Friday, July 6, 2012

Things French Say, Kinda

This time it's not what the real French say, but rather what my American, yet French speaking, daughter and son say.

Like instead of what day is it? They'll say, 'what day are we?'
This is because in French you say 'nous sommes' whatever day of the year. It's weird. We are the day we are on.Weird, but also philosophical and deep. Think about it.

It's at cross purposes with the acquirement of age, though. You 'have' your number of years of living on this earth. 'J'ai quarante ans.' They're mine, I own them rather than being them. I've got 'em, hard-earned.

Yet, you are the day, can make of it what you want. And when it's done and you're that one day older, you've had it. It's yours to add to your towering stack of days, weeks, months and years that pile up to make you however old you 'are'.

Then there's the Franglish. Both languages mixed up together to make funny sounding sentences. Like this one: 'Today I was mort de rire and everyone else was just sitting there, not thinking it was funny at all.'
Or this: 'I told him to souhaite her happy birthday.'



And my favorites, adding 'ing' to French verbs. Like this: 'We're fairing the pont.' or 'Stop saulting!'.
Then there's the randomly tossed 'regard!' when there's something you want someone to look at, 'arrete!' when they really must stop and when you've really just had enough, 'pfffffft!' or 'ça suffit!'. And I mean it.

The French also have clever ways of disguising a bad word by turning it into something else. We parents of small children know how to do this well, regardless of nationality.

Take for instance, sh*t. My curse word of choice. As a parent of small children, **it comes out as 'shoes!', 'shugar!' or the more nautical, 'shiver me timbers!'. Yes, I have and do say all of these things regularly.

The French are no different. For merde, which doesn't sound dirty to me at all and whose 'm' isn't nearly as much fun to say as the 'sh', they substitute 'mense!' drawing to mind the genius list that Sharon Stone is on (why do I keep these random bits of shugar! in my head?) or the best day of the week, 'mercredi!'. And for the big, bad guy that starts with a 'P' and ends with an 'ain', they love to sub in 'puree'. Ma Fille even does this but hers has become a mouthful of 'puree des carrotes@!@!' instead. Kids say these words on the playground. You can hear them and their shouts of 'ah, mense-(uh)! as they play.

Which leads me to another thing. Down here in the south, just as in any southern spot of a country, they have an accent. This accent has a thing about saying every. single. syllable. of the word and ending with a definitive 'uh'. For example, when the Littlest speaks French there's a lot of phlegm clearing 'r' sounds thrown in with the 'uh', like this: 'ah-rhhhhettt-uh!' He has even started ending some of his more exasperated English words this way, 'Momm-eee-uh!'.

And did you know that Ma Fille talks in her sleep? She does. And in French. Ça suffit-uh!

17 comments:

  1. Fun post Aidan. I enjoyed this one very much, particularly the part about Southern accents. I guess I still speak like your Littlest, after all these years away from "le Midi" and even France! Veronique (French Girl - back in Seattle)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Veronique. It means more coming from a francophone, I can tell you. Are you at the airport or already back home? I loved reading about your travels.
    bon voyage,
    aidan xo

    ReplyDelete
  3. Replies
    1. tu, s'il te plait, tu, mon amie!
      a xo

      Delete
    2. Geez, I'm trying to make a joke and you're correcting my grammar! Tres French!

      Delete
  4. Je me suis tordue de rire...comme d'habitude!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Blandina!,
      you're trilingual, a polyglot, of course you are. i wouldn't expect any less.
      bon weekend,
      aidan xo

      Delete
  5. On vacation with my kids on a ship in the Mediterranean, they were the only Americans and English speaking children. They loved playing ping-pong with the other kids who only spoke French, German, Dutch, Spanish, and Italian. When I asked my kids if they were able to talk to each other, they replied with, "Oh yeah, we taught each other all the cuss words in everyone's language." On the plus side, they learned how to keep score in all the languages, too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. that's always the way isn't it Mem? I certainly remember learning all the bad words (cuss words, i love that) in spanish when i lived in puerto rico my senior year of high school. you have to have an ear for when you're being insulted i guess. and to keep score. thank you for this comment, it made me smile.
      aidan xo

      Delete
  6. As a French teacher I love this post! My friend's daughter (french speaker living in the U.S.) adds -er to English words like: Je veux te talk-er.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow, I didnt' consider the reverse. Adding 'er' to all the verbs to make them her own. How adorable, the sweet girl. Tell her my guys are doing the opposite over here and that we're thinking of her. I'll keep essaying and maybe some day I'll talk-er the French real good.
      aidan xo

      Delete
  7. I love the post...we do alot of the same things up here!! and as far as accents go, my French husband who spent 20 years in the States always spoke English with a French accent and now the French tell him he speaks French with an American accent!!...We have been cracked up for days over that one....

    and by the way There's something for you over on my blog, I'm spreading sunshine...

    ReplyDelete
  8. So sweet! I'm jealous. I'd love to mix up sentences and speak true Franglais if it meant I could speak French. Although I have recently had a few dreams where people are speaking to me in French... not sure if it's correct, but at least my mind is leaning that way. Then I wake up.

    ReplyDelete
  9. It's like you're talking about our house! Just yesterday S asked 'Are we 6 today?' when wanting to know the date. And they are always substituting French into their English 'Lilo was naughty today and was punir-ed by the teacher'. They always talk French in their sleep and when they are arguing with each other! I love it, it makes me smile and I think is the reward for all those hard days at the start when they cried to go home to Australia. I bet you feel the same :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. OMG, Aidan this post cracked me up! Girly, it is hard to write funny--I think you either can or you can't--and you are such a natural at it. :)

    PS. The only way I can be understood here in Arles is if I try and speak with a Provençal accent! Samedi=sa-muh-dee. Sigh.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I love the post! You made me laugh!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Awwww - Ma Fille talks in her sleep en francais? That's adorable. I knew I was FINALLY getting somewhere with learning the lingo when I started to dream in Fench!

    You'll be pleased to know that M and I still franglish it up around these parts.

    My mum used to say "Sugarplum" and "Cheese and Rice" when we were little. Cute.

    ReplyDelete

It makes my day to read your comments. They're an answer to my floating words in blogland.