Bonjour! Bienvenue a la classe de francais.
That means, "Hello! Welcome to French class," for all of you non-French speaking people out there.
My daughter has started taking French in school. Her teacher is a fabulous French-speaker from Quebec, Canada. Trouble is, her English isn't so good, and her French is really fast. My daughter has been completely confused.
"Mom, can you teach me French?"
"Uh, right," I said. I know enough to order a drink and ask for the check. And that's about it. "Are you sure you want me to do this?"
She nodded her head.
"All right," I said. "Let's start with the basics. Bonjour means, 'hello.' Comment vous appelez-vous means, 'What's your name?' Comment allez-vous means, 'How are you?'' I checked to make sure she had that.
She did.
I went on. "Here's how you say, 'Do you speak French: Parles-vous francais?' And you would reply, 'Non, je ne parle pas francais.'"
She looked at me funny. "Mom, what does that mean?"
I explained. "It means, 'No, I don't speak French.'"
"But Mom," she said. "Why would I say, 'No, I don't speak French' in French if I don't know French?"
She had a point. "Okay, then just say, 'desole.'" I said.
"Desole?" she asked. "What's that? Diesel? Am I supposed to say I have gas?"
I sighed. "No, it means, 'I'm sorry.' And now, girlfriend, French class is over, because if we keep on going, I'm going to start saying some French words that shouldn't be in your vocabulary!"
Merde! Je suis desole.
ReplyDeleteJe t'aime,
Janie
Hey now, don't you be talking like that, or I'll have to wash your mouth out with soap! (Yeah, and you'd better be sorry!) ;0)
DeleteI'm still desole. Mon Dieu, what more do you expect of me?
DeleteOkay. Je te pardonne - cette fois!
DeleteI know those ones, a few swears and how to ask to go to the bathroom, other than that, screwed.
ReplyDeleteSo you live in Canada, you hate snow, and you can't speak French. What kind of Canadian are you anyway? LOL!
DeleteHa! Quite the French lesson-
ReplyDeleteDid you learn something? :0)
DeleteMon dieu!
ReplyDeleteNous avons tout fait pour sortir de la classe de Français! Et le Québec Français est argot!
Au revoir,
Penny le chien de Jack Russell et la superstar internet modeste! :)
Ha! Je ne suis pas sûr que les gens au Québec seraient d'accord avec vous! ;0)
DeleteThe Quebec French aren't the same as the French in France. Neither are the attitudes. Good luck to your daughter.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could speak French more fluently and read it. We managed well enough with our 'cereal box French' as we call it, while in Paris. All our Canadian products have to be printed in the two official languages.
Good luck to your daughter with her class.
Yes, as Gary rightly pointed out, Quebec French and French French are very different!
Deletehaha gotta love the french language ;)
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed!
DeleteI don't parles vous French :) It would've been one language too many to know for my head :)
ReplyDeleteLOL! I have to admit, sometimes I find myself mixing up all the languages that are floating around in my gray matter!
DeleteWell, I don't really know French. But hearing in movies and reading some words mixed with English always sound very exotic to me!
ReplyDeleteNas
I like the French language. I really need to work on becoming more fluent!
DeleteFrench has always sounded soothing to me, but I haven't a clue what they are saying--LOL! :)
ReplyDeleteSomebody told me there's a free online website for learning languages. Maybe you'll have to check that out.
DeleteI used to be able to speak French as I grew up in Canada, and we took it every year since grade 4. Yet we were taught Parisian French which is different than Quebecois French. I do wonder what your daughter's teacher is teaching!
ReplyDeleteI hope Parisian French. It appears that way, at least right now.
DeleteLOL. It's been a blast working with my son on Spanish, though I'm definitely not the best language teacher. As a vocal performer, I've had the privileged of trying many, many languages (Latin, Italian, German, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, French etc) and there are only a couple I don't like: Hebrew (because no one wants to spit while they sing), and French (too nasal). *shrugs* I'm sure it's more fun to speak than sing.
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about Hebrew! My family is Jewish, so I hear all kinds of guttural spit-like sounds!
DeleteAh, French.
ReplyDeleteIt's all Greek to me.
Ha!
DeleteI know "omelet du fromage" which I think means "cheese omelet."
ReplyDeleteI also know a dirty French saying, but no sense bringing it up here.
Or you could be like Janie, and I can tell you that if you don't behave, I'll wash your mouth out with soap. ;0)
DeleteI love this post. :) Mon mari n'a pas de patience pour parler francais avec moi. I ended up taking classes after work and on weekends to learn french. I have yet to watch another french film without english subtitles and he usually gets really annoyed when I ask him to rewind it every now and then and ask him a translation whenever I don't understand. I learned the bad words by watching the movies. :)
ReplyDeleteHa! It's funny what you can pick up watching movies! (I learned the bad French words from my mother-in-law. What does that say? LOL!)
DeleteYour French lesson was really entertaining, Sherry! When I took French, they made the mistake of putting me in the advanced class where no one spoke English! Yikes. I had to get a tutor, but then I was fine.
ReplyDeleteGlad you were able to figure it out!
Delete