I’m having fun recalling things about Montréal. Hope you these linguistic trials give you a smile.
French 1 newbie
Je suis née…
not je suis nue!
La rivière march?
Well my dictionary says
marcher means to run
Centre d’achats
sounds like sang de chat.
My tutor shrieks
Sound bites…
“Did you hate your supper?”
“No, I liked it!”
Notes for non-francophones:
Né (M) née (F) means born; nu (M) and nue (F) means nude.
Marcher means to walk like a person walks, or to run like a machine/car would run. La rivière coule, meaning flows. (Better as la rivière s’écoule.) Le camion (truck) s’écoule would get you a chuckle, too, I think.
Centre d’achats is a shopping center; sang de chat means cat’s blood. Yes, my tutor did shriek a bit over that one. 🙂
Francophones have trouble getting the right vowels, too, at times, plus they tend to tack on an “h” now and then. The hair is cool this evening. I hate pizza for supper. Did you hate some, too? Or leave it off, like Cockneys. ‘ave you seen ‘im today?
Dictionaries can bring such chaos. I corrected a French-to-English translator who used remove the apple heart, meaning core, because in the dictionary celery had a heart, so the apple must, too. Our word “fit” can mean like a garment fits, but also someone had a seizure. That has brought some intriguing translation woes.
Christine's Collection 
You are bringing back memories of my time in Quebec. High school French does not prepare one for French in Quebec. I’ve had my share of gaffs – Like trying to make small talk with a really cute guy who spoke no English, I thought I was saying I’m hungry, but I was saying I’m woman, needless to say he kept looking at me funny!! My Francophone friends called me eder (no ‘h’ and no ‘th’)!
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Glad I can jog your memory in a good way. Yeah, there are a lot of adventures and bloopers in a new world, new language. In High school we learned the correct “Je vais…” and hear Quebeckers say, “Shva.” 🙂
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The first time I said “Je ne sais pas” I got strange looks. I can still hear my friends laughing and saying, “no, no, no “shp”! I haven’t used my French in quite a few years now.
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Ah… I made a mistake in Spanish once (many times, but most weren’t very interesting). I got a student’s name wrong and said, “Estoy muy embarasada!” trying to say, “I’m really embarrassed.” But I said, “I’m really pregnant.”
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Thanks for your comment. One missionary trying his Spanish on a young Mexican waitress wanted her to give him a glass — but asked for a kiss instead. 🙂 Yes, there are countless tales of linguistic chaos.
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Ah oui… Montreal (no accent for me when I speak English) has its quirks. Or rather Quebec does, doesn’t it? The French from France have a wee bit of a problem with our québécois 😉 (by the way… marche – you are missing your “e”.
How about: “Ça (ne) marche pas”… meaning it does not work, not it does not walk 😉 instead of “Ça ne fonctionne pas” – the joys.
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My penpal from France tells me they get a kick from some of the pronunciation when they watch made-in-Quebec movies. 🙂
Oh, yes, I did forget that ‘e’! Well, it’s been 24 years. 😉
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At least they get a kick! Too many snub or look down 😉
Hey – you are forgiven 😉
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