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Clients often ask me what
is the best way to learn French and apart from the obvious answers such as
‘listen to french radio, practice as often as you can, talk to the locals
whenever possible’, my sure-fire cheat’s way to learn French is – to live with
a Frenchman!
Most of the time we
chatter away in French and I think I understand 90% of what he is saying –
although there have been times when I have joined him in the garage to help him
look for a ‘Tournevis’, for example, without having the slightest idea what I’m
looking for (it turns out to be a screwdriver). Even if I know the word,
how to pronounce it is another matter – and the day I manage to naturally roll
the letter ‘r’ and pronounce the word ‘Ronronner’ (to purr like a cat) I will
get the champagne out. I had enormous
trouble with the word Grenouille and he helpfully suggested I practice by repeating
the word ‘Couille’ several times – and I apologise to the young secretary in
the office who had to explain to me that it was actually the word for a certain
part of the male anatomy…
But if there are times
when I struggle with french, there are even more times when he struggles with
English, so we speak a strange version of Franglais together, which seems to
work; for example when I received a text saying ‘I am standing you on my car’ I
immediately understood he was waiting for me in the car! It only gets frustrating when we are having a
heated debate (or normal discussion, as the french call it) and by the time I
have got the dictionary out to make my point, I have already lost.
Much as we English like to
use french words such as cul-de-sac, faux-pas, and bon-appetit, similarly many
English words
The best result of our
Anglo-French collaboration is that the dogs are now bi-lingual and respond to
‘Come ici, Pipi in the garden, Allez in Car, Cherche your coat’ etc. The cat appears to be deaf….
