I have a friend who speaks five languages fluently. I speak one--English--but I can say hello and order wine in at least four languages. Pretty much all you really need to know. Sometimes though, it would be nice to know just a couple more words.
The other day in Paris, three of us were in a car on the way to dinner with a driver who, I believed spoke about as much English as we do French. But, no matter. He understood our mangled pronunciation of the name of the restaurant--we thought.
After the first few turns though, we began to doubt that he was taking us in the right direction.
"Are we headed to la Fontaine Gaillon?" Tim enquired in loud, slow English, which is exactly the same as speaking any foreign language.
Pause. No response.
Our friend in the front seat gave it a try. Whew! Glad he speaks French, I thought.
"Are we going to la Fontaine Gaillon?" he repeated.
Wait. What? I looked at Tim to see if I was nuts or if he had heard his question repeated in loud, slow English.
Surprisingly, he got an affirmative answer. Hmmm. Guess Tim wasn't loud enough or slow enough.
Not satisfied that the driver really understood his concern, Tim persisted. "I thought it was in the other direction from our hotel," he leaned forward and yelled in the driver's ear.
Pause. No response.
"We thought it was in the other direction from our hotel," once again our friend's language skills dazzled us.
"Yes, I go this way," the driver replied.
Okay. This was getting just plain weird. I was hearing English, but clearly our friend was actually speaking French to the driver. I guess the jet lag was worse than I thought. I looked at Tim to see if he had heard the same thing I did, but he was too intent on getting at least one answer out of the driver without a translator.
"Isn't the restaurant over by the Louvre?" he bellowed, leaning so far forward his nose was practically pressed against the windshield.
Once again a pause and no response. Oh, this guy was good.
We exchanged puzzled glances with our friend who gamely interpreted one more time.
"Isn't the restaurant over by the Louvre?" he once again repeated loudly and slowly.
"Yes, but the traffic is bad, so I go around," the driver answered straightaway.
Okay, now this was just getting bizarre. I know our friend was speaking English that time. I could tell from the bright red color creeping up Tim's neck. So why wouldn't the driver answer Tim? Had he offended him in some way? He was wearing Italian shoes, but the tie was French. Didn't that count for something?
Hey. What if it was the accent? Did our friend's mid-western twang sound more Parisian than our flat, east-coast diction? Maybe Tim would have gotten further if he'd tried a "Hey y'all" or "How you doin'?". Even a "Yo. 'sup?" might have actually gotten some sort of acknowledgment.
Alas, we would never know the truth because before Tim could go with his instincts and throttle the driver until he admitted he actually understood and spoke flawless English, we arrived at our destination...Where I promptly ordered us each a nice glass of wine...in French...I think.
1 comment:
When we see you guys in Florida, ask John about his last trip to Paris where he manged to get fish after pointing to le poulet on the menu.
or the trip before that where he got tea when ordering cafe avec sucre. mmm. I think that was also the trip where he demanded to know where his shirts were and they told him it was se impossible for him to have them at that time, and he told them that they would tell him where they had taken them and he would get in his car and go find them.
Paris is not made for husbands such as ours.
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