Ferme La Bouche

aliasojo

That's what I remember from my French classes.

Actually my daughter has just got her first lot of French homework and I was surprised when I could read and pretty much understand the questions.

I realise it's only simple stuff but I thought I'd forgotten more than I'd ever learnt.

It will be interesting to see how much I understand once she progresses.

Do you ever use whatever language you were taught at school or have you forgotten most of it?

browneyedbazzi

Out of curiosity, do they teach you to say 'Ferme la bouche' here or 'Ferme ta bouche'?

I've heard people from this country say 'Ferme la bouche' a few times and always wondered....it means 'shut the mouth' whereas 'Ferme ta bouche' means shut your mouth (or at least that's how I was taught at school and what the French speaking members of my family say).

To answer your question - I learned French, German and Spanish at school and have used them all while on holiday etc, but haven't made everyday use of any of them for years!

aliasojo

It was always 'la'.

I envy your multi national tongue. I would have liked to be able to converse in another language but I made a really bad kid and I had no idea what was good for me until I was an adult and it was too late.

j.e.j.

When I did a 'brush up your french' course a couple of years ago I was surprised at how much i remembered from school, which was decades ago! Numbers were the trickiest for me though
Isn't 'shut up' something like 'Tais Toi'? .. hmm think my French has gone a bit rusty again :rotfl:

Deep_In_Debt

I was always quite good at French - got a B in my A Level French about 30 years ago!

My mum was a modern languages teacher so I did have a lot of help with French at home and other languages.

My French is very rusty now, although I have been to France on holiday quite a lot of times but most of the time with mum so I let her do the talking as I'm lazy and don't have the confidence to speak it to the natives in front of my mother! I can get by with it though if I had to. I understand more than I speak but I guess I just need to get the confidence to speak and not have the fear of being laughed at!

I have actually been thinking of going to evening classes to brush up on my French skills.

Gillyx

I got an A in my Higher French exam and now couldn't say more than a few words. How awful.

SailorSam

The only person i've heard say 'Ferme La Bouche' is Del Boy.

j.e.j.

SailorSam wrote: »

The only person i've heard say 'Ferme La Bouche' is Del Boy.

:rotfl::rotfl:
That and 'La plume de ma Tante'..

*max*

Well, English is actually the foreign language for me, and French the native one...I started learning English at school aged 11, then added German and Latin aged 13, then added Italian aged 18 when I went to Uni. I also had a spell of learning Arabic, but only for a year. I hardly remember any German now though, despite learning it for 7 years (I'm a little bitter about that...lol).

Sammy85_2

All i remember is the teacher shouting "ferme la bouche" and "silence svp"... oh and learning how to say .... je voudrais un demi kilo de pommes svp ... and other really useful stuff like, ou est the piscine?

SailorSam wrote: »

The only person i've heard say 'Ferme La Bouche' is Del Boy.

mange tout Rodney, mange tout!

*max*

Just to add, nobody actually says "ferme la/ta bouche" in the sense of "shut up" in France...It's something you'd say if a kid was eating with his mouth open, for example - so it's more "close your mouth" than the figurative "shut your mouth", if you see what I mean.