To X: Okay you are so determined to break into the little Chinese party I’m having over here. Before further damage’s done, here’s a translation of what I’ve said. By no means a word-by-word (not even paragraph-by-paragraph) translation, though.
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I wouldn’t have dreamt of learning French. But yes I'm learning the language, believe it or not. Having a few French friends, hosting a range of people at my place who all coincidentally come from that little country that starts with an F, that sort of reasons. What makes the deal though was one French guy who stayed at my place for a couple of nights. Just fresh out of high school, this newly minted road warrior does not really speak English. Once he tried to describe a girl he met in Tokyo. ‘She’s really sham.’ Sham? In what way? That she’s a cyborg? I asked him to spell it, but it still took some detective work of mine to find out it’s some creative way to pronounce the word ‘charm’. The next morning, just out of futon, he told me with an awkward smile ‘I’m angry,’ while doing a pantomime that looks like a circular motion of his hand hovering over his abdomen.
I retold the whole incident to X. His response is, We don’t quite care to pronounce the fucking h.
But enough is enough. If I can’t stop a country of people from giving the silent treatment to one innocent consonant, I should, well, join the mob and become an accomplice. I have to learn French.
X is enthusiastic. In a coffee shop, or café as he would quickly correct, X is spreading out all the notes he gives out to his students. You see, even the alphabets sound different. ‘A, B, C, D.’ I try, and sound like a 3-year-old asserting that the former prime minister here is now quite the opposite of happy. It doesn’t take very long for any French beginner to smell out a national epidemic of dyslexia going on. As a general rule, I am told not to pay attention to any ending consonant, however visually obvious they are on paper waving to me for attention. As one of the pronounciation exercises I give to myself, I try to say aloud the title of the famous work by René Magritte, Ceci n’est pas une pipe. Had I taped my practice and listened to my own mumblings, I would have thought I was spelling out the acronym of some very obscure organization. To me, the whole consonant-dropping habit is almost the equivalent of a man all tarted up above waistline but who just happen to forget his pants. The only comment I got from X is, We are a lazy people.
On the papers there is a list of example words that go after each consonant or vowel. One by one, X says aloud, followed by my pathetic repetition which sounds pretty much the way like a stand-up routine performed by a comedian who exaggerates every movement ten times and is still totally not funny. Wagon for W, hôtel for H, serpent for S. Very well, I can tell what they are.
But then there’s a gyrophare. Gyrophare?
‘The kind of lamp which gives a circular motion. See? The ones you find on the top of an ambulance or police car.’
Hm. Now imagine how often you will have a chance to smuggle it into daily conversations. That actually reminds me of my own days in kindergarten, where I first learnt the same set of alphabets with a completely different way of saying them. There, you have apple for A, boy for B. I admit xylophone is a necessary evil but what is bordering on absurdity is igloo for I. A kindergarten in a tropical area where nobody quite knows what the white wet cold powdery stuff that falls from sky in some parts of the earth actually feels like.
By an hour later when we have finally gone through the four pages of consonants and vowels, my tongue feels like the bank receipt tucked deep in the pocket of the jacket I’m wearing. X wants to assure me the language is not as difficult as my first encounter would suggest and say French and English have a lot of words in common and it would be easy for me to pick them up. He goes on with an explanation that involves Latin and history of languages and that is the point when I begin to phase out. Then he says, ‘But still, given the same Latin root sometimes English and French words don’t mean the same thing. I’ve run into troubles quite a few times.’
Any example?
‘Once I was having a conversation with someone on the conditions of a refugee camp. Then I wanted to say something about how refugees there live together without any personal space. There’s a word for it in French but then the equivalent in English doesn’t mean quite the same thing. But somehow I said it.’
So what is the word?
‘Promiscuité.’
I give a long pause, immersing myself into the sights of an imaginary orgy party under the blue UN tents in a war-torn sub-Sahara region.
-----
I wouldn’t have dreamt of learning French. But yes I'm learning the language, believe it or not. Having a few French friends, hosting a range of people at my place who all coincidentally come from that little country that starts with an F, that sort of reasons. What makes the deal though was one French guy who stayed at my place for a couple of nights. Just fresh out of high school, this newly minted road warrior does not really speak English. Once he tried to describe a girl he met in Tokyo. ‘She’s really sham.’ Sham? In what way? That she’s a cyborg? I asked him to spell it, but it still took some detective work of mine to find out it’s some creative way to pronounce the word ‘charm’. The next morning, just out of futon, he told me with an awkward smile ‘I’m angry,’ while doing a pantomime that looks like a circular motion of his hand hovering over his abdomen.
I retold the whole incident to X. His response is, We don’t quite care to pronounce the fucking h.
But enough is enough. If I can’t stop a country of people from giving the silent treatment to one innocent consonant, I should, well, join the mob and become an accomplice. I have to learn French.
X is enthusiastic. In a coffee shop, or café as he would quickly correct, X is spreading out all the notes he gives out to his students. You see, even the alphabets sound different. ‘A, B, C, D.’ I try, and sound like a 3-year-old asserting that the former prime minister here is now quite the opposite of happy. It doesn’t take very long for any French beginner to smell out a national epidemic of dyslexia going on. As a general rule, I am told not to pay attention to any ending consonant, however visually obvious they are on paper waving to me for attention. As one of the pronounciation exercises I give to myself, I try to say aloud the title of the famous work by René Magritte, Ceci n’est pas une pipe. Had I taped my practice and listened to my own mumblings, I would have thought I was spelling out the acronym of some very obscure organization. To me, the whole consonant-dropping habit is almost the equivalent of a man all tarted up above waistline but who just happen to forget his pants. The only comment I got from X is, We are a lazy people.
On the papers there is a list of example words that go after each consonant or vowel. One by one, X says aloud, followed by my pathetic repetition which sounds pretty much the way like a stand-up routine performed by a comedian who exaggerates every movement ten times and is still totally not funny. Wagon for W, hôtel for H, serpent for S. Very well, I can tell what they are.
But then there’s a gyrophare. Gyrophare?
‘The kind of lamp which gives a circular motion. See? The ones you find on the top of an ambulance or police car.’
Hm. Now imagine how often you will have a chance to smuggle it into daily conversations. That actually reminds me of my own days in kindergarten, where I first learnt the same set of alphabets with a completely different way of saying them. There, you have apple for A, boy for B. I admit xylophone is a necessary evil but what is bordering on absurdity is igloo for I. A kindergarten in a tropical area where nobody quite knows what the white wet cold powdery stuff that falls from sky in some parts of the earth actually feels like.
By an hour later when we have finally gone through the four pages of consonants and vowels, my tongue feels like the bank receipt tucked deep in the pocket of the jacket I’m wearing. X wants to assure me the language is not as difficult as my first encounter would suggest and say French and English have a lot of words in common and it would be easy for me to pick them up. He goes on with an explanation that involves Latin and history of languages and that is the point when I begin to phase out. Then he says, ‘But still, given the same Latin root sometimes English and French words don’t mean the same thing. I’ve run into troubles quite a few times.’
Any example?
‘Once I was having a conversation with someone on the conditions of a refugee camp. Then I wanted to say something about how refugees there live together without any personal space. There’s a word for it in French but then the equivalent in English doesn’t mean quite the same thing. But somehow I said it.’
So what is the word?
‘Promiscuité.’
I give a long pause, immersing myself into the sights of an imaginary orgy party under the blue UN tents in a war-torn sub-Sahara region.
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