The crazy people have found me

When translation goes wrong

The marmot: the new Loch Ness monster

Appearing local
As I mentioned in one of my last blog entries, I’ve moved house. I now live in St Jean de Sixt, which is the next village down from La Clusaz, so it’s not a very big move. A friend visited the new house on the weekend, and as we walked towards the bakery, just a few minutes away, we obviously looked local enough for not one, but two cars to stop and ask for directions. The first car asked for directions to Aravis. My French friend explained that the entire region is the Aravis, so they were already there. They weren’t convinced and wanted to know where the football stadium in the town of Aravis was. She explained again that the Aravis is a region and that it coul

Attractive meal?
First of all, I’m very sorry about this image, but it wasn’t fair that my eyes should suffer it alone, and my blog has been a bit barren of images of late, so I’m sharing it. Once again, I have French junk mail to thank for finding me a topic for my blog. What we have here is a whole rabbit, skinned, and apparently ready for cooking and eating, with pleasant garnish. But I can’t help but see a human backside on this bunny. My overactive imagination has been aided by the hidden head and lack of trotters, which would have made this meat

Recycling in France
I’ve just had a big clean-out at my place in preparation for moving house. One of the things I decided to get rid of was a boat oar. How did I end up with a boat oar in a ski resort? That’s a good question, and I can explain it, but the bigger question is how the boat oar ended up in a ski resort before it belonged to me. That, I can’t answer. Here’s what I know. A few years ago, I celebrated my birthday with lots of friends in my big front yard, but I had no sports equipment. No worries: we used a heavy plastic plate as a frisbee and we found a ball that the next door neighbour’s dog dropped for us to use. But we needed a bat. And that’s where the oar

The usefulness of this blog
My blog statatistics tell me what some visitors have searched for before they arrived at my site, and they’re mostly on track with the content of this blog. The number one search every day is ‘how to pronounce French words’. I’ve discussed this, but there’s certainly no lessons coming from me, considering I’m still struggling to make the rolling ‘r’ sound!  So, for those visitors, try going to the BBC learn French website or the Indo-European Languages free online tutorials. Now that I̵

French vs English banter
I was talking last night to an American friend who is married to a French girl, and he remarked one something that had never occurred to me. He said: “Have you noticed how in English, we insult our friends by animal, whereas foods are used French?” I hadn’t noticed. So, I’ve been thinking about it. In English, you can indeed call your mate a pig, dog, cow, turkey, chicken, snake, donkey, ass and more. The only food-related insult I can think of right now is saying somebody is a cabbage or a couch potato. I’m sure there are more, along with a few nice ones, like calling someone pumpkin or honey, but banter-wise, the animals definitely outweigh the food