For those of you who travel to France - are you now bilingual? 😀

[Janine]

 

[ManTheVan]

Brilliant!

 

[ChrisL]

This may be a good way of learning a different language, if you introduce foreign words into an English text gradually increasing the number of foreign words it may make it easier to sink in. Does anyone know if this has been done commercially yet?

 

[Lenny HB]

Nar, I just shout louder in English of course.

We saw Warhorse on Broadway, the scene where the British soldier is talking to the little French girl, she doesn't understand so he keeps repeating it louder. We were laughing our heads off, then we realised we were the only ones in the theater laughing and the whole audience was looking at us, yanks don't get British humor.

 

[tacr2man]

Have you got one for tri' or quadrilingual ?

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[ChrisSue]

Ah Franglais.

 

[Gaston aires]

Mon dieu, avez vous cuppa.
Bonjour, sava, Cafe creme,sil vous plait, does it for me.
Phillipe

 

[Bailey58]

And one of old-mo's favourites

Germish

Directors at Daimler Benz and Chrysler have announced an agreement to adopt English as the preferred language for communications, rather than German, which was another possibility.

As part of the negotiations, directors at Chrysler conceded that English spelling has some room for improvement and have accepted a five-year phase-in plan.

In the first year, "s" will be used instead of the soft "c". Also, the hard "c" will be replased with "k". Not only will this klear up konfusion, but komputers have one less letter.

There will be growing kompany enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replased by "f". This will make words like "fotograf" 20 persent shorter.

In the third year, DaimlerKhrysler akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible.

DaimlerKhrysler will enkourage the removal of double letters, whish have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent "e"'s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.

By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps sush as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" by "v".

During ze fifz year, ze unesesary "o" kan be droped from vords kontaining "o", and similar shanges vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis, and employes vil find it ezi to kommunikat viz eash ozer.

Ov kors al supliers vil be expekted to us zis for all busines komunikation via DaimlerKhrysler.

Ze drem vil finali kum tru ...

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad yu smil, plez pas on to oza pepl.

 

[carolyn]

We have a number of “Parallel text”books in French and Spanish that were originally bought for my children. Similar principal I suppose. I would have to say they are pretty heavy going in English, certainly not Enid Blyton type of thing.

The French stories barely make sense in English!
That’s very rude of me of course but pretty heavy going.

 

[L' Hobo]

As with many other languages, I know enough to get me into trouble but not enough to get me out of it!

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[Janine]

I do surprise myself when I realise just how much O level French I have retained after 50 years!

It goes to show that learning is best done young

 

[Tea Bag]

Hi.
After weeks of practice a long time ago,i have perfected the.............. " Gallic Shrug ".... Proper ! Vive la belle France.
Tea Bag

 

[tacr2man]

I do surprise myself when I realise just how much O level French I have retained after 50 years!

It goes to show that learning is best done young

We did German French and Latin at school , the Latin didnt stick for some reason ?

 

[Gail-force]

I've just come back from a tour of France...I'd bought the Learn French with Paul Noble cd box set and can confidently ask for a pitch for the night, order my dinner (but only if it's the dish of the day) and several other useful phrases...didn't use it once! just about everyone spoke English because the Dutch (and all the rest of the people from there abouts) all speak English and the majority of mo-ho's I saw had NL stickers on the back...the one time I needed a translation "where are your small shopping trolleys?" I ended up using Google Translate

 

[Jimbohorlicks]

Mange tous, as Del would say.

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[Gina M]

I do surprise myself when I realise just how much O level French I have retained after 50 years!

It goes to show that learning is best done young

I sat in a bar in Paris a few years ago talking to the barman in French. On the second night he asked me where did you learn to speak French, I said at school. He laughed and said the way you speak French is the equivalent of me speaking the Queens English. So basically I was talking right posh French. Ooh la la

Gina

 

[Janine]

I sat in a bar in Paris a few years ago talking to the barman in French. On the second night he asked me where did you learn to speak French, I said at school. He laughed and said the way you speak French is the equivalent of me speaking the Queens English. So basically I was talking right posh French. Ooh la la

Gina

Similarly, I did an adult refresher course in German and the tutor corrected my 'ick' to 'ish'. Seems like schoolboy/girl pronunciation leaves a lot to be desired

 

[Janine]

We did German French and Latin at school , the Latin didnt stick for some reason ?

Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatus, amant.

 

[carolyn]

I loved Latin at school. Being a very old fashioned girls Grammar school once the O’level choices were made it was Needlework or Latin, unbelievably limiting. The clever girls did Latin and everyone else had to do needlework. I had 2 wonderful years of Pliny, lovely stories of dolphins and Vesuvius. My cousin at the Boys school down the road had a different exam board which seemed to focus on the Roman legions so he was happy as well!

One of the other choices was Greek, German or Geography. I desperately wanted to do German but chose Geography because even though my Granny was dead by then I knew she would have been horrified by me doing German. One of her sons had been murdered by the Nazis in Sachenhausen, 2 more had fought. Interestingly one of the guards has just this week been found guilty and sentenced to prison for his crimes. How strange that this thread has reminded me of that choice nearly 50 years ago.

 

[Janine]

I loved Latin at school. Being a very old fashioned girls Grammar school once the O’level choices were made it was Needlework or Latin, unbelievably limiting. The clever girls did Latin and everyone else had to do needlework. I had 2 wonderful years of Pliny, lovely stories of dolphins and Vesuvius. My cousin at the Boys school down the road had a different exam board which seemed to focus on the Roman legions so he was happy as well!

Me too! I love the origins of language and seeing the Latin connections

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[ChrisSue]

I did the same in German but when we were doing the re enactment stuff there were people in our Regiment who came from Schwabenland. Anyway I did the "introduce yourself in German " and the teacher and I were responding nicely. A little later I was doing a 1 to 1 with another from the class who said that she could tell that my German was good from the conversation with the teacher but she was struggling to understand me. A chuckle from the teacher who said that three years of learning Hoch Deutsch at school had been totally wasted and that I spoke like a person from Schwabenland. As a comparison the Schwabish accent is kind of "Geordie German " (no offence to anyone from there"

 

[Euromobil]

Something I can't stop myself doing is translating km speed limits to miles, just can't stop it, despite the fact that I check my speed on the sat nav in km

 

[sedge]

Spanish but sort of similar - I was at my friend's villa near Almeria with her one summer and one of her also English neighbours was telling us the tale of a conversation she'd had with a Spanish workman re some job she needed doing on her villa and told us I said to him, Jennifer, I said, 'Quando me hermano was aqui ....' - and I've always wondered whether that really was what she said!

I well recall the 'Let's parler franglais' column in Punch and always said I can do better than that cos I can speak Espanglais fluently - when I can't immediately think of the word in French or Spanish, I will naturally always remember it fine in Spanish or French. This is only ever a problem to the native French or Spanish person of course. They're just not educated to the same standard as we have been here, are they?

 

[yodeli]

We have a number of “Parallel text”books in French and Spanish that were originally bought for my children. Similar principal I suppose. I would have to say they are pretty heavy going in English, certainly not Enid Blyton type of thing.
View attachment 637286
The French stories barely make sense in English!
That’s very rude of me of course but pretty heavy going.

LOL, you are not being rude! It is exactly the same the other way round . Stories are more adapted than translated

 

[Reallyretired]

I did, and passed (just) O level French 50 odd years ago and still remember quite a lot, though I find written French easier. My accent is appalling and I have been told my English is more comprehensible than my French to the average French person.
On one occasion I was asked where we had come from and I said Millau, never heard of that she said. I had pronounced it rather as spelled 'Mill ow" when I wrote it down she said 'ah meal yo' or something like that.

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[63720]

I have a series of books called Let's Parlez Franglais by Miles Kington, they always make me chuckle even though I've read them many times.

If every country had taught Esperanto as a second language we wouldn't have had as much fun.

 

[tacr2man]

My German is regional (Bavarian sort of west country German) been commented on in other parts of Germany , as we did several student exchanges which resulted in life long family friendship and visits . Having lived in Australia for about 15 yrs my Australian is quite fluent as well

 

[tacr2man]

I have a series of books called Let's Parlez Franglais by Miles Kington, they always make me chuckle even though I've read them many times.

If every country had taught Esperanto as a second language we wouldn't have had as much fun.

Its likely Polari will be the mandated tuition soon

 

[hja]

My grammar school used streams not sets for organisation. So despite being in the middle of the top stream, I was put into stream because my French and Latin were so bad! I still had to do French, but not Latin.
despite passing all my other O levels, I failed French, twice.
I remember some bits. I can ask for things, nothing complicated. Can’t hold a conversation. Can often understand written stuff better than spoken.

 

[Tea Bag]

Hi.
The French cannot understand drawings. True story. Our Claire had bought a house near Civray France,the " Notaire " was a chap from Yorkshire and when on about buying some furniture told us there was a local " Furniture auction " where you could pick up good old solid pieces of kitchen stuff cheap. Off we went to the area thinking it would be advertised...No..... After asking three or four people,i decided to make a drawing of chairs-tables-beds etc. So next chap..." Ah monsieur...WHERE IS THE FURNITURE AUCTION ? Sil vous plait ?...( Silver Platter ? )
He started to show lefts and rights with his arms..i nodded OK and thanked him. Off we went...Lefts and rights and...... and... Pulled up outside a HOTEL.................... Laugh / we never stopped for DAYS. happy days in France. That would be just over 30 years ago. Still makes " I " smile. To many to relate about being over there in the lorry.
Tea Bag .

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