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| Mon dieu ! That iz an impressive saus- age! |
Having said this, the French family have a Breton background, which apparently has language similarities with Welsh.and so by the end of the evening, when the red wine was flowing more freely, I am sure I heard snippets of words that Auntie Glad would have understood and enjoyed.
However for the most part, and to my lingering shame....I did what most British people do when faced with a potentially embarrassing " sorry I don't understand you" situation
I spoke English in a slight French accent!
Broadstairs is a pretty little town
And see those beach huts?
Chris' family own one!
I love Broadstairs....the tiny little cinema is very cute...and owning a beach hut? now there's posh!
ReplyDeleteNot at all. Most British people would speak English - but loudly and slowly. If you speak English with a froggy accent - that makes you positively fluent in my book....
ReplyDeleteAww! Always lovely o see photos of my home town, I grew up on that beach ( in more ways than one ; ) )
ReplyDeleteAlso I've never known anyone who owns one of the huts, they're a rare breed!!
I agree with Wanda, you're positively bi-lingual!!
The " Burtons" have had a beach hut for years.
DeleteAh! Burton! It all makes sense now....the Welsh element....his arresting gaze....the rugged good looks.....he's Richard Burton's lovechild....
DeleteLol..... Chris is a southerner!
DeleteI am the welshman
Does he have a brother called Richard?!!
DeleteHis father is called Richard
DeleteAs always John, your blog gave me a laugh early on in the day!
ReplyDeleteNever been to Broadstairs but want to go now I have seen how lovely it is. Do you get to use that hut ever?
The family use the hut regularly and I have been seen in it a couple of times on my rare visits down south
DeleteI speak French to my Spanish tutor to wind her up :-P
ReplyDeleteIt would have been helpful if you not only spoke English in a French accent, you spoke very loudly too. A combination of both always works.
ReplyDeleteYou're not far off. When we lived in France, if I didn't know the French word for something, I'd often substitute the English word but spoken with a French accent. 50% of the time it worked! Clive used to cringe.
ReplyDeleteWhat a hoot. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall.
ReplyDeleteThey must be rich to own a beach hut! How are the animals? I hope that the babysitting ran smoothly.
ReplyDeleteI have not heard anything simone...... I am relaxing in Broadstairs at the mo!
DeleteNow, if you'd asked, I would have come along to translate. My oncles pen iz on zee bureau ov my tante.
ReplyDeleteA French accent? Oh no... I went to Germany with an actor once, and he couldn't stop himself from ordering food in English with an Adolf Hitler accent - talk about cringing.
ReplyDeleteGlad it was a great success.
ReplyDeleteIt was. I enjoyed it. Now on the train home
Deletethe French family have a Breton background, which apparently has language similarities with Welsh.
ReplyDeleteI would agree. My Grandparents spoke welsh and when my Mum started learning French at school, they were surprised by the similarities, particularly in the nouns.
We have been invited over by the French family.... I am tempted to accept
DeleteMy Father used to speak to the 'Onion Johnnies' in Welsh and they understood each other perfectly. Oh for a Roscoff onion now...
ReplyDeleteMaybe all it takes to chat properly with another non English speaker is to smile and gesture a lot?
DeleteWe've all been in that kind of situation. Does Chris speak french?
ReplyDeletesomehow i always manage to communicate with anyone. even in korea! it's one of my favorite things to do.
ReplyDeleteI would love a beach hut, maybe in Nrth Wales.
ReplyDeleteI hope all was well when you got home x
Nothing to do with French folk in Broadstairs but my hubby Chris has become a Walking Dead junkie.I'm sending you the divorce bill.
ReplyDeleteJane x
Thanks for this little bit of 'John' humour this morning!! Much needed!! lol
ReplyDeleteIt works the other way around too. I remember getting my mother from the train station. When I got there she had already arrived and was claiming her luggage. I could hear her in a very loud voice say UNE - GROSSE - VALISE - ROUGE! She got her suitcase!
ReplyDelete"...French family have a Breton background, which apparently has language similarities with Welsh..." that's interesting but makes sense...right across the water. Two places I've always wanted to visit...Wales, because my Daddy's paternal side came from Wales and Breton because it's so dang interesting.
ReplyDeleteIf they understood any English at all, the French accent (if done well) might have helped! I find myself regularly pronouncing English words with a Spanish accent. It's amazing how often it works.
ReplyDeleteThis brought back a cringe-inducing mealtime of my own, the time I chose to sit at a table of solely French-speaking strangers at a conference. My high school French, adequate and even superior in class, was passable for asking questions but sorely lacking when the answers came roaring back at full French speed ... after a half-dozen tries, I shut up and just smiled a lot.
ReplyDeleteYour observation about speaking English with a French accent is very familiar too.
Hope you enjoyed your 34 hours!
You're as bad as my Lovely Hubby, wherever we go abroad he just speaks with a Scottish/English/French accent and about TEN TIMES LOUDER THAN NORMAL!!
ReplyDeleteI hide behind anything that comes to hand and then apologise :-)
Glad to hear you had a good time, John. :)
ReplyDeleteThe Hurricane insists that I not speak French. My accent is terrible. It drove me crazy when we dined with X's business associates from all over the world and he always spoke English with the same accent as the person from Finland or Brazil, or wherever.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Spent the day in Broadstairs myself yesterday - been ages since Mrs F and I had meandered about there. She reminded me that a little over 31 years ago we went there for her 18th birthday (we knew how to live it up in those days you know!) and went in the Charles Dickens pub on the top so she could buy a "legal" drink. So funny all those years later we're sat there licking our ice creams recounting this tale and the thing I'm most grateful for is that I'm not drinking at all today.
ReplyDeleteWe used to rent a beach hut on holidays to Dorset - some in Kent can cost you thousands to buy. Good investment
Graham...we were in the pub on Saturday!
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