mercredi, février 28, 2007
Bilingue?
I read a quote a while back from someone else having lived in Paris for a while: "I am semi-bilingual- that is, I now speak two languages badly."
After a year and a bit here, and now speaking french pretty much all day most of the time, I now understand perfectly what that person was talking about. More and more franglais is creeping into my english, which luckily Alex usually points out, or I don't even notice it. I don't mean just using a french word instead of an english one, but accidentally getting caught the wrong way over a false friend. False friends ("faux amis") are words that are very similar in the two languages, but actually don't mean the same thing. The classic example, which I threw out over lunch a few months ago, is "preservative." What I wanted to say: "this tastes like preservatives." What I actually said: "this tastes lke condoms." Preservative sounds very much like preservatif, wouldn't you agree? Unfortunately preservatif means CONDOM!
Anyway, these sorts of mistakes are to be expected at least, considering that my french is still improving (what a euphimistic way to say that I sound like a 5 year old most of the time).
But I think it is wierd, and rather worrying, when I make similar mistakes in english! Yet recent examples include discussing how many "chains" we have on the TV, "branching" an appliance, being "deranged" by too many "reunions", searching for a "box" of tomatoes...
After a year and a bit here, and now speaking french pretty much all day most of the time, I now understand perfectly what that person was talking about. More and more franglais is creeping into my english, which luckily Alex usually points out, or I don't even notice it. I don't mean just using a french word instead of an english one, but accidentally getting caught the wrong way over a false friend. False friends ("faux amis") are words that are very similar in the two languages, but actually don't mean the same thing. The classic example, which I threw out over lunch a few months ago, is "preservative." What I wanted to say: "this tastes like preservatives." What I actually said: "this tastes lke condoms." Preservative sounds very much like preservatif, wouldn't you agree? Unfortunately preservatif means CONDOM!
Anyway, these sorts of mistakes are to be expected at least, considering that my french is still improving (what a euphimistic way to say that I sound like a 5 year old most of the time).
But I think it is wierd, and rather worrying, when I make similar mistakes in english! Yet recent examples include discussing how many "chains" we have on the TV, "branching" an appliance, being "deranged" by too many "reunions", searching for a "box" of tomatoes...
mercredi, février 14, 2007
Tu l'as dans ton cul?
While I would like to blame the hiatus on the needless extra silliness of new-no-longer-beta-mode-google-owned-blogger, it is in fact only my own laziness busy-ness laziness causing this dire state of affairs.
Getting right back to the business of analysing important cultural differences and observation of strange french habits, today we had an interesting seminar on suppositories. As you can imagine, this is not necessarily a topic that one can easily broach at dinner parties, but I have indeed been curious about this stereotype which I have heard about from other foreigners, but never from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
But today, I almost fell off my chair when the distinguished young academic drew up on the blackboard a very clear schematic of a circle (some might call it a hole) with a bullet-shaped blob heading towards it, with an arrow marking the direction. I am not joking here. As he continued to espouse the wonders of this very effective route of administration of any medication you like, I wondered if he, or indeed my friends sitting around me, had any idea how uncomfortable (very uncomfortable) I found the concept of deciding to take a medicine via the rectum. Not a medicine doing some sort of good in that area, but any old medecine. Panadol, anyone?
I was also itching (though not in any sense requiring suppositories, I assure you) to know if these things were as commonly used as this guy was making out, but again, a delicate natural restraint prevented me from asking my friends if they routinely put medecines in their bums. Luckily, he came to my rescue by pointing out that unfortunately suppositories are not very popular in anglo-saxon cultures, and so world-wide, cultural acceptance limits their use. This led to my much-less restrained friends turning to me mid-seminar: "Is it true," they whispered, "don't you use suppositories?" Which pretty much answered my question as to whether they did! However, most added that they didn't like them, and tried to avoid them as best they could. So I guess suppositories might be on the way OUT.
Then again, maybe I have just been lucky enough to escape all these years, and suppositories are just as rife in Australia... Noodle? Margs? Annika?
Getting right back to the business of analysing important cultural differences and observation of strange french habits, today we had an interesting seminar on suppositories. As you can imagine, this is not necessarily a topic that one can easily broach at dinner parties, but I have indeed been curious about this stereotype which I have heard about from other foreigners, but never from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
But today, I almost fell off my chair when the distinguished young academic drew up on the blackboard a very clear schematic of a circle (some might call it a hole) with a bullet-shaped blob heading towards it, with an arrow marking the direction. I am not joking here. As he continued to espouse the wonders of this very effective route of administration of any medication you like, I wondered if he, or indeed my friends sitting around me, had any idea how uncomfortable (very uncomfortable) I found the concept of deciding to take a medicine via the rectum. Not a medicine doing some sort of good in that area, but any old medecine. Panadol, anyone?
I was also itching (though not in any sense requiring suppositories, I assure you) to know if these things were as commonly used as this guy was making out, but again, a delicate natural restraint prevented me from asking my friends if they routinely put medecines in their bums. Luckily, he came to my rescue by pointing out that unfortunately suppositories are not very popular in anglo-saxon cultures, and so world-wide, cultural acceptance limits their use. This led to my much-less restrained friends turning to me mid-seminar: "Is it true," they whispered, "don't you use suppositories?" Which pretty much answered my question as to whether they did! However, most added that they didn't like them, and tried to avoid them as best they could. So I guess suppositories might be on the way OUT.
Then again, maybe I have just been lucky enough to escape all these years, and suppositories are just as rife in Australia... Noodle? Margs? Annika?
