Narrow Dog to Carcassonne (33 page)

Jim stood up. He looked at Monica and he looked at me. He stretched, grinned, and farted.

French in Fifteen Minutes

by Terry Darlington

The only way to learn to speak French is to go somewhere where you have to speak the language or starve and do without sex.

But you can make it through the day with the aid of a simple rule, and eighteen phrases, and two useful tips. Fifteen minutes and you are on the road.

THE SIMPLE RULE

English works the other way round to French. The Englishman has been brought up to feel remorse at being born and causing inconvenience to others, while the Frenchman sees no reason to apologize.

Come and see my new car
—the Englishman’s voice descends slowly, as if advising of the death of a distant relative. The Frenchman says—
Venez voir ma nouvelle voiture!
landing with a cry on the last syllable, as if he had designed and built his
nouvelle voiture
with his own hands, and had just heard that the state had honoured him for doing so.

Say the word
pullover
, which exists in both languages. The Englishman starts high and falls away, but the Frenchman rises triumphantly—
Pull-o-VAIR
, as if his head were emerging from a tight woollie. So the simple rule is—

English falls, French rises.

Do not be afraid to move your hands and body around with the new rhythm. At times of high excitement your action should be similar to a man standing beneath a tree catching plums.

THE EIGHTEEN PHRASES

Ça, alors
—That, then. But stronger—I’m damned. In both languages the speaker places the stress at the wrong end of the sentence, showing to what extent he feels the natural order has been threatened.

C’est déjà quelque chose
—That’s already something. We would say—That’s a good start, but the French is more positive—Something has been accomplished. This is one of the phrases you should use all the time—it moves matters on, doesn’t mean very much, and will not cause offence.

C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre
—It is magnificent, but it is not war. Purse your lips, look at the object or concept brought to your attention, shake your head, and say
C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas…
and then add the object, such as
La Tour Eiffel,
or
Johnny Hallyday
.

C’est possible
—It is possible (and I will do it for you). In English It is possible means—It is possible (and I will not do it for you).

Chinoiserie
—Chinese stuff—messing about. Can be used to defend yourself against French bureaucracy.
Pourquoi cette
chinoiserie?
But remember the public sector in France is strong, has a literal mind, and believes in its mission.

Comme MacArthur, je reviendrai
—Like MacArthur, I shall return. Careful with this one, because MacArthur is pronounced Macca-tour, with the accent heavy on the last syllable, and if you do not accent it strongly enough they will call you back and ask what the hell you are talking about.

Espèce de
—Sort of. If you are going to abuse someone in French start with this. It gives you a moment to choose your words and warns the other party that you are about to become offensive, so the proper dignities can be observed. The normal term of abuse is
Espèce d’idiot
, but
Espèce d’imbécile
is also widely applicable.

Il exagère
—He exaggerates. Lean strongly on the last syllable and draw it out and the sense comes through—he is overdoing it and what is more he is a prat.

Impeccable
—the nearest we have in English is the obsolete ‘first-rate’. Just say
Impeccable, impeccable
, quietly every five seconds, and smile, with a few simple gestures. The land and all that is in it will be yours.

Je vous en prie
—I beg you to. You’re welcome—but softer, more polite. We have a near translation in English, but only for men—My dear chap. The French say
Je vous en prie
all the time. You can use it continuously, alternating with
impeccable
.

Merci
—Thank you. As a boy in Lille I did not realize that it also means No thank you, and nearly starved in the midst of plenty.

Messieurs ’dames
—Ladies and gentlemen. When entering a room say this and then shake the hand of everyone in sight. Also when leaving. It is not always possible to observe the letter of this convention, for example in a crowded supermarket, but you must do your best.

Narrowboat anglais avalant
—English narrowboat coming downstream. Useful if you find yourself in a narrowboat on a big river and have a VHF radio and want to say something into it. Upstream is
montant
, or perhaps it is the other way round.

Òu sont les neiges d’antan?
—Where are the snows of yester-year? The most beautiful line in French poetry. In conversation you can replace
neiges
with
voitures
, or
chanteurs
or anything you like really. Unlike the British, the French know their poetry. If you can quote it they will react strongly in your favour, offering you hospitality or in extreme cases allowing you to sleep with their daughters.

Quand vous serez bien vieille, le soir, à la chandelle
—When you are old, by evening candlelight. The second most beautiful line in French poetry. In 1975 I took a team of runners in relay from the Eiffel Tower back to Stone, and we had a drink in my favourite Paris bar, run by the beautiful Monique. Mick Powell, our best runner, said this to Monique and she asked him into the room behind the bar, where she gave him a surprise.

Un petit vin de la région
—A modest wine from round here. On a research job in France I was keen to impress my beautiful assistant, and casually used this phrase.
Mais monsieur
, replied the waiter—
nous sommes à Calais—il n’y a pas de vins
de la région
—so please note they don’t make wine round Calais.

Vous n’avez pas de…?
—You haven’t got…?
Vous n’avez pas de moules frites? Vous n’avez pas de carte postale de Johnny Hallyday?
Say this and the French will rise to their feet,
Mais si, monsieur!
and rush to the kitchen or the postcard rack to show that you have misjudged them.

THE TWO USEFUL TIPS

When you set out to try your luck never start speaking with an English phrase in your head. If you are stuck say
Impeccable, impeccable, je vous en prie, je vous en prie
, and twist your hands nervously from the wrists. The French will offer a phrase to start you off and then you are away.

If you want to be understood the vowel sounds are very important, and so is the rhythm of course, but don’t feel you have to pronounce every consonant. A confident French person will slur and soften the consonants and talk in a deep tone, as if in the last stages of sexual exhaustion.

Quotations, References, Echoes

Most of the sources below stayed in the memory because they gave pleasure. A reader with nothing worthwhile to do could seek entertainment by matching them to the text.—T.D.

Chapter One: Moon River—Stone to Westminster

Warner, “Speedy Gonzales” • Croce, “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” • Williams, “Bony Moronie” • Tennyson, “Ulysses” • Eliot, “The Waste Land” • Mancini, “Moon River” • Melville,
Moby-Dick
• Unknown, “The Wanderer” • Merill/Larue, “Ma Petite Folie” • St Luke, Ch. 2 • Kennel Club,
Whippet Breed Standard
• Pope,
The Dunciad
• TV series,
The Lone Ranger
• St Matthew, Ch. 6 • Hopkins, “Pied Beauty” • II Samuel, Ch. 1 • Ziegler, Nixon government statement • De Nerval, “El Desdichado” • Tennyson,
Idylls of the King
• Malory,
Morte d’Arthur
• Shakespeare,
Henry IV
• Sir Hugh Fish, conservationist • General Mills, Jolly Green Giant • Shakespeare,
The Tempest
• Traditional, “What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor” • Unknown,
Beowulf

Chapter Two: The Flies, the Flies—The Thames to the Severn

Spenser, “Prothalamion” • Philippians, Ch. 4 • Yeats, “Long-legged Fly” • Kipling, “If” • Marvell, “The Garden” • Shakespeare,
Julius Caesar
• Pott, “The Strife Is O’er” • Fitzgerald,
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
• Capehart/ Cochran, “Summertime Blues” • Shakespeare,
Hamlet, Macbeth
• Arnold, “A Closer Walk with Thee” • Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
Sonnets from the Portuguese, No. 43
• Shakespeare,
Hamlet
• Wordsworth, “Resolution and Independence” • Shelley, “Ozymandias” • Eliot, “The Waste Land” • Gloucester Harbour Trustees,
Small Boat Passage of the Severn Estuary
• Newman, “Praise to the Holiest” • Tennyson,
Idylls of the King
, “Crossing the Bar”,
In Memoriam A.H.H.
• Roddenberry,
Star Trek
• Shakespeare,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Pott, “The Strife Is O’er” • Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” • Tennyson,
Idylls of the King
• Flecker,
The Golden Journey to Samarkand
• Thorpe, letter to Norman Scott

Chapter Three: Dead Man’s Wharf—Stone to Southwark

Chaucer,
The Canterbury Tales
• Ransom,
The Archaeology of Canals
• Newman, “Praise to the Holiest” • Ideal World,
Help at Home
catalogue • Cohen, “First We Take Manhattan” • Spenser,
The Faerie Queen
• Kipling, “If” • Eliot, “The Waste Land” • Conan Doyle,
The Sign of Four
• Bolton,
Race Against Time
• Howard,
Slipstream
• Drabble,
Angus Wilson
• Duke of Edinburgh, state visit to China • Yeats, “Long-legged Fly” • Chaucer,
The Canterbury Tales

Chapter Four: The Sea Cat—England to France

Maupassant, “Le Horla” • Tennyson,
Idylls of the King
• Bosquet, on the Charge of the Light Brigade • Milton,
Comus
• The
Sun
, headline • Tennyson,
The Princess
• Newman, “Lead, Kindly Light” • Hawkins, Elizabethan naval commander/star of film
The Cruel Sea
• Forrester,
Mr Midshipman Hornblower
• Bader, Cunningham, WWII fighter aces • Bannister, first mile under 4 minutes, 1954 • Moorcroft, 6 seconds off 5000-metre record, 1982 • TV series,
The Lone Ranger
• Jagger, Richards, “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” • Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” • Football song, “Here We Go” • Ferry disaster, 1987, 194 passengers drowned • McCullers,
The Ballad of the Sad Café
• Trenet, “La Mer” • Berlin, “Blue Skies” • Paul, “Plaisir d’Amour” • Thomas, “When, Like a Running Grave”

Chapter Five: Mindful of Honour—Calais to Armentières

Wordsworth, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” • Auden, “The Shield of Achilles” • Cain,
The Young Guns
• Scott,
Top Gun
• St John, Ch. 1 • Friedman, book title • Siegal and Shuster,
Superman
• Curtiz,
Casablanca
• Churchill, speech, 10.11.42 • Curtiz,
Casablanca
• Hart,
History of the Second World War
• Guderian,
Panzer Leader
• De Nerval, “El Desdichado” • De Gaulle, speech, 18.06.40 • Delaplace,
Activités Aériennes dans le Ciel de Watten et Eperlecques 1939–45
• Town of Braydunes, French Infantry Memorial • Dufay,
La Vie dans l’Audomarois sous l’Occupation
• Aragon, “Ballade de celui qui chanta dans les supplices” • Larkin, “Cut Grass” • Rowland/Carlton, “Mademoiselle from Armenteers”

Chapter Six: The Dark Tower—Courtrai to Waulsort

Unknown, “The Wanderer” • Frost, “Tree at My Window” • Milton,
Comus
• Williams,
Hughie Long
• Browning, “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came” • Wells,
The War of the Worlds
• Archimedes,
Synagoge
• Pope,
The Dunciad
• Tennyson,
The Princess
•
Daily/Sunday Sport
, front page • Spenser,
The Faerie Queen
• Internal Audit Service, the European Union, report, April 2003 • Yeats, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” • Lamartine, “La Vigne et la Maison”

Chapter Seven: The Drunken Boat—Charleville-Mézières to Paris

Rimbaud, “Le Bateau Ivre” • Hopper,
Nighthawks
• Moustaki/Monnot, “Milord” • Campbell, “Prince Harry Hotspur” • Simenon,
Le Charretier de la Providence
• Du Maurier,
The Birds
• Unknown, “The Wanderer” • Milton,
Paradise Lost
• Marlowe,
Doctor Faustus
• Arnold, “The Scholar-Gypsy” • Rimbaud, “Faim” • Westworld, “Sonic Boom Boy” • Brooke, “The Old Vicarage, Grantchester” • Rimbaud, “Le Bateau Ivre” • Shakespeare,
Macbeth
• Gibbon,
Memoirs of My Life
• Fitzgerald,
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
• Chandler,
Farewell My Lovely
• Verlaine, “Mon Rêve Familier” • Shakespeare, sonnet • Berger, translation of traditional fado • Baudelaire, “L’Albatros” • Spenser,
The Faerie Queen
• Rimbaud, “Le Bateau Ivre”

Chapter Eight: A Silver Bowl—Paris and the Seine

Prévert, “Je Suis Comme Je Suis” • Wordsworth, “Lines Written on Westminster Bridge” • Carné,
Hotel du Nord
• Nation,
Doctor Who
• Apollinaire, “Le Bestiaire” • Apollinaire, “Le Dromadaire” • Sartre,
Les Chemins de la Liberté
• Herrick, “Delight in Disorder” • Waugh,
Scoop
• Bosquet, on the Charge of the Light Brigade • Unknown,
Beowulf
• Porter, “At Long Last Love” • Fleming/Hamilton,
Goldfinger
• Milne, “Vespers” • Bosquet, on the Charge of the Light Brigade • Tennyson,
Idylls of the King
, “The Lady of Shalott”

Chapter Nine: Jack the Disemboweller—The River Yonne

Charles d’Orléans, “Rondeau” • Watkins,
The War Game
• Fitzgerald/Nugent,
The Great Gatsby
• Petit,
Le Sennonais Libéré
, 23.04.04 • Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress” • Cornwell,
Jack l’Eventreur
(trans. Jean Esch) • Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale” • Norbert Dentressangle, road haulier • Wheatley/Fisher,
The Devil Rides Out

Chapter Ten: Their Several Greens—The Burgundy Canal

Calilli, Lookofsky, Sansone, “Walk Away Renée” • Shakespeare,
Hamlet
• Simon,
Fluvial
magazine, April 2004 • Anka, “My Way” • Shakespeare,
Macbeth
• Wallace, O’Hogan, “Old Father Thames” • Redford,
Quiz Show
• Frakes,
Star Trek: First Contact
• Carné,
Le Jour Se Lève
• Cocteau,
Orphée
• Chabrol,
Les Cousins
• Jammes, “Prière pour aller au paradis avec les ânes” • Boorman,
Deliverance
• Wynette, “D.I.V.O.R.C.E.” • Berger, letter to T.D. • Marlowe,
Doctor Faustus
• Tennyson,
Idylls of the King
• Milton,
Comus
• Rimbaud, “Le Bateau Ivre” • Townshend, “Pinball Wizard”

Chapter Eleven: Battles in the Clouds—The Saône

Marlowe,
Doctor Faustus
• Cornford, “The Coast, Norfolk” • Gautier, “Symphonie en Blanc Majeur” • Charles d’Orléans, “Rondeau” • Pompadour, saying • Wordsworth, inside of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge • Mancini, “Moon River” • Marshall, “Rose Garden” • Cohn, “Je Trahirai Demain” (attributed) • Morgan,
An Uncertain Hour

Chapter Twelve: The Destroyer of Worlds—The Rhône

Bagehot,
The English Constitution
• Stevenson,
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
• Maupassant, “Le Horla” • Milton,
Comus
• Croft and Perry,
Dad’s Army
• St Matthew, Ch. 6 • Oppenheimer, on atomic bomb • Berlin, “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” • Debussy, Prélude No. 10 • Malory,
Morte d’Arthur
• Anon, “Sur le Pont d’Avignon” • Oppenheimer, on atomic bomb

Chapter Thirteen: The Wine-dark Sea—Languedoc-Roussillon

Dumont/Vaucaire, “Je Ne Regrette Rien” • Anka, “My Way” • Tennyson,
Idylls of the King
• Rimbaud, “Le Bateau Ivre” • Valéry, “Le Cimetière Marin” • Homer,
The Odyssey
• Shakespeare,
Macbeth
•
Book of Common Prayer
, Psalm 23 • Berry, “Johnny B. Goode” • Otis, “Willie and the Hand Jive” • Weintraub,
Peel Me a Grape
• Smith, description of heaven • Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale” • Trinder, comment on American GIs (attributed) • Blackwell/Hammer, “Great Balls of Fire” • Yogi Berra, comment on National League pennant race • Dickens,
A Tale of Two Cities
• Cavafy, “Ithaka” • Homer,
The Odyssey