Rendez-vous au L'esprit d'Hélène

The 5 language assistants were treated to a trendy but tastey dinner by the English, Spanish, and German teachers of Lycee Mariette. Why trendy, you ask? Well, as the assistants were looking over the menu in confusion we asked one English teacher, Julien, what exactly we were eating. So as he read down the menu, it went something like this, "Uhhhh, I don't know, I don't know, this one is served on celery, uhh this is some chicken from the farm that is to say not a factory, uhhh I don't know, and ah here mignardises that is small individual varied cakes, so you can have different kinds, but it's a in fact new word, one my mother wouldn't know... Bahh [not exactly sure how to type that weird noise you hear so often here] these are new trendy words, and I'm no chef so I can't say what we are eating!" It appears it's not just the foreigners who don't understand the French menu.

Still it was a great meal with lots of French, English, German and Spanish spoken all at the same table. Sitting down to a nice long five course meal, I would have thought the highlight is the the quantity and quality of food. But in fact the dinner really just was about conversation and learning about cultures and lives. The food, while delicious, just facilitated this rather than distracted from it. I'm always entertained by talk about languages and last night was no disappointment. I asked a native Boulogne(r?) to demonstrate the local accent, which they say to an expert is distinct from the amusing and confusing Chti'i accent in Lille. This demonstration just involved a lot of weird, funny kind of gargly noises and reminded me of tribes and maybe Africa more than a civilized city in France. One funny discussion was about the saying "the cat's got your tongue." I explained that you'd use this saying if the person you're talking to has the answer but can't find the words... or maybe just 'speak up.' I'd love to know how the change in the English saying and meaning occured from the French saying je done ma langue au chat/ I give my tongue to the cat. The French saying on the other means "I don't know." And then in Spain it's el gato te comio la lengua/the cat ate your tongue, meaning someone's delibritely keeping quiet. The whole experience was great but for us assistants it was passed our usual early bed time. Looking back though its probably been a good day if by the end of it you're very ready for bed and happy to sleep and start a new day tomorrow. Speaking of which that describes me pretty well right now, so good night and sleep tight!