Friday, June 16, 2006

designated French-speaker

So now that our native French collaborator has left, I'm the most fluent speaker of French left working on the experiment. I'm actually quite proud of how I've done so far. I've managed to get a batch of targets made, to book taxis and hotel rooms, and to have a quite lengthy and detailed conversation with the police, all in French. Nevertheless, I have come out with some gems. Earlier today I found myself telling one of the administrators that "my boyfriend Alison and I have been expecting that the packet-parcel-thingy will arrive yesterday."

The only reason my French teachers aren't all rolling in their graves is that none of them are dead.

Friday, June 09, 2006

oh France

Graffito on an overpass near the outskirts of Paris:

CECI N'EST PAS UN TAG

Even spray-paint artists here are witty.

Friday, June 02, 2006

What are we feeling that would be better expressed in German?

...was the title of an Onion sidebar, many years ago. I can't remember their specific examples, but Elisa and I came up with several candidates this weekend:

  • the chagrin of realizing that you have once again left the house wearing your underwear inside-out.
  • the half-smug, half-abashed feeling that comes when you realize that your mother would disapprove of everything that you have eaten in the past twenty-four hours.
  • gloating over your secret plans to take revenge on someone by publishing a paper that invalidates an experiment they're doing.
...none of these are entirely hypothetical, as it happens.

Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions about the German equivalents?