From time to time I get the opportunity to suddenly learn a whole new vocabulary. Sometimes it the result of an emergency. The latest started when at 11pm one night water started pouring out of the bottom of my boiler.
After a moment of being frozen in sheer horror at was happening, I managed to fly into action and do constructive things like turn of the mains tap and find buckets. I was actually quite calm about the whole thing, as apart from a wet floor in the mezzanine, the water hadn't caused any damage and, as I live in rented accommodation relief, that it would be my landlord's responsibility to sort things out.
The next morning though, I discovered that he was out of the country and he cheerfully gave me full permission to sort it out and send the bill to him. When I got to work the learning curve began. The French staff talked to me abut it and I started learning words like 'plombier', 'fuite' and of course 'chaudière'. I have a couple of friends who are builders and hoped one of them would be able to fix it, unfortunately they both had too much work on. Fortunately another friend lives next to a plumber.
It took a while, a quick home visit to restore cold water supplies, some interesting phone calls (to what felt like his entire family) and the discovery that 'le début de la semaine' actually means Friday and my flat was taken over by 3 guys in matching T-shirts fully equipped with tools and a very large box containing a new boiler.
They were I have to say, brilliant and besides the odd 'putain', polite and charming. They cleaned up after themselves and asked permission to use things.
A situation by situation basis probably a good way to learn a language. For a short while you intensively use the words and formations and it goes into your head and stays there. A German client of mine, with 2 children born in France, cheerfully admitted that she had no idea what some of the words and phrases that she learnt during her pregnancy actually are in German.
Pleased as I am with my new boiler (it's much quieter for a start) and all the new words I have learnt, I'm hoping it will be a while yet before another emergency vocab learning session happens.
Sunday 24 April 2011
Friday 15 April 2011
azerty
Lyonlottie would like to apologise for the break in service and any difficulties that this may have caused you.
I had major computer problems, well it wouldn't start and in the end it was kinder to all involved to send it off to the great big recycling centre in the sky. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all my (slightly more computer savvy than me) friends who put up with my phonecalls and comments along the lines of 'But it won't let me do that', 'What dialogue box?' 'Oh, hang on it's... oh, no, that didn't work.' and 'Nope, it's gone back to blue screen again.'
My old computer was an English PC that I brought over with me and to be fair, gave a good 7 years of service. Once I realised that he and I would no longer be working together and had mourned his passing, I treated myself to a swish new laptop that even makes the same sort of clicky noise when you tap the keys as you hear in the films. It starts really quickly in seconds, rather than the time it takes to make a cup of tea and makes my desk look positively spacious.
It is however and quite obviously, a French computer and has a French keyboard, hence the azerty combination on the top row. I think I have now got my head round the new layout and am grateful that I never learnt to touch type. Occasionally I will replace 'a's with 'q's and one time it switched itself to an English keyboard setting and I needed to zork out hoz to chqnge the keyboqrd lqnguqgue bqck to French. But we are getting along fine now and I can do really zappy things like write French words with accents in the right place. This really helps when use words like crèche a lot and that your facebook friends realise you are talking about wine and not flowers when you write that you would 'really like a rosé right now.'
It is kind of interesting to think that if I get another qwerty keyboard in the future will I have to retrain myself again? And will I enjoy throwing accents around that I'd stick with a azerty one? Time will tell.
I had major computer problems, well it wouldn't start and in the end it was kinder to all involved to send it off to the great big recycling centre in the sky. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all my (slightly more computer savvy than me) friends who put up with my phonecalls and comments along the lines of 'But it won't let me do that', 'What dialogue box?' 'Oh, hang on it's... oh, no, that didn't work.' and 'Nope, it's gone back to blue screen again.'
My old computer was an English PC that I brought over with me and to be fair, gave a good 7 years of service. Once I realised that he and I would no longer be working together and had mourned his passing, I treated myself to a swish new laptop that even makes the same sort of clicky noise when you tap the keys as you hear in the films. It starts really quickly in seconds, rather than the time it takes to make a cup of tea and makes my desk look positively spacious.
It is however and quite obviously, a French computer and has a French keyboard, hence the azerty combination on the top row. I think I have now got my head round the new layout and am grateful that I never learnt to touch type. Occasionally I will replace 'a's with 'q's and one time it switched itself to an English keyboard setting and I needed to zork out hoz to chqnge the keyboqrd lqnguqgue bqck to French. But we are getting along fine now and I can do really zappy things like write French words with accents in the right place. This really helps when use words like crèche a lot and that your facebook friends realise you are talking about wine and not flowers when you write that you would 'really like a rosé right now.'
It is kind of interesting to think that if I get another qwerty keyboard in the future will I have to retrain myself again? And will I enjoy throwing accents around that I'd stick with a azerty one? Time will tell.
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