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Lorraine Mace |
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Au Revoir |
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One of the absolute delights of living in France has been making friends. When one considers how Derek and I have mangled their beautiful language, it’s amazing we managed to make any French friends. But, instead of resenting our ineptitude, neighbours and acquaintances alike have embraced us (both figuratively and literally) for making the attempt to converse in their tongue. So I thought, in this my final Dernier Mot, that I’d share with you some of our faux pas. I’d been asking our local hairdresser not to cut my horses too short for a good six months before I mastered the difference between cheveux and chevaux. Similarly, unable to pronounce jeune, I delighted our neighbours with tales of my youth starting sentences with: “When I was yellow…” By using the incorrect word we’ve embarrassed ourselves in a variety of situations. We’ve told a bemused shop assistant that Derek needed new hooves and invited our neighbours to join us in eating a saucepan. I’ve even called someone a vacuum cleaner (aspirateur) when that person had difficulty breathing during exercise. One way of appearing more fluent is to learn lots of phrases. You’re welcome, that’s right, it doesn’t matter, and I agree, are all widely used. Derek has frequently confused the phrases, even once telling someone who’d accidentally kicked him to please do it again. We took lessons and joined a group of similarly linguistically disadvantaged individuals. The improvement in vocabulary was impressive, and the use of the correct tense meant that we no longer told anyone that it will rain yesterday or that it was cold tomorrow. Our lessons, given by a delightful lady who was able to say only four things in English (yes, no, hello and goodbye), were progressing nicely until she explained something to us that included the phrase ‘donkey shot.’ Totally at sea, as we had been (we thought) talking about the Crusades, Derek nudged me. “Donkey shot?” I repeated in my best French accent. “Oui, oui, Donkey Shot,” she confirmed. Richard, the most quick-witted of our class, piped up: “Well that’s the end of the Crusades, if the donkey’s dead.” Only when it was written down did it make any sense: Don Quixote. Obviously our pronunciation still needed work. Words sounding similar to the English word, but having a different meaning, have often left us floundering. When Derek had to spend time in hospital he was asked by the nurse: “Qui est votre médicin?” Derek took out his regular medication to show her. The nurse smiled and repeated her request. Derek pointed to the pills. “Non, ceux sont vos médicaments. Qui est votre médicin?” Light dawned; she wanted the name of his doctor. When we went to join our local tennis club the secretary explained that we would need lessons. We assured him that we could play. He insisted that without the lessons we couldn’t join the club. Finally we agreed to take the lessons and were given a form to fill in. Our faces were red when we looked at the document. It wasn’t lessons that were a prerequisite, but a license. When I began to feel more comfortable in the language I tried out for the local tennis team. My chances of making the team stumbled at the first hurdle when I told my doubles partner that he’d played like a real mushroom. Sadly, for health reasons, Derek and I will be leaving France, but we’ll take with us so many happy memories. I hope that all of you have the opportunity to enjoy la vie française as much as we have. Au revoir. © Lorraine Mace 2005 |
