Product Description

Things you don't know about France:

You burnt Joan of Arc! -- Smuggling live chickens into rugby matches is patriotic -- How many times to kiss on the cheek -- Where not to cross the road -- French guns don't go `bang' -- What do you call a party? -- 'bon appetit' is vulgar -- What do you call a party? -- A six-pack is a bar of chocolate -- The dangers of being called Peter or Penny -- Your smallest finger is your `ear' finger -- The importance of Wednesdays -- How to tip -- and when to celebrate Christmas?

Forget the French you learnt at school. Based on twenty years of hard-won knowledge, Pardon My French takes you through all the words you need to survive, shows how and why they work, and steers you past all the pitfalls and potential embarrassments of speaking French in France.

From sugar-cube etiquette to why the Marseillaise is all about slaughtering Austrians and Prussians as bloodily as possible, Charles Timoney lays bare the Gallic mindset alongside their bizarre language. Covering all areas of everyday life from eating and drinking to travel, work and, crucially, swearing and sounding like a teenager, this is not just the most entertaining, but also the most useful book on France and the French you'll ever read.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2944 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-02
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Guardian
'So good...the book describes the French real French people speak, as opposed to the French you're taught in school. It also, delicately and amusingly, looks at the pscychology of the French. Some French words are just false friends. A 'gateaux' is a rather dull biscuit, not an elaborate cake. 'Creme anglaise' is not cream, but custard. If you photograph a French person, you don't ask them to say 'cheese' and certainly not 'fromage'; instead they sy 'ouistiti', which, weirdly, means a marmoset. The word 'verge' is French for the male organ, which delights the few French travellers here when they see a road sign: 'soft verges'.'

Synopsis
Takes you through various words you need to survive, shows how and why they work, and steers you past various pitfalls and potential embarrassments of speaking French in France. This title covers various areas of everyday life from eating and drinking to travel, work and, crucially, and, swearing and sounding like a teenager.

About the Author
When Charles Timoney and his French wife were both made redundant in the same week they decided to try living in France for a year or so. But it wasn't easy: Charles' French O level was little help when everyone around him consistently used a wide variety of impenetrable slang and persisted in talking about things he had never heard of. Two decades and two thoroughly French children later, he decided to write the guide to French that would have saved him so many blunders and misunderstandings along the way. This is it.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant
I wish I'd known about this book when we first came to live in France over a year ago. My ancient O-level French was all I had to rely on at the time and that included none of the extremely useful words and phrases I now know since reading Pardon My French. Not only has it improved my understanding of the language but also my understanding of certain aspects of the French way of life which can be so different from our own. Informative, entertaining and very easy to read. Great book.

French dressing
It doesn't matter what language you learn, as soon as you have to interact with native speakers in their natural habitat you find they use a whole series of verbal tricks, tics, terms and routines you never covered in the classroom or textbook. Getting up to speed with these takes a while, not because they are difficult, but simply because they are so poorly documented. Traditional courses are always based on an `idealised' version of the language and native speakers are often quite bad at spotting the non-standard way in which their language is actually used. Indeed it often takes an alert non-native speaker to really understand what is going on! Timoney fits the bill perfectly and provides us with a useful (although not over-long) list of terms for the intermediate student. Normally this type of material is lazily presented as an alphabetic list, but here the author categorises the terms in section such as Food and Drink, Relations and so on and provides an often very funny commentary to go with each. This works very well and Timoney is an engaging and observant cultural and linguistic witness. It reads a bit like the accompanying textbook to Stephen Clarke's very funny "A Year in the Merde". It loses a star though for the annoyingly retro "Brush up your French" design of the UK edition of the book. Surely this type of book can sell without Sempé-lite drawings of baguettes and berets and the irrelevant "Unleash your inner Gaul" strap line.

A Good Fun Read
Thank you Mr Timoney for adding something more entertaining to my daughters standard French texts.