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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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!

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> 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.

That's "le poisson rouge". Unless you mean red passion, but then it's
"*la* passion rouge" :-)

> 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.
> 
> I still have no idea what this word actually means... Any guesses?
> 


"poured again" or something like that. I don't know much about coffee in
general, though... But yes, the "r" is certainly rougher in French, and
this is especially notable at the beginning of words.

> 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...

I would expect this to be true in many languages indeed. Try Chinese
some day, it's even worse :-)

> 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.

Perhaps if you say "mayor see" very quick in English it sounds a bit
like the French "merci" ? Except for the "r"...

> 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.

As a matter of fact, I get the same feeling when I watch TV and find a
Polish station :-) I don't think the structure is more complicated, it's
just the chaining of the sounds that feels unusual.

> 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.

OK so I won't translate that :-D

-- 
Vincent

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>> 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.
> 
> That's "le poisson rouge". Unless you mean red passion, but then it's
> "*la* passion rouge" :-)

Gah. Well, given that I can't spell English properly yet and I can't 
speak French, the chances of spelling it right are... small? :-}

As I side note, it appears to me that the correct way to read French 
writing is to more or less entirely disregard all consonnents and utter 
a complex sequence of modulated vowels. Which, obviously, is quite hard...

[I remember sitting on the train last year and hearing the anouncer 
telling us what station we're arriving at. The word on the board looks 
like a random assortment of uncommon consonnents. But the word the 
person actually said sounded... like something clearing their throat.]

>> I still have no idea what this word actually means... Any guesses?
>>
> 

> "poured again" or something like that. I don't know much about coffee in
> general, though...

Double-filtered coffee or something perhaps? IDK.

> But yes, the "r" is certainly rougher in French, and
> this is especially notable at the beginning of words.

Apparently...

>> 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...
> 
> I would expect this to be true in many languages indeed. Try Chinese
> some day, it's even worse :-)

I imagine you're right...

>> 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.
> 
> Perhaps if you say "mayor see" very quick in English it sounds a bit
> like the French "merci" ? Except for the "r"...

Meh. I sound retarded when I speak English, and I know what I'm doing. 
;-) What chance do I have with French? Heh.

>> 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.
> 
> As a matter of fact, I get the same feeling when I watch TV and find a
> Polish station :-) I don't think the structure is more complicated, it's
> just the chaining of the sounds that feels unusual.

I have the 7-disk collector's boxed set of Jeff Wayne's War of the 
Worlds. For some reason, the Italian and German versions of the famous 
opening prolog sound utterly hilarious to my ears...

>> 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.
> 
> OK so I won't translate that :-D

OMG, I just had a very silly idea... Google Translate. 0;-)

(From the site that brought us "leave the impact price-increase your 
body"...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> 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.

That's completely normal. I used to think the same seeing little kids 
speaking English.

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>> 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.
> 
> That's completely normal. I used to think the same seeing little kids 
> speaking English.

I think the little kids speaking German amaze me more though...

[Not many of those where I was - but I saw one in the Science Museum in 
London one time...]

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:
> I think the little kids speaking German amaze me more though...
> 
> [Not many of those where I was - but I saw one in the Science Museum in 
> London one time...]

You make it sound like he was an exhibit!

:)

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>> I think the little kids speaking German amaze me more though...
>>
>> [Not many of those where I was - but I saw one in the Science Museum 
>> in London one time...]
> 
> You make it sound like he was an exhibit!
> 
> :)

._.

WAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

No no, him and his dad were walking past the Cray II exhibit. As is 
typical in England, dad was saying nothing and his son wouldn't shut the 
hell up...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47a2f325$1@news.povray.org...

> To speak French, you have to actually speak in a
> French accent, or nobody knows what you're saying. Which actually makes
> sense, really...

Try Thai. It's a tonal language. The same sounding word has different
meanings if you say it with a high pitch, medium pitch, low pitch, rising or
falling.

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Gail Shaw wrote:

> Try Thai. It's a tonal language. The same sounding word has different
> meanings if you say it with a high pitch, medium pitch, low pitch, rising or
> falling.

...!!! o_O

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>>> 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.
>>
>> OK so I won't translate that :-D
> 
> OMG, I just had a very silly idea... Google Translate. 0;-)
> 
> (From the site that brought us "leave the impact price-increase your 
> body"...)

Hmm. I've just spent several hours translating every naughty phrase I 
can think of from English to French. Damn, this has got to the the 
silliest thing I've done in a long, *long* time... ;-)

Je me demande, cela fait un sens?

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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