Prank Call

So, I just got a phone call on my cell from an unknown caller, and I pick it up. Usually unknown numbers are my parents, but just in case, I answer the French way.

"Allo?" I say. A little silence, and then the person on the other line says "Allo?" They sound confused, so I figure that it might be another Erasmus student that got my number somehow. I give another "Allo?", and they respond...

"Uh, est-ce que votre frigo marche?"

(my actual frigo, with postcards/magnets from my summer wanderings in France)

Well damn, who knew that prank works in French, too? I was a little impressed, actually. I always knew marcher meant to walk and to work, but I never connected them.

Touché, French kid. Touché.


Word of the Day
La bêtise
I think it best translates as foolishness, but I don't know of a good English word that would work in all of its various contexts. Faire une bêtise is to do something stupid: The guy in front of me at the counter the other day didn't have enough money, and he told the cashier "oh, j'ai fait une bêtise." Dire des bêtises is basically to talk nonsense, or drivel. And wordreference.com informs me that friandises ou bêtise is the French way to say "trick or treat."

Baker Street, Toulouse? And a Not-So-Aptly-Named "Rotary"

Was there a Sherlock Holmes convention in Toulouse? 5 minutes after seeing a guy in the street with a pipe - a real live, legit pipe - I saw this guy:

Then, I saw this by the médiathèque:







Couldn't they have named an actual rotary after the Rotary club?








Word of the Day:
un rond-point
Depending on where you are in the English-speaking world, a roundabout, rotary, traffic circle...and probably more.

Faux Amis - Hurler

Here's another faux ami which is probably not a false cognate, but might trip you up if you encounter it.

If a French person starts to hurl, they are not throwing up, nor are they taking part in this awesome Irish sport:

Although Irish hurlers are prone to hurl in the French sense. Hurler actually means to scream, or to yell. French loups (wolves) hurlent. They also probably vomit, but in this case, hurler would refer to the howling.

I actually found the real translation a lot less fun. I was reading my serial killer book, and the protagonist's mom started to hurl at him, and I pictured her throwing various vases, lamps, etc at him, which was a better better image than her just yelling at him.... and the idea of her vomiting at him is really the best misinterpretation, by far.

French word:
hurler
English equivalent:
to yell/scream/howl

Word of the Day:
hurler avec les loups
Literally: to howl with the wolves.
Figuratively: to follow the crowd

Faux Amis - Collège

Okay, this is a word you tend to learn pretty early on in French class, and you tend to get hit over the head with it to make sure you don't make the mistake of thinking that French kids are so genius that they go to college at the age of 10. Collège really just means middle school, and should not be confused with the American usage of an institution of higher learning.

The reason I bring the word up at all is that I've had multiple conversations with anglophones here over what "college" actually refers to in English. You see, I had no idea that it meant something completely different to the British, who according to wikipedia (I know, my research is infallible) use it in the more generic sense of an educational institution. The way these British guys explained it to me, "college" for them happens in between high school and university (since high school ends earlier for them).

And now wikipedia's just confused me even more by pointing out that some British private schools (which they call "public" just to screw with my head) are called colleges, too, like Eton College. Oh, and "colleges" at the university-level can't give out degrees, only the universities do.

Which still doesn't explain the Electoral College - but then again, who can?

So I feel bad for the poor francophones who have to wade through the mess of the word "college," which almost never actually has the same sense as their word collège. But then I remember that they say "préservatif" instead of condom....

French word:
le collège
(American) English equivalent:
middle school

A Stereotypical Post

My impressions of various nationalities that I've encountered while studying abroad here in Toulouse. AKA my most offensive post yet.

The 3 most represented nationalities:

Chinese

There are a surprising number of Chinese students studying here in Toulouse, though it's hard for me to make too many generalizations since they're always together, speaking Chinese (hey, there's 1 down!). To sum up the general impression given off, I'll give you an illustration of the difference between the Chinese and the European (/occidental) students:
All of the "Erasmus" (blanket name for int'l) students have one lecture class together each semester. For the first...few months... of the lecture, you would walk in to the course and see the first 3 rows or so of the Chinese students, all with their electronic translators at hand, and then a few rows back the European students started, all trying to be as far back in the room as possible. If you walked in to said course while it was in progress, you would see the Chinese students silently taking notes, and the Europeans talking amongst themselves, checking out facebook, drinking coffee, and so on.

Italians
My French class here is half Italian, actually, which is pretty fantastic since they all have wonderful, Italian-sounding names (Alessandro, Lorenzo, Roberta, Davide, Giorgia...). The general stereotype for the Italians, which has held true way too often, is that they will be late. To everything. The trend lately has been to give a time half an hour earlier to the Italians so they will be less late (though we've found that 1 hour to 2 hours is a reasonable estimation of when they will arrive, depending on the person and the event).
They also really like their coffee. And think the pizza here is disgusting (though I'll have to agree with them on that one).

Germans
Stuck together like the Italians at the beginning, though most dispersed eventually. They've got a reputation for drinking - which they have done, and quite often with beer, yes - but I was surprised to find them out-drunken (not a word, but I'm too lazy to figure out a more appropriate one) by quite a few other nationalities who were much less represented, yet still made amazing showings in the drinking department.
Such nationalities include the Czechs (seriously, it was like their mothers' milk), and the Polish (who had an affinity for vodka, big surprise there), and even the few Colombians represented. Still, it was when I was with the Germans that it was decided to sit around drinking on the steps of a church in Montpellier, so it's not like they've lost the game here.


Any nationalities you'd like addressed? Do the Spanish really like their siestas? Do the French drink to get drunk? Swedes - blonde? The answer to these questions is yes, actually (though you could have put an effort into making the last one a complete sentence - I mean, come on), but if you have any others, feel free to leave a comment, and I'd be quite happy to respond.

Faux Amis - Chair

So, I have to take some literature courses this semester, since my French major only accepts a certain number of credits for non-lit courses, and so I started taking a course about romans policiers, which I guess would translate best to crime novels. While reading one of the novels assigned (a Jack Ellroy novel (Killer on the Road) translated into French - which has led me to the conclusion that translations are just never, ever the same as the original - cf: "quoi de neuf, docteur?"), I came across an important faux ami which had not heretofore been pointed out to me.

While the French are strange, they are not actually made out of chairs and blood - chair actually means flesh. While I struggle to think of instances in which you could actually think chair meant "chair" in context, hopefully this will prevent some confusion.

Although I sort of like translating couleur chair purposefully wrong ("it's chair-colored!")... and les désirs de la chair, too, come to think of it (but would one desire a chair, or does the chair have its own desires?).

French word:
la chair
English equivalent:
flesh, meat

Word of the Day:
la chair de poule
goosebumps