Everybody knows the expression to make a gaffe – to make a mistake. This word is also used in French with the same meaning.
So you can imagine my confusion when I first started hearing the expression – “J’ai pas fait gaffe” (or less colloquial and more correctly put – “Je n’ai pas fait gaffe”) because it does not mean “I didn’t make a mistake” – it means “I didn’t pay attention!”
Il faut faire gaffe de ne pas faire cette gaffe! (Be careful not to make this same blunder)!
Sigh … do you suppose it’s going to rain again?
My mother is taking French lessons so she can communicate with her stubborn grandchildren, who will only speak to her in French, even though we repeatedly say to them – to him (much like a broken record), “William, speak English; otherwise no one will know what you’re saying.”
“William, what’s this?”
“Dog!”
“What’s this?”
“Lion!”
“What’s this?” (pointing to cow)
“Bah . . . shay pas” (That was “je ne sais pas,” by the way, which means “I don’t know”).
Je shay pas if it will rain again or not.
He’s going to join my English classes next Fall because some of my students have a better grasp of his mother tongue than he does. My mother, on the other hand, is intrepid in her quest for learning languages. And she has been sharing (questioning) by e-mail just a few of the things she has learned.
Why not hear it all directly from her (with a few clarifications from me in blue). Addendum: Oh dear, now that the post has been up all day, my French friend Christian (not my delinquent husband who only reviewed what I wrote quickly) had a couple more corrections to make, which I’ll add in red.
Just wanted to verify that you’re not supposed to pronounce the “t” in et if it’s followed by a vowel, like “et un chien”. Jeff (my super smart brother, knowledgable in all things) says that otherwise it gets confused with “est”.
Yes, Maman, that’s right. Jeff is right. You never make the liaison with the French word for and (et); however you do pronounce the t in the the variant of être. C’est un chien is pronounced Set un chien. And Il était une fois (Once Upon a Time) is pronounced Il est-tet une fois. And while we’re at it, the word for when – quand – takes on an unusual liaison when followed by a vowel. Quand à moi (means – As for me) is pronounced quant à moi. The liaison happens in the form of a t, even though quand ends in d.
Christian: En fait, “quant à moi” s’écrit avec un t, ce n’est pas le même mot que quand.
Me: So guys. Apparently quant is a different word than quand. Duh.
But rain brings gorgeous skies.
Voila. In French, it’s a fairly mundane word, used often. In the U.S., it’s used by a magician pulling a scarf out of someone’s ear, or by someone with an ingenious housekeeping tip. That’s right! In English voila carries more meaning than it does in French. You say voila when you hand someone a pen, for instance.
Voila! More calla lily photos because they are so so pretty.
Derrière. What, a porch has a derrière? Hee hee, my mom is funny. Derrière just means behind. Not only your butt behind, but also behind the house – behind the car – behind the table. In fact, butt is fesse, pronounced like fess up! And while we’re at it, since I live with two boys, fart is prout. Like Proust without the s. He would be so honored by the association.
Christian: On dit plutôt “l’arrière de la maison” que “le derrière de la maison” (ce qui serait drôle). Mais on dit bien “derrière la maison”, mais pas “le derrière de la maison”.
Me: So you’re more likely to say l’arrière de la maison, than you are to say derrière de la maison, (and he made a joke about saying the butt of the house which is untranslatable).
This gorgeous flower is blooming derrière our house.
Entrée. Appetizer? Yup. I once did a blog post about that, about how entrée always means appetizer, and it you want to talk about the main dish, you say plat principal. (The t is silent in plat). However, entrée also means the entryway to a house or a building or a park.
Someone gave this to me, and since I’m not crazy about the smell, I planted it far away from the house in a semi-shady spot where no légume seems to want to grow.
Chef. Not a cook necessarily, but chief or boss. C’est ça. When you say chef, the French will first think of the head of something before they think of a cook.
Christian: Pâte et patte se prononcent différemment, sauf si on parle vite, un peu comme en anglais (live/leave).
Me: So I was wrong. Patte and pâte are not pronounced exactly the same, unless you’re speaking quickly (and he related it to how an anglophone would say live and leave the same way if speaking quickly, which we would so NOT!) 😉
Mariage Frères is a great place to find culinary delicacies. It even has a tea salon, but it carries a hefty “addition.”
Dusk falls on another cold rainy day as we eat a late dinner.
Thanks to Maman, you can now fais gaffe in order to not make a huge gaffe with this tricky language.
I am very proud of your mom! Languages are hard for me. This was really interesting stuff, though. I think I will use derrière today to mean behind, and watch all the English-speaking people around me look confused.
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I love that you Mom is learning French! Awesome!
tracy@sellabitmum recently posted…Why I Still Shop At Abercrombie & Fitch
My Mom is learning too! My children speak English now that they live in the US, but she wants to be in on the secret language we speak at home.
And I love Mariage Frères. I picked up my last pack in 2009 and have been slowly drinking it since. We have a trip planned for Christmas 2014 so I’ll have to stock up again. I probably shouldn’t take any clothes since I have so much to ‘stock up’ on while there… sigh.
I think it’s awesome that your Mom is learning French! It is a tricky language. My sister took classes for a year, and she could converse somewhat, but after not speaking it for a while, she’s completely forgotten everything!
I was actually looking up French classes when I was pregnant with #1. Not working and all that time on my hands. But I ended up learning to make jewelry instead. Not very useful now.
C’est la vie! (heh)
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How wonderful that your mother is learning French now. I enjoyed your lesson while reading it, but retained nothing 🙂 Kind of like high school!
Poppy recently posted…Home Cooking Makes You Good Looking
Kudos to your mom. I find French very tricky, it makes me tongue roll and move in ways, I never it could! Despite that, I still could not pronounce it correct. I had no choice to learn a few important words when I was stalking the French babywearing groups to score me one of their locally made carrier. Things I’d do when I have my.mind set. 😀
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I wish I had a firmer grasp of the French language. I call myself “functionally bilingual” because I can usually grasp what is being said in French but need to think real hard how to reply, and I probably screw up a lot. I spoke French for more than 12 years, but a few years not practicing really has a terrible effect on it.
Also, I KNOW French in France is different than French in Quebec which is different from French in my native bilingual province of New Brunswick.
I think it’s awesome that your mom is learning French and it makes me laugh that your son is speaking it like it is his mother tongue. I think that means he is pretty settled. 🙂
I love this because there are ways in with French is so similar to Spanish (both romantic languages, after all). In Spanish we say Plato Principal for main dish and entre means between.
Also legumbre is Spanish for vegetables.
So interesting.
Katie Sluiter recently posted…Ellen Foster {book review}
I think it is very cool that she is learning French. I had French for two years in high school I remember vite. That’s it.
Jennifer recently posted…Nature
Hilarious! And Mama convos are always worth their weight in gold.
Keely recently posted…Things That Go Bump In The Tank Top.
Few things annoy me more than people saying “…and wala!” instead of “voila.”
Leigh Ann recently posted…Unslumping yourself is not easily done
OH man, you just made me miss my High School French teacher so much. She was awesome. I love French. I wish I had kept up with it. But instead when I FINALLY get to France I’ll just look you up and have you take me around, d’accord? 😉
P.S. Good for your Maman!!
Elaine A. recently posted…Talkin’ ’bout my girl
I love that your mom is learning French. My parents spent six weeks in Paris a couple of years ago, and I bought them a bunch of simple learn to speak French books. I’m sure they’re unopened, and my dad called every waiter “Garcon” with a hard “c.”
I want those books back.
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When my sister got married (in that there Paris to an actual Frenchman, confusingingly named William–my mom called him Guillame for a few weeks until he said …er, my name is William)…anyway – I went into a nail salon and asked – in my rudimentary French– what the difference was between the two specials they had advertised for manicures. The man rattled off the answer en francais & I was so pleased that he talked, you know, French. My sister asked “well, what’s the difference?” I said: I have no idea. Because of course the difference between being able to parse together a simple sentence and then actually *knowing* what someone says? That’s the part where you actually have to learn the language! Bon chance a votre maman!
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Hey, I only have one class week, so don’t expect miracles.
–French is the most beautiful language on earth. For example, one can say “SHIT” in French and it would sound oh-so-poetic!
Love that your Mama is learning this…This says something about her wonderful, caring character.
The RED flower is pure blood red magic!
Xxx LOVE.
My Inner Chick recently posted…Murder, Therapy, & Walking Thru The Fire
It is WAY COOL that your mom is learning French, especially when it’s so much harder for adults.
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