When learning a language you must have a sense of humor and learn to laugh at yourself. Below is a collection of things I have said, and written in class and in assignments, that weren’t quite right. I added a few other things that “others” in class have uttered as well. What are your French mistakes, or any language for that matter?
When writing a piece entitled Souvenirs d’Enfance (childhood memories) I was writing about a cat I had and how I loved cats and how I would probably always have cats because I had such fond memories of my cat when I was young. I gave a plug to my current cat Jozi. I wanted to say that I love my big furry cat but I wrote “Je aime bien ma grose chatte poilu”. I cannot explain the mistake I made in mixed company. We were practicing tenses, when to use the imparfait and when to use the passé composé, and placement of adjectives but I learned a different lesson.
We read an excerpt from a discussion board about how to rent an apt. One very proper Chinese woman in class was having trouble understanding some of the concepts about renting in France. She rented an apartment but did not experience the same things searching for a rental because I think she lives in an apt at a University, not really a dorm though. The university helped them find it.
That reminded me that earlier in the class someone had meant to ask her if she lived at an academic institution but asked instead “Tu habites dans une institution?”, while it doesn’t have the same connotation in French, all the English speakers burst out laughing. She was asked if she lived in an institution, when you try to explain it in French the joke loses it’s punchline.
I had about 4 other examples in my head. Jean-Jacques just called and now I forgot them all. Maybe I’ll continue this as a series. When I remember those mistakes or make more I’ll add to it here.
*** Another one made today, not me though. We were practicing using double pronouns. We had to write a dialog to read to the class. We wrote about renting an apt. After a genial conversation between a locateur and proprietaire the locateur a dit
“Montrez le moi”,
which means show it to me. It was correct but someone in the class got very red and started laughing because she thought I had said
“Montez-moi”,
which you could take to mean mount me, which would have been an unusual way to consummate this new landlord tenant relationship.
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My French isn’t good enough to make those kinds of boo-boos. I wish it was.
You get to have all the fun, you can say anything and people will accept it.
People were so understanding of my terrible French…but I kept trying and trying. Sadly, like Bob, I never was good enough to make mistakes like you describe. But I had fun!!
Meilleurs voeux!!
The first one (and there are many) that pops into my head is when, at the market, I asked the vendeuse for un livre de carrottes (a book of carrots) instead of une livre de carrottes (500 grams of carrots). She smiled and said, “Oui, monsieur, une livre…”
I’ve been very careful when talking about cats.
The funny thing is that I have a woman friend who is French but lives in the US and she made plenty of chatte jokes with me as I prepared to move to France so I knew the pitfalls. I can’t get over how after writing and re-reading my assignment I still missed the mistake.
I think it was Sam who said in her blog that she finds it strange the things that the French joke about. Some things that are taboo are pretty benign and for us Americans some things that are taboo they regularly joke about all the time. I bet my teacher went home and told her kids about it at the dinner table.
On a very hot day in August I went into a bistro and asked for what I thought was chocolate ice cream and even tho the waiter looked at me oddly, he brought what I’d asked for——–a glass of hot chocolate. Rather than admit my mistake, I drank it all and pretended it was just what I wanted.
Food is always fun. I once asked for le soupe du poison instead of le soupe du poisson. French, it’s all in the pronunciation. When it was served the waitress said “Attention”, I was hoping I had gotten the fish soup rather than the poison soup.
I like and I love playing with the differences between French and English. This is especially true because the French use what they think is English everywhere — on tee-shirts, book covers, etc. — without knowing what it means.
Your readers might enjoy my Octopussy story
Please feel free to modify the HTML code. It looks like your software adds an “external link no follow” code.
Lost in France
In Word Press they call it the theme. The theme may actually add “no follow” but I think I have a hack for it. Let’s try it below.
Click Here
I fixed the link to your site. I think the no follow link doesn’t forbid outgoing links it just doesn’t allow them to count against you for PageRank or Alexa Ranking. The sum total of inbound and outbound links. You just need to write the full html link code in order for it to work. I’ll fix your little Octopussy.
Thanks, it works!
Je vous en prie
Very funny the text on “j’aime bien ma grosse chatte poilue”. in france you don’t use the word “chatte” without you ridiculise.
En france tu ne peux plus désormais utiliser le mot “chatte” pour désigner la femelle du chat sans te ridiculiser.
BYE
LG
Je sais mais j’ai oublié et j’ai fait cette grose erreur. C’étais rigolo.
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One time during an oral presentation at my French university about the history of the baguette, I wanted to say that there are no preservatives in French bread. However I wasn’t really thinking and accidentally said that there aren’t any “préservatifs” in bread.
Another time my American housemate was talking to our landlady for the first time and wanted to ask if we could pay our rent in cash. However instead of saying “espèces,” she said, “épices”. Our landlady corrected her and then admitted that spices are quite expensive in France.
that sounds like something i would say, how do you say there aren’t any preservatives? Préservatif is a funny name for a condom if you think about it.