En anglais sans google translate (compliments d’une amie)

It’s Saturday morning.  Glorious Saturday!

I’m sitting in a café located just off the central square of Middlebury.  And I’m enjoying a coffee with a blueberry muffin that actually tastes homemade–because I think it is.  A monumental taste change from the school cafeteria.

I haven’t posted anything the last week because I’ve buried myself in school work.  The second week was stressful in the extreme.  Last week, the third week, was much more productive for me, and the reason for that is because I cut off contact with most of the world.  My family (okay, a few friends also) is all I kept in touch with.  I’ve moved my gmail account into French; however, emails from friends (which are rare, I might mention) come to me in English.  I just respond in French.  Too bad if you can’t cut and paste into Google translate.  I have to say it’s worth it though because Google translate comes out so weird. It’s much better than the actual translation.

This last week I had to give a 15 minute presentation in French (with notes, of course), take an extensive grammar test (lots of mistakes, obviously), and maneuver a Prius through Middlebury.  I did okay with the first two.  The Prius is another story.  I’m sorry, but driving a Prius is like sitting on Tinker Toys constructed by my grandchildren and accelerating with a rubber band.  And it sounds like that, too!  I was sure that one of the rubber bands had snapped about halfway through my rental time.  And to make things more interesting, I was driving a teeny car with a big, fat ZipCar logo plastered on the side door.   Très embarrasant!  I’ll take my Buick Enclave any day.  Please.

I believe that I’m learning more and more each week.  But, I am still struggling with putting coherent sentences together.  I know the conjugations on paper, but I can’t seem to bring them up in my mind.  What and where is my mind?  (That’s an existential question.  I’m in an academic setting, after all.)  It’s all about memorization, but unbeknownst to me before I arrived at Middlebury, I’m no longer capable of memorizing. So, I plod along with my conversational skills.  What I enjoy the most in conversations with others is watching the puzzled looks on their faces as they try to make sense of my sentences.  Très drôle!  I can tell they’re trying hard not to ask me to repeat myself or not to ask me to stay quiet.   I think in an academic world it’s necessary to stay composed.  So, they’re all acting mannerly.  Don’t you know they want to just scream, “Fermez la bouche!”?  (Look it up in G. t.)

I would love to know the day, if ever, that I’ll be able to converse in French without having to plod along with the next word or phrase.  Hmmm, perhaps . . . .

Which brings me to another subject.  My favorite time of the day during the week is the beginning of my first class each day.  That’s when my professeur, Corinne, introduces one or two new French colloquialisms.  They’re called l’expressions d’idiomatique or l’expressions familière.

Here are a few:

Etre comme un poisson dans l’eau.  To be like a fish in water.
Après la pluie, le beau temps.   After the rain, the sun shines.
Il pleut des cordes.  Cordes is like a boat rope.  Basically, it’s pouring (huge boat ropes, I think).
This one is apropos:  Quand les poulets auront des dents.   “Les poulets” is chicken and “des dents” is teeth.  You know how we say, “When pigs fly.”?  (“Quand des cochons volons”)  Well, the French say, “Quand les poulets auront (have) des dents.”  When chicken have teeth.  Isn’t that great?   It’s all about the farm animals.
Then there’s this one:  avoir un chat dans le gorge.  Comparable to “I have a frog in my throat”, but “un chat” is cat!  Quite a catch in the throat, I think.  Or, une mauvais toux . . . very bad cough.

And here’s my favorite:  Il pleut comme vache qui pisse.  It’s the same as our saying, “It’s raining cats and dogs”, but in my personal opinion, much more descriptive.  By the way, “vache” is cow in French.  I think you can make out the last word on your own.  Thus ends your French lesson for the week.

I hope to post again soon, but going underground is a benefit.  So . . .

à toute à l’heure!

Debbie