Ferme La Bouche

Luella-14_2

*max* wrote: »

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.

Have to disagree here. I lived with French students in Paris for 3 years and it was said regularly - in a jokey way of course but I'ver never heard it said seriously in England among my friends either.

*max*

lol That's what my mates have been saying too (that and some "interesting" variations on the theme that are unfit for a family forum...lol). It's still bugging me that there's no informal-but-not-disrespectful equivalent of "sir" though. But then I'm a boring sucker for grammar I suppose!

*max*

Luella-14 wrote: »

Have to disagree here. I lived with French students in Paris for 3 years and it was said regularly - in a jokey way of course but I'ver never heard it said seriously in England among my friends either.

I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I've never heard it in that context!

aliasojo

Maybe you mixed with higher class people, Max.

*max*

aliasojo wrote: »

Maybe you mixed with higher class people, Max.

:rotfl:I seriously doubt it!

Savvy_Sue

If you grow up speaking a language which distinguishes between m and f nouns, apparently you just 'know'.

But what's f in one language may be m in another.

Although my French teacher assured us that hands were always feminine, in any and every language.

I'm desperately trying to get my head round the two different verbs for 'to be' in Spanish. 'Soy' English, because I always have been and I always will be. 'Estoy' married, because one day I might not be. 'Soy' administrator - why's that, one day I might be an astronaut? 'Estoy' washing up - well, sometimes it feels as if I always will be ... You get my drift?

*max*

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

If you grow up speaking a language which distinguishes between m and f nouns, apparently you just 'know'.

But what's f in one language may be m in another.

Although my French teacher assured us that hands were always feminine, in any and every language.

I'm desperately trying to get my head round the two different verbs for 'to be' in Spanish. 'Soy' English, because I always have been and I always will be. 'Estoy' married, because one day I might not be. 'Soy' administrator - why's that, one day I might be an astronaut? 'Estoy' washing up - well, sometimes it feels as if I always will be ... You get my drift?

I don't know any Spanish, but it sounds like the way we were taught English at school: the difference between "I am" and "I've been".

I am an astronaut: it's happening now, and for the indeterminate future. It's a thing "in the now".
I have been an astronaut: It's happening now, and for the indeterminate future, but it started in the past. It's a thing "that has been and keeps on being".

Could that be it?

crazyguy

The only French I know,

J'aime les femmes françaises et ils sont normalement sales chipies Wee

Savvy_Sue

*max* wrote: »

I don't know any Spanish, but it sounds like the way we were taught English at school: the difference between "I am" and "I've been".

I am an astronaut: it's happening now, and for the indeterminate future. It's a thing "in the now".
I have been an astronaut: It's happening now, and for the indeterminate future, but it started in the past. It's a thing "that has been and keeps on being".

Could that be it?

I'll give that some thought ... thanks!

Chaos_Monkey

I'm with you, aliasojo.....I can't remember anything from school French other than ''J'abite a Blackpool en Angleterre dans le nord ouest'.....and even then I'm fairly sure my spelling is off! Not useful in the slightest. Especially as I moved from Blackpool a good few years ago! I can't even remember how to say 'my name is.....'. Although I can count to 14.

I can remember more of the Spanish I learnt (still not much though), and am pretty sure I'd have done better at that if it had been an option at school, but we only got French or German (in which I can say ''my name is...''!). I just wasn't interested in either option, so didn't bother.

I'd love to have a second language, and if we were to have kids I'd make sure they did, although I'm not quite sure how I'd do that seeing as DH is even less bilingual then me!