Monday 5 March 2012

Le Blog, Le Chien et Le Pout.

As a confirmed Francophile there is little I don't love about France. The wine, the food, the art and architecture, and also the language. Sadly, I don't speak it as well as I'd like to, and, according to one friend of mine, the paltry bit I do speak, I speak with a ridiculous 'French face'. (Picture a sort of bastard hybrid of Keira Knightly's poutiest pout with a heavy dash of Serge Gainsbourg phhffft. By the way, you need a French face to speak French. It's a proven fact that if you're English and you try and speak French without your French face it's almost impossible for a Frenchman to understand.) With or without the pout-and-phhffft, the language is undeniably beautiful. Even the English words they've adopted, like le Big Mac, le weekend, and, the oh-so-sublime, le blog, which in theory should sound totally ludicrous actually sound, well, kind of fun. Everything sounds better in French.

Even the animals sound better.

Picture the scene if you will: an English Setter, Cyril St John Smythe, is on holiday in France. He is feeling lost and befuddled, and is more than a little horrified by the toilet facilities ("It was dreadful, Henry. Nowhere to go at all. They just do their business on the pavements. There was...faeces, everywhere. EVERYWHERE, I tell you!! Those Chiens are utterly filthy!) But Cyril has heard how good the food is supposed to be and he's hungry. He wants something authentic. He sees a local, a Bichon Frise - Jean-Jaques Le Grange - watching a game of Petanque beneath the shade of a tall lime tree in the square. He approaches and, with a tight clearing of his throat, announces his arrival. "Woof Woof," he says politely. "Woof woof woof. Woof. Woof woof, woof." [Roughly translated: "Excuse me, my good man, would you mind awfully pointing me in the direction of the nearest eatery? A local rubbish tip, perhaps, or the back door of a butcher?]
Jean-Jaques pulls hard on his filterless Gitanes. Then he shrugs and phhfffts, and in a gutteral Gaelic growl says: "Waouh, whaouh. Whaouh. Whaouh whaouh whaouh." [Roughly translated: "Zere iz no dermp around eeaiir. But zere iz a bar where zee leedle poodle, Fifi, she sings like zee laarrvbard flying on zee breeezze of liiife.]

Woof versus Waouh? No contest. In the language stakes 'waouh' wins paws down.

Likewise, the human being, Vanessa Paradis, scorched her way through Joe le Taxi, mesmerising middle-England with her raw, burgeoning pubescent sexuality. Our equivalent would be the young Billie Piper in stage-school leg-warmers and a hoodie singing Joe the Cabbie. Not quite the same ring. We shouldn't be surprised, of course. French is the self-proclaimed language of love, the Big Daddy of Pillow-Talk, romance and passion soaking every syllable uttered. Take the rather racy Soixante-Neuf. It sounds like something seductive, something adventurous. We have the literal translation, of course, but there is nothing remotely exotic about it. "How about a 69, love?" sounds more like a bloke ordering sweet and sour prawn balls from the local chippie-cum-chinese than, ahem, well, a Soixante-Neuf.

So back to poor Cyril who eventually located the bar. He found Fifi and in his best French he asked her for a lamb chop. He waouhed and waouhed, but she just stared blankly. In the end he gave up and went home. He missed Blighty too much. He needed a clean tree to pee against, he craved a crispy bit of bacon rind, he wanted to be back where the dogs go woof and the cats go miaow. I think the problem was his French face. It lacked pout. Cyril, my dear boy, if you want to speak French it's not good enough just to learn the words...you've got to do your French face.
Jean-Jacques Le Grange
Cyril St John Smythe

23 comments:

  1. I love it!! Thank you for making me laugh out loud on a Monday morning. I can picture all the French waiters I have worked with looking at me in utter disdain as I try to speak their language, despite being in my country!! I love your accent and translation of French to English.

    I think two of the very finest words in the French language are bibliothèque and parapluie, almost lyrical and full of mystery. Who would have thought library and umbrella could sound so seductive?

    I shall have to wander around muttering sacré bleu more often from now on!

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    1. And MERDE shouted very loudly with a grating chchchchc in the middle. There was so much I could have written on this one. I can just picture the way those waiters were looking at you as you tried to speak to them. Love it! And you're right, Bliblioteque is a fab word.

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    2. I used to work with a waiter called Jean-Noel, commonly known as Johnny Christmas. He and all his French colleagues were very confused by sarcasm. It took over six months of dedicated training, however he finally grasped it and became the only living Frenchman to master the very English form of humour. What has kept me smiling for all these years is the knowledge that when he went home there would be no-one to understand and therefore appreciate his new talent!!

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  2. yup, agreed, the french language is more refined and elegant than english. two of my favourite words? "prestidigitateur" (bit of a mouthful - means conjurer) and "ecureuil" (squirrel). top tip: should any french waiter (or any monsieur or madame for that matter) get a bit sniffy about you attempting their language, ask them to have a go at saying "thistle". unless they are very proficient at speaking english, it will come out as either "thithul" or "sissul". i used to do this when any of my french students got a bit too big for their boots. snigger.

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    1. That's brilliant! You meanie, you. However, I have now logged and stored the 'thistle' advice and I now await - with excitement - my first opportunity to put it into practice!!

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  3. I'm just a little worried that Jean-Jacques Le Grange smoked Gitanes with that bouffant hairstyle of his - accident waiting to happen if you ask me. There you go, unwittingly uncovered one of my fav french words.... bouffant....

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    1. Haha, yes, J-J up in a puff of flames! Poor French pup.

      Bouffant - fab word! xx

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  4. My French is comme ci comme ca (no idea where the squiggly 'c' is on my mac), but if I ever try to speak it in situ they just stare at me until I say it in English. Must pout and say thistle more!

    Did you know that dogs actually do bark in different accents? Little bit of trivia.....

    Great post, as ever!

    My fav French phrase from school (said frequently by my teacher) is 'France? C'est un hexagone' - you probably had to be there....*shuffles off for a croissant*

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    2. I have just tried to find the squiggly 'c' on the Mac but no sign of it. Perhaps this is our niche market, Sarah? French lessons for Macs. Dragon's Den here we come...

      Love the French dogs speaking with an accent. Too perfect!! Right, now, pass me one of those croissants, madame. Merci alot. x

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  5. When I forwarded this week's blog to my husband (it has become our little in box treat to receive your updates!) he had this to say: "'Tis but true. Dave noticed I "method act" languages. So in French, via almost hebraic shrugs of the shoulders, I balance hauteur and languor to achieve that magnificent, naked self-interest they so beautifully manage to pass of as charming. In Spanish, my shoulders hunch round, I smile, and try to gabble in an urgent, but warm-hearted way (thus burying a truly vicious cruel streak). In English, of course, I try to move the minimum facial muscles possible to convey a sense of irony at the sense of irony one feels at even trying to communicate at all, and sinking into a fit of embarrassment, fail to finish any sentence that I begin to, well, you know." I think he agrees with this week's sentiment wholeheartedly :) xx

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    1. Love it! I hadn't thought about there being an English face too. Bloody, Kiwis, always noticing our faults!! I am now going to get my dictionary to look up hauteur and hebraic. Bloody, uber-academics, always showing up our lack of vocab...

      Love you, Dr Kiwi. xx

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    2. I seem to have two extra commas after the Bloodys. Odd. Nothing like an extra comma to screw up an insult. x

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    3. I have also just noticed that you were merely quoting your husband, and therefore my Bloody kiwi uber-academic was misplaced. I shall therefore cuss politely at my fellow Brit, and thank him kindly, for his analysis of linguistic method acting. ;-)) x

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    4. Ha! I am merely collecting post-graduate degrees to prove I am as clever as him, with as wide a vocabulary. He swallows books for fun and teaches me new words about once a week; whether Dr or no, I know in my heart I will never catch up. Bastard.

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    5. Yeah, but you can catch and throw...

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  6. I must have missed the 'French face' but I reckon you can get by with just the shoulder shrug and a disdainful 'bof'!

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    1. I'm heading to France at Easter so will ditch my 'French face' and attempt the shrug-and-bof...wish me bon chance! ;-)

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  7. Of course the other WONDERFUL thing about ze French language...is that when we were little and our mother didn't like swearing...they had a marvellous fizzy drink called ppssssssssssssscht - naturally we would always yell for it loudly...down the street...

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    1. Your poor mum!! ...I imagine she rolled her eyes and pretended these strange English children shouting for fizzy drinks were nothing to do with her...! ;-)

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  8. Having recently returned from living in France for many years, I always have a little giggle at how 'les touristes' see France. French is actually a far less expressive language than English because it has fewer words. For example, there's no French word for 'shallow', you can only say 'not very deep'. The French actually find our language much more poetic than their own. The language that the teens speak is certainly not the language of love and poetry and a French bichon would probably be grey with matted fur, though it may well smoke! The French don't really 'speak' as such. If you talk to a French person for any length of time you'll see that it's just a mixture of 'bof', 'alors', gallic shrugs and a funny raspberry thing they do instead of finishing off a sentence.Why on earth did we bother with all those French lessons at school! Great post though

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    1. Love the ''bof', 'alors' and gallic shrugs and a funny raspberry thing they do...'. And also the 'not very deep' for shallow. Perfect addition to the post!! I genuinely love all things French, and it is my own ridiculous French face when attempting to speak French (and the notion that this will somehow make me better understood) that I find so amusing. It really is a thing to behold!
      Many thanks for the comment.

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  9. very funny I think the french make english sound amazing, there is little better than being spoken to by a frenchman in english with a heavy lilt of french to make the words bearly decernable but so easy on the ear.

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