What Does a Frenchman Love More Than Wine and Cheese?

So, what does a Frenchman love more than wine and cheese?

French. Yep, a Frenchman literally loves to hear himself speak. Which is all very well - the problems set in when he hears someone else speak French.

On Saturday night, I watched a Spicks and Specks rerun with our daughter Chloé, who is 9 years old and a native French speaker. We'd have a nice, peaceful evening in front of the telly, I thought. Wrongly.

‘Who wrote the music for the opera “Carmen”?’ asked quiz host Adam Hills.

‘Bizet,’ someone probably famous replied.

‘Georges Bizet,’ confirmed Adam Hills.

Chloé was incensed: 'They got it wrong!'

'No they didn’t,' I said

'Yes they did, Mummy! Adam Hills said it wrong! That’s not the answer. He didn’t say it properly.’

Chloé was gesticulating at the TV in a small person version of Gallic outrage. ‘It’s Georges Bizet!’ she cried, saying Georges with a big and throaty ‘r’.

'Oh for goodness' sake, you're as bad as your bloody dad!' I laughed. 

I don't usually refer to my French husband Maxime as 'bloody', but I did have some reason to feel a bit miffed with him. Earlier that day, I'd gotten an email from the conductor of a choir I'm in, asking if I could make a recording of the lyrics of some French songs we’d be singing, so that the other choir members could hear the correct pronunciation. Hmm, I thought. I do speak French, but was it good enough? I sought out Maxime.

‘I’m not sure about this,’ I said to him. ‘I mean, my pronunciation isn’t the best.’

(My 'r's are not so much rolled as stationary.)

‘Oh yes, your pronunciation is terrible!’ said Maxime. ‘I don’t understand why it’s so bad.’

Ouch. Why do Frenchmen have to be so bloody honest? (I’ll tackle this issue in my next post.) Well, at least things were clear: Maxime would do the recording of the French for the choir instead of me. I rang the conductor and told her.

‘But you don’t need to bother your husband. I’m sure you’ll do it fine,’ said the conductor.

‘Well, it's just that Maxime thinks I might not do it up to his standards. It’s better if he does it. Otherwise, when he sees the concert – ’

‘Ah! He’ll say it wasn’t up to scratch and it’ll be your fault!’

‘Exactly!’

He would have seen me as the perpetrator of an en masse, public mauling of his beloved language.

At least I can pronounce half of this book ...

So the lyrics issue was sorted. And even if Maxime was harsh, at least Chloé hasn't criticised my French yet - she seems to save that for other people (and TV personalities). In fact it’s really not advisable to try out your rusty French on our French kids. When visitors do try, the kids usually burst out laughing, much to the surprise and bruised pride of the visitor.

‘Well, I didn’t think I was that bad,’ said a rather miffed Aunt on one such occasion.

On another day, a friend foolishly said something about an ‘arbre vert’, beaming with pride at having fished out the words for ‘green tree’ from a dusty corner of his memory.

‘No, no!’ said Chloé. ‘Not Abwe vair. Arrrrbrrrre vairrrrrrr.’ The friend was then made to practice saying ‘arbre vert’ until Chloé finally ran out of patience. ‘You’re still not saying it right. You must say the French “r”. Not the English one. The “r” in English is pronounced “w”,' Chloé informed our friend, who was beginning to look very confused. 

(Our flimsy Australian 'r's sound like 'w's to Chloé. It took me an age to get Chloe to say three instead of fwee. 'Come on, Chloé, you can say '“r”,' I'd said. 'I'm the one who can't say “r”!' Now Chloé says thrrrrrrrrrrrrrree.)

The French believe in speaking languages with absolute correctness. Which, incidentally, is why they don’t like speaking other languages. (See 'Les Français sont vraiment nul en anglais' The French are Really Bad at English). They want to be able to do it well, or not at all. This also means that Maxime has been quite stressed over the kids’ French, and whether it will deteriorate now we’re in Australia. ‘I want the kids to speak correct French. I don’t want them to be laughed at,’ he says. Hmm, so it’s normal for the French to laugh at people for messing up French then? I only got laughed at the once when we lived in France, and I had thought that the bloke who had laughed at me was rude (and annoying). Maybe he was normal? I’d been applying for French citizenship, and a flunky behind a desk called me in to see him. As we went through my application, my accent and choice of words amused the guy no end. He would repeat them to himself and giggle. He even called his secretary in for a listen, for God’s sake. I should do shows, I thought.

When I actually got granted French citizenship, I felt like such a fraud. And I sounded it too. Not good when you’re stopped by the police for cutting a corner while driving:

'Your documents, please,' the police asked me, in French.

I started extracting cards from my bag: 'Oops, not that one, oops, not that ...'

The gendarmes regarded me with curiosity as cards of various hues and nationalities flicked before their eyes.

'Voilà,' I said finally and handed over my ID.

'Vous-êtes Australienne, Madame?'

'Oui. Oh wait - et Française.'

'Française?!' (With that accent? I could see them thinking.)

Oh no, they’re going to revoke my citizenship because I speak crap French! I thought. But they didn’t revoke it. They even let me go with just a warning. Although, now I come to think of it … they laughed.
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