Axiom Home Page Forums Forum français Cinéma-Maison On est combien ici?

Ben alors?? C'est la foire ici!
Enfin bon c'est gentil de venir nous voir!

Jack, I was very fortunate to have visited Paris for a high school trip. We didn't see much of the city because we spent most of our time in other parts of France. We didn't even get to go inside the Louvre because it was on strike!

Anyway, my language skills sucked regardless of taking four years of the language. I sort of blame the teacher because our studies were mainly textbook oriented rather than comprehension and speaking. My reading and writing skills were good, but reality set it while in France that I could not understand the spoken language, nor could I speak it clearly enough for non-English speaking natives to understand me. My first experience was when we first arrived which was actually in Switzerland. We went into a candy store and we wanted to know how much these assorted chocolates cost. Everyone was afraid to ask, so I stepped up to the plate because it was such an easy question: "Excusez-moi, combien des chocolates?" Then when the clerk rattled off the answer, I turned around to my friends and asked, "Anyone understand any of that?" That's when I knew we were in trouble!

Currently, I'm trying to learn Japanese on my own! This language is completely different as you can imagine!

EDIT-"Combien des chocolates?" is wrong! HA!HA! And I said it was an EASY thing to ask! I just realized that means "how many chocolates" rather than "how much are the chocolates". I *believe* I asked correctly at the time though! If not, the clerk must of though I was crazy!

Well, as much as I want to see Paris, I would also enjoy, very much, seeing the rest of France, where the less sophisticated, more down to earth French folk live.

Jack my wife and her best friend made a two week trip to France this past July for one of their friend's son's wedding just outside of Nice. They flew into Paris were they stayed a few days and then made the drive down to Nice and Cannes for the wedding, which was on a hillside summer home of the French bride's parents. My wife said the people in Paris were actually a lot friendlier than she had expected and the folks in the country treated them like family. She really and truly enjoyed the trip.

During the 70's I lived in northern Greece just outside of Thessaloniki for four years, thought I'd learn the proper language but that went out the window in no time, it didn't take too long before my all of my language skills was picked up off the street, slang and all ... which got me by just fine!

Sounds like just the kind of wonderful trip I'd like to make, Rick. Having heard so much about the unfriendly treatment of Americans by the French, I'm delighted, and find it encouraging, to hear your wife and friend were treated so well.

No surprise about you learning the language best from the streets. IMHO, the best way to learn any language is to just wade in there and use it. Doesn't help a lot in reading comprehension, but one sure can learn to understand, speak, and think in it much faster.

Humble apologies to our French-speaking friends for the thread hijack

Mary, my experiences in both Germany and France were similar to yours.

I had enough reading and inflection training in both languages to be intelligible - and to make natives think I "understood" - but not nearly enough to understand. "Awkward" is a profound understatement.

I salute the truly bilingual hi-fi lovers among us!

Salud, meine Damen and Messieurs!

L'homme malheureux est très confondu!

What about my peppery fondue?

EDITL you changed your word choice and ruined by joke.

I suspect your peppery fondue is just as unfortunate (malheureux) as you. (Although, I plead guilty to being ruined by joke )