We survived the first week with the French exchange student, despite our bad French. While polluting the poor kid with onion rings at a restaurant, Carmen tried to say that she liked the ranch dressing (je l’aime = I like it). Instead, she said je t’aime — I like you. Ranch dressing had become a being.
Yesterday the boys were playing with little Nerf guns, and I tried to say my coat was impermeable to the bullets: “Mon manteau est imperméable aux … euh, Curran, comment-dit-on ‘bullets’?”
Curran: “Fléchettes.”
Me: “Quoi? Les chats?”
Today we go to le champ de citrouilles — the pumpkin patch. I’m sure we can’t possibly mismangle the language there.
Have you used “parlez-vous du fromage?” yet?
No, and I’m still holding on to the Flight of the Conchord’s “Bonjour mon petit bureau de change.”
Once while I was at a big feast with an extended family in Paris, I was chatting with the grandfather and chuckling at one part of his story to me. The rest of the family was curious to know what he’d said. Moi: “Il raconte des conneries.” Which roughly translates to “He’s crapping on about something stupid.” Whole table dissolved. Very respectful to grandpa. I was clueless thinking I was using witty colloquialism.