 Monthly Archives
Categories
Yes, but does it protect Sweden?
I spent my Junior Year Abroad in France, which means that it was a year full of heroic linguistic triumphs as well as embarrassing (but funny) linguistic gaffes. I was with a group of other American university students in the city of Tours, in the Loire Valley, and in between visiting castles, museums, vineyards, and, oh yeah, classrooms, we had to meet daily mundane needs like getting around, eating, and shopping. One day, a friend of mine, Jen, bought a pair of suede boots, and if you're familiar with winters in northern France you know that suede is not the ideal material. So we set out from our cité universitaire (dormitory) housing and headed for the centre-ville (city center, downtown), in search of a shoe store that would sell some kind of product that would protect Jen's suede from the gray and misty weather. We wandered around the store until we found spray cans that looked like they might do the job, and as we stood there looking at the different labels, a saleswoman approached us to see if she could help. Jen wanted to know if she had the right can, so she lifted it and asked, "Est-ce que cela protège la suède?" The saleswoman's eyes narrowed slightly, in temporary confusion, but then she considered the spray can and smiled. "Oui, mademoiselle," she answered, but we knew there was some joke that we weren't in on. We paid for the can and left the store, and when we had another look at the can, we noticed that it said le suède. Then it hit us; Jen had asked if the spray can protected Sweden, la Suède (feminine), instead of suede, le suède (masculine). Thankfully a little context was all the saleswoman needed, but I wish I knew exactly what sort of language processing went on in her head for the split second when she thought we were looking for some kind of canned missile defense system for an entire Scandinavian country. - Chris (Netcong, New Jersey)
Tags: France, French, newsletter, story
|
|||
