays. Our favourite thing to do on this day is to go and feed the animals in one of the local farmer’s fields. I say they are farmers, but to be honest they just might be people who enjoy having massive fields, and then shoving some animals in there.

Wouldn’t surprise me in the least, this is France after all where everybody has at least two or three things with four legs.

So here we head, during the week, just me and the kids. It’s a great, cheap way for them to see some animals up close (just the price of a bit of bread, or fruit) and the livestock have got that used to us that we don’t usually have to call them anymore, they just recognise my son’s mass of curls and come shambling over.

It wasn’t like that to start with, back then I had to rattle my (appropriately named) Asda Bag For Life in the air for a few minutes before I got any response. These days though, they are there like a shot.

It must be the nice bread.

Either that or they’ve realised that if they don’t get over quickly my daughter will eat it all (It’s very nice bread).

They don’t like buns though – we’ve discovered that if you offer buns or cakes to the donkeys or the horse, they’ll eat one then sniff your next offering, with a distinct air of mistrust, and refuse any more sweet baked goods.

Although if the goats are there you won’t have any problems off-loading four-day-old cakes  – they will eat anything.

They’ve even tried to eat my son’s hat a few times.

Either that or they were trying to eat my son.

The road that runs alongside the field is well travelled, and one of the weeks while we were feeding the animals a group of French visitors passed us. They made appreciative ‘cooing’ noises and voiced the opinion that it was great to see something like this: a bit of country life in the middle of a city.

I wouldn’t call where we live a city in a million years – but I got their point.

It’s great to be able to open your door on a morning and see ducks, geese and chickens roaming in the fields (and even the odd cow from time to time). And being able to throw on some clothes and be able to feed horses, donkeys and goats within five minute’s walk is also something I don’t think you can put a price on.

The kids love it and it’s such a thing to see, these giant beasts, taking food from their hands in a very delicate manner – as if they know they are small and fragile.

That lasts right up to when one of the goats or sheep get too close, then the horse or the donkeys lose their shit and chase them away. We love feeding them, but there’s definitely a hierarchy going on here – and the sheep and goats are definitely below the horse and his donkey buddies.

So yes, a great activity for me and the kids on a Wednesday.

Oh and if you thought we only fed them when the sun’s shining on a glorious day like today…

 

….you’d be wrong! Nothing stops our Wednesday fun!

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.