Dye your hair = FC says "Paint your hairs". I get it. I do.
Eyelashes = FC says "Eyebrushes". Makes more sense and actually I say it this way now.Storage space = FC says "The box"
Hedgehog = FC says "Porkipick". This one is all my fault. He saw a hedgehog while talking with me on the phone and did not know the name for it. Seriously, how many times in your life do you have to say hedgehog, let alone say hedgehog in another language? Anyway after me guessing that it was a porcupine and then having to spell it and say it a few more times I finally figured out he meant hedgehog. But we had said porcupine so much and talked about spines and picks and quills etc... So it became cemented in his mind as porkipick.
FC says fry-panned instead of sauté. Though it seems to me he'd say jump-panned or pan jumped or something since the French verb "sauter" means to jump.
FC says prune to mean plum, see why?
FC says raisins to means grapes, bien sur.
FC says biscuit to mean cookie. Although he actually says it like "biskweet" because of the "...cuits" which in French is pronounced "kwee".
FC says chest to mean breast when talking about poultry. Ex: "I ate duck chest with potatoes today."
FC says drapes to mean sheets, naturally.
So you see, it's starting to make more sense to me and I am having little breakthrough moments. But believe me, I have a long, long way to go. If anyone out there will work for food, I'll cook dinners in exchange for French lessons. Think about it, I could make duck chest with potatoes for you.
5 comments:
How interesting! I can really understand the painting your hairs, chest instead of breast, and drapes instead of sheets. My favorite, though, is the little animals that walk in a line at your picnic. :)
I could make duck chest with potatoes for you
Or duck chest with "apples of the dirt". I've always loved that many European languages dealt with new fruit and vegetables from the New World by just calling them versions of apples. Like tomatoes are pommes d'amour. A pomegranate is an "apple with many seeds". But pineapples are ananas in French, using the tribal word meaning "beautiful fruit".
The story on that one is that the English used to call pine cones "pine apples", because if you don't know what something is, and it grows on a plant, call it some kind of apple. When they encountered pineapples in the Caribbean, they just called them pineapples after the pine cones.
Cheers,
Benito
Delightful topic! I've been on both sides of the Great Language Divide...
1) When we had two Italian guests last spring, I was making conversation with one of the women and asked what her boyfriend back in Padua did for a living.
"He ees...butlair?" she said tentatively.
Hmmm. Do people still have butlers? Guess so, if they've got enough money. "Lavora nella casa dei genti ricca?" I asked in my best firt-year Italian ("Does he work in the house of rich people?")
She looked completely flummoxed. "No no no! Taglia la carne a' pezzi come questo!" And she made swift, violent chop-chop-chop motions, pantomiming the use of a meat cleaver. Lightbulb moment!
"You mean, he is a BUTCHER?" I guessed.
"Si' SI'!" she nodded, all smiles. "He ees BOOT-CHAIR!"
*****************
I was the linguistically-challenged one a few years ago, back when we had horses. I was down at the fairgrounds for a winter hunter-jumper show, and it was FREEZING in the outdoor stabling area. I had heard that there were portable heaters available, so I approached the nearest Mexican helper, who was mucking stalls nearby. I don't speak (much)Spanish, but I managed something about a "maquina del calor" and "necesito"---I don't know what I said. He burst out laughing and shouted to one of his buddies to come quick, and they had an animated, chuckling exchange saying God knows what.
I went to find our boarding stable's own Jose', who was bilingual, and asked him what was so funny. Embarrassed, he told me that whatever I'd said was Spanish slang for---well, what part of the male anatomy do YOU think a "machine of heat" might be?
We are now calling our storage unit our "box"..just love it!
Olivia - Yes, you know the ant story and a few others. As payback, one day someone in France will be writing on their blog about the "funny American and the silly things she says".
Benito - Indeed, chest avec pommes de terre or pommes frites even. I did not know the history of how the pineapple got its name. Very interesting.
Brenda - I am already bracing myself for a linguistic moment of shame!
Sparkling - I use his words sometimes when they make more sense. You will now have to say cartone for box (as he does) if you're using box for storage space. It gets complicated.
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