letters
Readers reveal their funniest French language blunders
Mispronunciations and misunderstandings are almost inevitable
Published
To the Editor,
We lived in France for many years. Although my French was good, in the early years I did make some pronunciation faux pas.
Visiting a French friend one day, I complimented him on his beautiful hedge (haie).
After a puzzled look he laughed and said his beautiful garlic (ail) was in his potager.
Before reluctantly returning to England we lived for a while in the cathedral town of Condom (Gers), which caused much amusement with our English friends and family.
We had so many happy times in both Var and Gers, and always found the people welcoming and ready to share a joke.
D.M., by email
To the Editor,
This did not happen to me, but it could have!
A colleague, with minimum French, was in France training some operatives on one of our CNC spring-making machines.
The programming system requires the use of many pairs of brackets to enclose lines of code.
Unaware that he should have been using the word parenthèse, he wondered why everyone was laughing every time they thought they heard him say ouvrez la braguette and fermez la braguette (open and close your flies).
R.A., by email
What are your worst language blunders in French? Share them at letters@connexionfrance.com
