G-J-B

I haven't come out with any classics as of yet, like saying 'thanks, nice ass' instead of 'merci beaucoup', but maybe you've been in that situation where you get those blank glazed eyes looking at you?

I know how to hit my 'tion' endings, but twice this week I've gone to La Poste and asked for some declaration en douane stickers, and they've thought I was after Christmas decorations or stamps. You have to laugh at yourself, shrug your shoulders and explain it's your accent. I got there in the end, but I was certain it was coming out well, but who am I kidding. I must have a long way to go.
Do any of you have strong regionalised UK accents - Newcastle, Brumy etc, anything that's difficult enough to understand in Britain let alone France? Is it a handicap? Perhaps if you're Gaelic, you have an advantage and can roll out those r's. I know I can't for the life of me.

Sometimes I find it to my advantage. As I was trying to get into La Poste, two down and outs with beer cans in hand were hassling me (obviously for money) as I was trying to get past them to get through the door. I just shrugged, 'I don't understand'.

treskillard

I used to guide near Les Eyzies in the Perigord. I always wondered why the kids used to giggle when I spoke until I was finally told I was pronouncing Les Eyzies, Les Zizi (the willies).

Another time I was taking a group of french people around a tourist site and was telling them about a friend who was giving some puppies (chiots) away. As I told them: J'ai un ami avec des chiottes (loos) a donner.

Finally, in the Aude earlier this year I was learning patois and a phrase I learned from a old couple was something like "a te'baize" meaning "Aurevoir". I used it in the village and of course I was saying "a te baise" or "get fuc*ed".

Ka Ora!

Everyday, the Ariege accent is terribly difficult to pick up. What's annoying is our little boy has it down to a pat.

G-J-B

Treskillard - that cracked me up. I bet the kids thought you were the funniest guide ever. As for the last one - I can only imagine the looks on the faces of the people you told to get f****d!!

Ka Ora, what happens to the ears and tongues of adults that prevents them from picking up accents the way kids can? I wish I'd been taught the French vowel sounds when I was a toddler. I wonder if there's a documented psychological condition for the envy and resentment expats might harbour towards their kids who can speak a language better than they can.

Ka Ora!

Well I find it works best if you have half a mouthful of beer, Hence having missed the last 5 or 6 years.

G-J-B

With a bit of alcohol in the system I can speak many languages fluently (mainly Hungarian or something Scandinavian), all except English. If the other party also has a few drinks in them then communication between language barriers is simple.

My French teacher told me it's all about speaking from the back of the throat. My girlfriend used to tell me we English are like rabbits, with our long front teeth which we hit with the tip of our tongues - we're all 'toothy' when we speak, so it kind of helped to know where French vowel sounds might all be coming from. Now I try to keep the tongue down in the mouth instead of banging against those rabbit teeth and banging against the top of the mouth too often. I remember sitting on the sofa with my teacher pretending to cough up phlegm from the back of the throat to try and get those rolling r's. It was always a bit hit and miss.

Le Chant

Messy too, at a guess?

Ewood

Sounds a little Welsh too?

Ka Ora!

Thats something I can get to grips with.

Andrea50

Well, we had numerous language breakdowns, from my ex trying to find the "religious" (church) and ending up in a cake shop (we found out religieuse is a yummy cake).

Then there was the new neighbour who came tearing on his rickety push bike down our very long drive to greet us during our first week, with a lethal looking bottle of wine and something unidentifiable picked in a jar, and in very broken English said "Ah, you like Poirot?" and we said "Ah, oui Poirot" and then it went to hell in a hat because after about half an hour of weird responses with us doing handlebar moustache impressions and pretending to peer through a pretend magnifying glass, the guy tore off and came back with a huge box full of leeks ......... we had no idea what he was on about, but found out later poirot (poireaux) is leeks.

Finding out that freines is brakes was a bit hair raising as we were testing a car at the time that the bloke had tried (presumably) to warn us had dodgy brakes - course we didn't find that out till we sailed down a hill at 50kph and ended up in a ditch rather white and shaken.

Getting directions to a house for sale on the canal du midi and ending up in a knackered church cos we said Eglise instead of Ecluse.

Without gestures, pointing, jumping up and down and doing impressions, notebooks to draw in and extremely understanding neighbours we could have ended up seriously nutty that first year learning the language - oh wait a minute, I did end up seriously nutty .........

The funniest (well for me at least) was my ex trying to find out from Jacques our neighbour what to say at the hairdressers - Jacques made lots of gestures and mumbled a bit and said "tondeuse". So, off he went and came back with THE most frightful short pudding basin cut on earth - apparently, in Lot, tondeuse (lawn mower) is "code" at the hairdressers for "chop it all off mate I want a short back and a slap".

All great fun and part of the ups and downs of life in a new country

Happy Drunken Saturday to all

G-J-B

They are brilliant! You could write a book with those stories. God the Poirot one made me laugh - he must have thought you were cookoo! Mind you the French do like their Poirot, so I would probably have interpreted it in the same way.

As for the brakes - it seems some words can be a life saver! Ooops.

All great stories, thanks for sharing.

I've not had my haircut since the start of September - I've just been holding it off until I get to the UK this Christmas, not only because of the expense in Paris, but I'm afraid, like your ex, I'll get the short pudding basin (brings back bad childhood memories from the 1980's!). Only shaved yesterday after 2 months, the smartly dressed Parisians must have thought me Neaderthal man!

annqldau

We moved to Aus instead and sold our French land but after having loads of problems with Australians struggling with my accent I hate to think what prolonged life in France would have been like as my French was fairly hopeless as well.

G-J-B

Anything that sticks bizarre combinations of throaty letters alongside one another sounds Welsh to me Ewood.

Annqldau - what accent did you inherit from the UK? I imagine Aus is a world removed from France, non?

Jazzy n Lol

It always seems hilarious to me that even the smallest mistake over a sound in the word can throw french people into such confusion. We have pondered for hours why this is so, because if someone asked me in the most terrible accent in the world, where something was...I could work it out.

Example:

Stranger - Verr ist Misster Book in Ham Plass?

Me - eh? hmmm...ah...you mean Buckingham Palace....right...take the first left...etc

Perhaps we are more exposed to a larger variety of accents in the UK. I don't know, it is interesting though.

I used to have problems between the ou and u sound. Dessous and dessus being the classic. I told someone once - ah J'adore ton pull.... they looked at me with suspicion and began edging away until I grabbed their jumper and repeated it. Apparently they thought I had designs on their hen.

Being a welshie my accent comes out a lot softer than Lol's. He's a Manchester lad, with undertones of B'ham thrown in, and he does tend to get The Look more than I. So I do think regional acents play a large part in getting understood.

annqldau

A Durham accent so it's bad enough in Aus without trying to roll my r's.