When my younger brother and I were children and Mr and Mrs Nunn wanted to talk about something they didn't want us to know, they would switch to French.
This makes them sound a bit poncey, but as they'd both taken A-level French, with varying levels of success (actually, not that varying - one E and one D, I believe), it was a fast and fairly efficient code so "les enfants" couldn't understand.
This was all well and good, until I got to the age of 11 or so, when we started studying French at school. My parents quickly realised that I was understanding key words ("cadeau pour l'anniversaire" was clearly "birthday present") and so my parents no longer used the code to try to prevent my comprehension. I'm not sure what method they used instead. Perhaps passing notes. I shall have to ask them.
Jack, however, was a full six years younger, so the code stayed in force for longer with him. Unfortunately for my parents, my French was improving all the time... just as theirs was getting rustier. Certainly there was a lot more Franglais than proper French spoken.
A typical Nunn household exchange might go like this (don't worry - no knowledge of French is necessary):
Mr Nunn: Avez-vous booké le holiday yet? (note for francophones: they used the formal version of "you" not out of any mutual respect, but because they'd forgotten you're supposed to say "tu".)
Mrs Nunn: Oui. Nous going a Disney World.
Mr Nunn: Quand dates are nous going?
Mrs Nunn: Nous partez 5 juillet.
Smug Laura: It's not "nous partez", it's "nous partons". And actually, if you want to say "we are going", as in future tense, you either need to say, "nous partirons" or "nous allons partir".
Mr Nunn: C'est bien to leave Laura on her seul?
Mrs Nunn: Oui. Je beaucoup prefer to go without Laura. Smug vache.
No comments:
Post a Comment