Monday, January 18, 2010

Successful translation!

Day 18 – Le plage et au bar de l’hôtel

Yesterday, we were going to go to the pool and hang out for the day, but turns out it was 4000 francs (~$8) to go to the pool, so we just decided to go to the beach for free. We spent the day at the beach, occasionally pestered by locals who wanted to sell us stuff. But some legitimately just wanted to talk. However, there was one teenage boy who came and sat down next to us. We waited for him to leave, but after 20 minutes, he was laying on the sand, staring at the downstairs region of Caroline. After a few minutes of him sitting there, I was getting really annoyed with him. I feel that we had given him enough time to leave, but he hadn’t done so. Julie even told him to leave us alone, but he didn’t leave. So I looked at him, and asked if he spoke English, he didn’t say anything, so I said “français?” However, he didn’t really respond. So I started telling him to leave, very forcefully and vocally, I said, in very French “Ici non! La bas, la bas. Tu reste pas ici. La bas.” Which is: Here non. Over there, over there. You can’t rest here. Over there.” I told him he couldn’t look at Caroline, and to leave. This may sound insensitive, but I did it as rudely as possible. But I think that he was being very inconsiderate. He left. Thankfully. And he walked down the beach away from us which was even better.

So, the most exciting part of yesterday for me was at the bar. After going to the beach, the four of us decided to go to the l’hôtel, and get a drink. I decided to have a beer. Within the first couple of minutes of drinking the beer, a fly (un mouche) landed in my beer, and was swimming around. I picked out the fly, and continued drinking my beer, BUT (here’s the best part) I know a joke about flies landing in beer. AND I successfully translated it into French! And everyone laughed! The reason that this is so exciting for me, is because it really does mean that I am learning more French, and it also means that people can understand me when I’m speaking in French.

The person who told me the joke is Sam, my roommate, so I wanted to dedicate this to her. I think she’ll be very proud of me when she reads this and finds out that I told a joke in French! Here’s the joke (in English of course):

There’s an Englishman, a Scot, and an Irishman in a pub in the UK, and a fly lands in each of their beers. The Englishman pushes the beer away in disgust refusing to drink it. The scot, grabs the fly, tosses it, and continues drinking his beer, but the Irish man picks up the fly and yells: Spit it out! Give me back the beer!

I hope you’re laughing. Needless to say, I am très proud of myself!

4 comments: