Runs in the Family!

Isn’t that brilliant?

My local village is hosting, er something, and YOU can come!

Free!

And YOU.

Hey, YOU too!

Look, at the bottom. There! It says so – Tout le Monde – ALL The World!!!

The village hall is a little small, but don’t worry -we will try to pack you all in (though personally I think Bill Gates should be made to pay just a little).

Translation is so much - fun and the French have a different word for EVERYTHING!

Usually I just learn them, try to use them correctly and move on, but sometimes I look at them anew and realise that behind them is a culture and nation that is very different than my own.

In England we would have said “everybody welcome” and if you look in a dictionary Tout Le Monde will be translated as such, unless it’s a Russian one, or someplace else’s.

But the French conveys so much more, er, universality.

It’s probably something to do with those Republican ideals that are buried, sometimes a little too deeply, in their collective breast.

The other day, Loui, my son – who I have always suspected he may originate from another planet – told me an illuminating story (that for some reason he chooses to share now as he approaches his 19th birthday rather than at the time when I may have been able to do something to help).

He was at primary school and the art teacher asked the class to draw “un quartier d’un orange”.

When he had finished he proudly gave it in with all the others and was surprised to see that everyone else had drawn a detailed close up of a slice of orange.

The French word for slice – quartier – is exactly the same as that for neighbourhood.

Luckily the teacher, a Dali disciple, appreciated Loui’s interpretation and gave him a good mark.

Unlike his French teacher at secondary school who subtracted a point for the unconventional spelling of his name in the belief that he just didn’t know how to spell.

It’s all my fault of course – well my wife’s too – as we chose Louis at his birth only to find everyone in England unable to say anything other than Lewis when they read it.

So we traipsed back to the registry office and filled in the appropriate bureaucracy to officialise him as Loui.

Then, unexpectedly, we moved to France.

Incidentally, this reminds me of another language story that involves a new arrival from England in France.

She, let’s call her Krissie, diligently signed up at the local language class and was working on “despite” structures and was asked to come up with a sentence.

She thought for a moment and offered – “malgré le réputation de Volvo je préfère mon Citron.”

Despite Volvo's reputation, I prefer my lemon.

In England, no one – no one – says Cit-ro-ën – as the French do................

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............You are probably wondering if Loui and Krissie know each other.