Say that four times and stay unaffected. Go on, I dare you!
I have finally reached the point where I can follow the story line of CSI in French. I can’t understand every word, mind you, but most of them. The fact that it’s an American series always helps, because they speak at about a tenth of the speed of the locals, so the dubbing is slow enough for non-smurfs to follow.
Naturally, getting to this advanced level of Television proficiency has required intensive french lessons. Three hours a week, apart from this week, when my teacher got a mysterious infection of a bodypart that I could not identify and had to cancel our second lesson. In hindsight, I wonder if it was a coincidence that she got sick just after I spent the entire lesson laughing at her language.
We finally got onto commony used phrases last week. I’ve heard them around the office, but never paid enough attention to realise how funny they sound! Qu’est-ce que c’est, cela? Is used about ten times a meeting by the general population. It’s meant to sound as if you’re drunk and slurring, in case you were wondering, and it means “what is it?” Seriously. Now, in marketing, where I work, people are allowed to be more arty, and I have proof, because they use the word “truc” more often than they use the word “oui”. Truc means trick or thing. Seriously. Oh, and “piste” is another favourite. It actually means ski slope, but they’ve adopted it to mean course of action. So in the average marketing meeting, four people sit around saying “j’ai fait un truc, qu’est-ce que c’est cu truc, d’accord, nous avons deux pistes” and so on. In other words “mumble, stutter, truc; drunken slur, truc; hack up a hairball (their word for OK); mumble, mumble, duh pissed.”
Listen to that four times and stay unaffected. I dare you!
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