Invisible nous apporta ses lumieres en ce 2008/02/01 05:23:
> During my stay in Switzerland, I discovered a number of things.
> 
> The region I was staying in (Nendaz) speaks French. Now, my knowledge of 
> French is minimal. I recall that what we refer to as a "gold fish", the 
> French call "le passion rougue" ("the red fish"), and that's about it.
We say "le poasson rouge"
> 
> I recall sitting down in the cafe at Siviez. Waitress wanders over and 
> mutters something in French. I look at her for a moment. "Well I hope 
> your English is way better than my French." She looks worried.
> 
> Well anyway, I eventually managed to figure out that if you mumble 
> "shokolah", they bring you a mug of hot chocolate. Which tastes ****ing 
> fantastic BTW.
> 
> Benny likes to drink some kind of coffee. I'm not sure exactly what it 
> is. The waitress comes over and he says "reversay". And she looks at him 
> like "dude, WTF?" Anyway, it turns out the correct way to pronounce this 
> word is actually a cross between saying "reversay" and trying to cough 
> up a gold watch: hhhhhhhhrrreversay. Otherwise they literally have no 
> idea what you're saying.
Kind of sound like "poured again" or "turned over". Depend on the exact context.
> 
> I still have no idea what this word actually means... Any guesses?
> 
> Also somewhat interesting: If you ask an English person how to say 
> "hello" in French, they'll tell you it's "bon-jor". Well, *I* didn't 
> hear anybody say that! What I heard was much more like "bor-shor". 
> Because, you know what? To speak French, you have to actually speak in a 
> French accent, or nobody knows what you're saying. Which actually makes 
> sense, really...
Just *what* french accent are you talking about? There are 100's of them...
I live in Montréal, Québec, end there are times I have dificulties understanding 
some other french speakers.
I can say the same about english eccents ;-)
> 
> Similarly, it's not "mer-see". It appears to involve a completely 
> different set of vowles, more closely approximating "meial-si". Danm, I 
> can't even *type* it, much less say it out loud.
"mer-see" is closer to the way we say it where I live.
> 
> For me, the most baffling thing was hearing little kids uttering 
> complex-sounding French sentences. Now, logically, this isn't 
> surprising. They're probably from France! What else would they be 
> speaking? And yet, it still amazed and astonished me every time... 
> French words seem to have such a complicated structure. And yet these 
> kids toss it around as if it's *easy*. Which, when you're a French 
> person, it probably is.
I was wondering the same when I had to learn english...
> 
> Like I said, logically there's nothing unusual here. Rationally, you 
> know that. But even so, when you see small children casually doing 
> something that you yourself find impossibly difficult... it's always 
> surprising.
> 
> (But then, come to that, there were children there who could ski better 
> than they can *walk*! Really showed me up...)
> 
> You know, it's probably a *good* thing that I don't know how to say "you 
> have a really nice arse" in French. Because that waitress would have 
> probably slapped me for it. Mind you, she says her boyfriend is always 
> teaching her new English words and phrases. (And damn, her English isn't 
> half bad...) Ho hum!
It's "Vous avez un beau derrière!" Or "Vous avez de belles fesses"
Pronounce (aproximataly):
"vou zavai un bo deriair" or "...de bell fess"
And, yes, it could result in a stiff slap in the face...

You may try to first learn Spanish or Italian, then learn French. Learning Latin 
and classical Greek can also help. Anyway, learning a new language is never a waste.

-- 
Alain
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