How do les Anglais Make You Wince?

[TWINKLE]

Mmmm... But no matter hey?  It's usually only the Mail[;-)]

[Gardian]

Yes, I deserved that!

What I don't deserve though is 'them' taking all the Times & Telegraphs, leaving a choice between the Express and the Flemish daily, the name of which escapes me and most people.

Just going to have to get up earlier or camp out outside La Presse.

[Tresco]

...leaving a choice between the Express and the Flemish daily, the name of which escapes me and most people.

That would be the Wallooooonian Wailer, or somesuch thing

Honestly. Give them up. They are all bad for our health, and I assume none of us is getting younger?[6]

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Het Algemeen Dagblaat? ("The Daily Standard") It's been a few

years since I was obliged to translate stories from it for my homework,

but as I recall it wasn't so disimilar to the "Express."

I'm with Tresco - give them up. I think that they may be a cause of premature senility. I've no evidence, of course.

[Catalpa]

[quote user="jond"]
I'm with Tresco - give them up. I think that they may be a cause of premature senility.
[/quote]

 

I thought all BBC local radio stations had been proven to have that effect? So we're all safe now. [:-))]

[Just Katie]

[quote user="jond"]Het Algemeen Dagblaat? ("The Daily Standard") It's been a few years since I was obliged to translate stories from it for my homework, but as I recall it wasn't so disimilar to the "Express."

I'm with Tresco - give them up. I think that they may be a cause of premature senility. I've no evidence, of course.

[/quote]

Johnd NO! Reading LF has proven to be the cause of premature senility.  Look at the way we act with each other on here.  We have all gone back to being children.

[Will]

I can cope with them buying the Daily Mail - but quoting it, at great length, about how immigrants are ruining Britain, the financial state of the NHS, the ills forced on the British by Europe, how their kids can't afford housing and can't get decent jobs - etc etc etc. Then they go off, muttering gently, to their French house ("of course we bring prosperity to these rural areas, don't we - just as well we don't have to actually speak to the peasants and discuss their own lives and troubles")...

[TWINKLE]

[quote user="Ian Horn"]

Yes, I deserved that!

What I don't deserve though is 'them' taking all the Times & Telegraphs, leaving a choice between the Express and the Flemish daily, the name of which escapes me and most people.

Just going to have to get up earlier or camp out outside La Presse.

[/quote]

Ian, there is no need for any of that.  Just ask the newsagent to reserve it for you - only problem is you have to take it every day, maybe you just like to read one occasionally.

[Opalienne]

It's not just the Brits who race Ferraris on public roads in France.  On Saturday I saw 6 Belgian cars being stopped (just outside St. Omer, indeed) for the same thing.....

[nimportequoi]

[quote user="Will "]I can cope with them buying the Daily Mail - but quoting it, at great length, about how immigrants are ruining Britain, the financial state of the NHS, the ills forced on the British by Europe, how their kids can't afford housing and can't get decent jobs - etc etc etc. [/quote]

I have my in-laws staying at the moment, and they have been doing just that. They really are very nice, apart from this dangerous Daily Mail habit they have had for many years, and whose every written word they believe in implicitly. As well as the UK immigrant situation, they have even been lecturing me on how good the CPE would have been for France and what an opportunity the country missed by not supporting it, as it would have solved all the unemployement problems. Incroyable.

[Gardian]

"Premature senility" - and just from buying the weekend ones!

If I bought one every day, I'd be a mumbling, grumpy, expat Brit. Just as well I'm nothing like that.

[Just Katie]

No Ian, I'm sure you're not..... I'm sure you're not[:D]

[marc62]

It may seem a little daft but I really get cheesed off by Brit's who have been in France for a while or are far more advanced at the language who always including the odd French word as if to demonstrate the point. We all had to learn at some point & some people are far more advanced than others, you see good examples of this on a regular basis in this forum.

To me it is a bit like keeping up with the Jones & going one better, " you have a black cat but mine is black'er"

Marc

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="KatieKopyKat"]

Johnd NO! Reading LF has proven to be the cause of premature

senility.  Look at the way we act with each other on here. 

We have all gone back to being children.

[/quote]

Ermm...I don't read LF Magazine.. I never have read it. However, I

do subsrcibe to other Archant publications, so I suppose that could

even things out a bit.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

[quote user="Will "]I can cope with them buying the Daily Mail - but

quoting it, at great length, about how immigrants are ruining Britain,

the financial state of the NHS, the ills forced on the British by

Europe, how their kids can't afford housing and can't get decent jobs -

etc etc etc. Then they go off, muttering gently, to their French

house ("of course we bring prosperity to these rural areas, don't we -

just as well we don't have to actually speak to the peasants and

discuss their own lives and troubles")...[/quote]

And on top of that, it just isn't as absorbant as it used to be...

[Tag]

Please dont put us all in the same basket on this one Marc. I have lived and worked in French for so long I often genuinely cannot remember the English word or phrase for something. And, having learned some words in a French context do not even readily know the English one. An example "On n'a pas gardé les cochons ensemble" is an expression which I strangely reach for quite frequently (much to my surprise!), but I dont know the English equivalent.

[Tag]

Funny jond, thought you gave your guests loo paper. No wonder there are problems with the septic tank!!

[Bassman]

[quote user="Tag"]Please dont put us all in the same basket on this one Marc. I have lived and worked in French for so long I often genuinely cannot remember the English word or phrase for something. And, having learned some words in a French context do not even readily know the English one. An example "On n'a pas gardé les cochons ensemble" is an expression which I strangely reach for quite frequently (much to my surprise!), but I dont know the English equivalent.[/quote]

[:-))] all I can make out of that is something about "pigs together"  [:$] but then my level of French just about enables me to get a beer and a coffee [:$]

 

Oooo hang on I did feel a bit chuffed when I helped the lady in our local bar to translate poireau to leek LOL her English is way better than my French but she didn't know what poireau was in English when some other rosbifs were ordering lunch at the next table [:D] .... that'll never happen again [Www]

[Calva]

I'm very interested by your remark Hoddy. Just to fully understand your post, are you saying that as the 'language change thing' made you chose to spend your money in France instead of Wales? Presumably therefore the French speak English when you walk into a bar or shop just for your benefit??? It certainly doesn't happen where we are in Calvados and neither would I expect it to.

[Tresco]

Hoddy and others were referring to Welsh people conversing in English, and then changing to Welsh when they realised there were English people in the vicinity.

What you are talking about is something quite different. I don't think there's a single poster here who would expect French people to speak English to them, including Hoddy.

 

[Hoddy]

You beat me to it, Tresco.

Calva, I obviously didn’t make myself clear. I’m sorry.

What I thought I’d said was that lots of times when I went into shops, cafes and so on in Wales, where the other customers were already speaking English, they changed to Welsh when I got there. It made me feel unwelcome and so in spite of something of a love affair with Wales which lasted many years, I decided to go somewhere where I felt more welcome.

Here, when I go into a restaurant or shop the people are speaking French. They continue to speak French after I arrive. I’m comfortable with that.

Hoddy

[Coco]

I believe Dick that you come from Carshalton (SE England) so maybe you have the kind of accent (nothing personal here) that some people have said grates on other Brits abroad.  Perhaps the Welsh people just spoke Welsh because they didn't want to get into conversation with other Brits.  Many years ago we used to do similar if we came across Brits at the next table in a restaurant we'd start speaking german to each other.  Call us immature if you like, but that's what we did.

As for the Welsh.  Well I spent 40 odd years HATING them (and I can say that because I AM half Welsh)  However, through this site, I met a very lovely Welsh lady who made it her aim to make me like Welsh people.  I never believed she would be able to do it.  Now whether it was solely down to her or whether it has been the fact that I have had a large amount of Welsh visitors to my B&B who have been absoltely charming (native Welsh speakers who spoke English to me and my husband) but I have finally come to love this nation of softly spoken, kind, generous and humourous people.

Now my mate knows who she is, and she can throw up at this point - oh and by the way, as lovely as you are, it's neither KKK or Twinkle [;-)]

[benedicte]

For the people who have stated they hate 'the Welsh' or that North Walians are rude - what all of them? really? you KNOW all of them?

Racism is a horrible thing but racism it is.

[Catalpa]

[quote user="benedicte"] Racism is a horrible thing but racism it is.[/quote]

You are absolutely right... and that is exactly what I told an assistant in a bakers in Barmouth (North Wales) a few years ago when - as other people have described - she switched from English to Welsh while mid-conversation with someone when I entered the shop. I was with one of my nieces and, as I asked her whether she wanted a particular cake, both women looked at me and switched to Welsh. The assistant couldn't answer me when I enquired - after we'd communicated by sign language as to what I wanted... [:P] - whether she considered her behaviour racist... because of course, she was busy pretending she didn't speak English. [blink] The other assistant did go red.

It wasn't only the shop in which I encountered the language switch - it happened again in a nearby hospital: my nephew fell off a cliff and had to be checked over. The doctor was reluctant to speak English to me - communicating to the nurse in Welsh - and it really made an already stressful incident even worse.The nurse was beside herself with apologies over his behaviour as she guided us out.

It may not be racism anyway, Benedicte - I seem to remember that Anne Robinson, who wanted to consign the Welsh nation to Room 101 - was investigated subsequent to those comments and they were considered not to be racist.

[Dick Smith]

First of all, Benedicte, I don't think anyone (apart from Coco) said they hate the Welsh, I think they said that there is a well-attested characteristic of Welsh speakers which they find rude. I don't think exclusion by language is racism either, it is just bad manners.

And Coco - what do you know, or think you know about my accent and how it grates (or doesn't) on other people? How rude can you be without speaking Welsh?