OT: Slightly OT: French as a second language

On Fri, 16 Nov 2001, Aquamarine Demon wrote:

> >I occasionally slip into other languages to annoy and entertain, mostly to
> >annoy, my friends and relatives.  So I'll say "fortasse" or "peut-etre"
> >smetimes.
>
> Hehe... I speak French sometimes to annoy my sister.... ;)
> Just simple stuff like "pourquoi", "je ne sais pas" or "ma soeur est pénible"...
> but it annoys her anyways, because she doesn't know what I'm saying....
> hehe... it's fun to be (semi)bilingual. :)
>
Attempting to have French as your second language when you are an American
can be an intensely frustrating experience.  First off, it's rather rare;
Spanish is the U.S.'s second language, so my fluency is now terrible from
lack of use.  Then there's the connotation of French as a "posh" language,
leading to its misuse in embarrassing ways...I don't know how many stores
or products I've seen, or even people I've met, with "French" names that
are completely incorrect!  Including a co-worker, Montre\ - that's an
_accent grave_ on the final 'e' - who pronounced her name /m&n.tre/.  It
took a lot to keep me from pronouncing her name /mQ~ntr_h/... (Is that
right?  This X-SAMPA is going to drive me to drink...)

And then there're my American and Canadian friends calling the Que/becois
"French"...arrrrgh.

--
  Steve Kramer           ||           scooter (at) buser dot net          ||
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