When is it necessary to bray?

[woolybanana]

Lidl has announced that it is no longer gonna be just a cut price emporium, but is gonna stock many mainstream brands from now on. What this implies for prices remains to be felt in the pocket.

In the local one yesterday, I noticed that they have reconfigured the store and, in my view, made it more difficult to use, increasing the area for soft drinks and booze, and decreasing the non food stuff.

[idun]

My bestest french friend shouts most of the time and is never quiet in any way. What a voice, and yet she is one of the loveliest people on the planet. The only occassion I have seen her quiet and serene was in London, but that disappeared the moment we got back to Paris.

I suppose she has taught me to not judge people by their loudness. I have never heard her swear though, and one would be pushed to get a word in if she was having a go.

Lidl is the only cheap supermarket I use in the UK. I'm not a fan of Aldi, although I know lots who are. I used to like Leader Price in France and miss some of their products.

[Gardengirl]

Idun, nobody was saying these loud people are from hell, just that it's awful to be around them when they are total strangers invading one's aural space. They might be absolute angels with their friends, particularly those who are a little hard of hearing - it would just be very angelic of them to give the rest of us a little less of their views/ideas/thoughts.

[idun]

I understood that gardengirl. And I'm sure that my good friend has spoiled many a dinner or night out for others. And yet, we still ended up such good friends. I'm glad that her loud mouth didn't put me off completely, it could have. And me, I'm softly spoken, voix douce.........as I was told, although the truth is I can shout like a fish wife if pushed to my limits[:-))]

[Gardengirl]

Well, if it comes to having to be a fish wife, I'm pretty good at that too! It's only rarely necessary, but good to have in stock!

[mint]

Well, an amusing incident happened to me in Chez Leclerc yesterday.  To those of a snearing disposition, please note that I do NOT use Lidl all the time![:)]

For the first time in ages, I spotted not only parsnips but also swede.  In my excitement, I might have brayed but I doubt it as my voice is still no more than a squeak since my lung infection weeks and weeks ago.

I started bundling the parsnips in one bag and swedes in another.  When it came to getting the swedes weighed, I realised that I didn't know what swedes were called in French.  I looked at the notices and I knew that they weren't navets and, by a process of elimination, I deduced that they couldn't be navets longs as there were "elongated" turnips alongside.

I turned to the woman next to me and I asked her, in French, what swedes were called.  She said they were navets but that I should tap "30" at the scales.  After some searching, I got to "30" and sure enough, there was the picture of swedes.  Feeling a bit sheepish, I said something to the effect that it was not so easy for les étrangeres.  At that, she said to me in a well-modulated and definitely non-braying voice that "oh, you're doing all right"!

As to Lidl, since Clair told us that those goat cheese parcels wrapped in bacon were all made in the same factory and just have different labels put on them, I have learned to look past the labels at the actual products themselves.  As Q has said, the cleaning stuff is all very good and I particularly like their smoked salmon and champagne.  And just to prove that I don't only eat and drink as befitting a chateau-dweller ([;-)]), I also like their electrical products and household goods like duvets.  I bought a kettle there and it's a delight to use.  I also bought some warm base layers for skiing and the quality of the items is far in excess of what you could reasonably expect from the low prices.

Lastly, I accept that we do not always hear ourselves but I still maintain that neither OH nor I can ever hope to emulate the distinctive braying tones of the people that we have all met and heard but are too embarrassed to admit that we have even noticed.     

[Val_2]

My son told me earlier that he had a couple of Poles in yesterday, they spoke neither french nor english and got really narked when my son could not answer their questions, so its all nationalities that can shout and cause a scene and not just the brits although there are more of them about than Poles, especially in my neck of the woods.As for Lidl, don't knock the store which according to my daughter who now lives in the UK, french outlets are far superior whereas in the UK they are more akin to Netto which here is the chavs favourite and their stuff is horrendous quality.

Lidl are almost on par with the big supermarkets and will probably be upgraded to the same status in the near future which means the prices will rise on par as more and more "marques" are stocked.My son said there were rumblings about them being open 7/7 but the french workforce will not allow it as they regard sunday sacrisanct (sp) here and it would take them over their 35hr contracts or the stores would have to take on more workers which means higher prices to pay for it.

[Chancer]

[quote user="Thibault"]

Have you noticed that when you are abroad and all around you are speaking in a foreign language, your ears immediately pick up the sounds of your own native language, no matter how far away (within reason, of course [:)]) the speaker is?  It's much the same as being at a crowded party when over the hum your hear your own name.

Perhaps our brains are listening out for these things.

[/quote]

Just come back from Lidl, I aint posh (like) and get 99% of my groceries there, a couple of women were talking in the car park while they loaded their cars, very quiet, discreet, definitely not braying and being about 10 meters away I could not have heard what they were saying even if I was eavesdropping, and I wasnt.

But the phenomenon above came into play as amongst the yakyakyak one word seemed to scream at me "insurance" it had been picked up by my sub-conscious, I'm sure that "assurance" would not have registered, so my ears pricked up and I could indeed hear their conversation about house insurance.

Now hears the funny thing, I speak good French now but if they were French and dead opposite me I would probably have had to ask them to repeat something initially untill my concentration, lip reading etc kicked in.

I think after a while like it or not we start to soak up the language, we are listening sub-consciously even when we try to block out background conversation, I recall at first I was able to, indeed had to to concentrate on what was being said by those close to me, after a while i found that i couldnt and any party gathering etc would give me a migraine, apparently its a survival instinct similar to how children soak up a language.

So maybe, just maybe some of these people arent braying but your sub-conscious picks up the anomoly and amplifies it, at least thats what happens to me but then I never speak or hear English, not sure if its the same if you are a family at a restaurant and speaking English probably discreetly amongst yourselves.

And maybe thats another possibility, that we become discreet? I am really ill at ease to speak English in a public place in France yet  I wasnt like that initially, thankfully it rarely happens, my good friend who was my french teacher complains when we speak english to each other during a party she says she can no longer hear me and that I wasnt like that before. We usually default to her speaking English and me in French but itoften  flips when one or both of us wants to express something that we cannot in the second language. 

[idun]

It was different for me, as I wanted my kids to speak and understand english, so we always spoke english, at home or out. I never spoke in english to french speakers, even when my french was very very poor, I'd give it a go, even if they looked bewildered.

But I do agree, I think that we do pick up on 'english' as it doesn't sound like the usual language our ears are in tune to. And I have to say that one of our little amusements when out was to try and pick out the different nationalities as at certain times of year we would get quite a lot of tourists. We were usually right with picking out brits and germans! Not listening to them, just the way they looked, and what they were wearing.

 

 

[YCCMB]

[quote user="Val_2"]

As for Lidl, don't knock the store which according to my daughter who now lives in the UK, french outlets are far superior whereas in the UK they are more akin to Netto which here is the chavs favourite and their stuff is horrendous quality.

[/quote]

With respect to your daughter, I shop at Lidl in both the UK and France, and there's actually no difference. The only things I notice are that Lidl in France tends (in my neck of the woods, anyway) to be in different places. Our nearest UK Lidl is in a not-very-nice area, but the store itself is identical in most respects including produce. And despite its location, the car park seems to indicate the presence of a wide demographic using the store...Brand new Jaguars, 4 x 4's and so on, and well-dressed people shopping in the store. I'd say the big difference I DO notice between France and the UK is that Lidl in France (again, near me) tends to open only one checkout at a time, or two if they are really busy, and as a consequence it can take ages to pay and leave. Our local Lidl in the UK has more people working on the checkouts (in all cases, they never seem to have very many of them overall) and it's much faster getting out.

As far as the goods and their quality is concerned, I don't know how your daughter can have reached her conclusion, given that my shopping list and reasons for visiting Lidl in both countries are to buy exactly the same things, and they are just that - EXACTLY the same, in both countries. Not better, worse, or "far superior", just identical.

[mint]

Betty, how do prices compare in the 2 countries?  I've only been back to the UK once (by special request) in the last 5+ years and I'd be interested to know whether food prices have risen as much as UK friends tell me?

[YCCMB]

Sweets, I can only really speak on the basis of "working" in Sterling (naturally, because that's the currency I earn, and when I come to France I have to buy €).

However, I'd say that Lidl in the UK is marginally cheaper for the products I am buying than Lidl in France. With a bit of an eye for other stuff on sale there, I imagine that it could be compared to shopping at Ikea in the two countries, in that it ends up being very "swings and roundabouts" and some things are cheaper, others more expensive.

I would say that prices have risen quite a lot in the UK over the last couple of years, although I am certain beyond any doubt that they have risen more in France for the products that I am buying. I generally modify my shopping to some extent according to the country I'm in (by which I mean that I don't buy peculiarly British foods in France. However, I don't buy peculiarly British foods in the UK, either).

[idun]

Sweet17, it is true that food prices have risen in the UK. But I was expecting it and they haven't gone up so much that my bills worry me.

Now I have french friends who keep going mad about the price increases in France. All careful shoppers and quite disgusted at the increases. And they had thought it bad enough after the euro came in when after many many years of very stable food prices, the grocers took advantage and hoiked prices up in the exchange to euros.

Our Lidls here in the UK and the ones near us in France are all the same. Same products, more or less, only I can get cheddar and fresh milk in the UK and raclette in the french one, although I have been told that some Lidl's sell raclette in the UK too, just not mine.  Don't know about the price differences between the two countries though.

[Kong]

Get the feeling threads have crossed.

Is it 'non-u' to bray in Lidl's?

Basileus

[mint]

As Lidl is supposed to be so downmarket, I suppose you could bray if you want to?[:D]

[Quillan]

[quote user="sweet 17"]Betty, how do prices compare in the 2 countries?  I've only been back to the UK once (by special request) in the last 5+ years and I'd be interested to know whether food prices have risen as much as UK friends tell me?[/quote]

You can create an account at Tesco's etc using your old UK address or somebody else's. The UK is definitely cheaper than France but Spain is still amazingly cheap, was there at the weekend. It's worth us going once a month now as the savings cover the diesel and we are still better off.