I was staggered one day last winter when in Belize. I was talking with an American man and a young man from Liverpool. The Liverpool chap had a very heavy Liverpuddlian accent. My accent, I’m afraid to say, makes me sound like Princess Anne. What staggered me is that the American couldn’t hear the difference. Not hear the difference ?! I found that amazing. On reflection, however, I told him that – actually – I couldn’t hear the difference between the Canadian and the American accent. I was assured there was very little difference. By this time a Canadian woman had joined our group and she, rather to the irritation of the American, told me that her accent is softer.
The discussion continued in this vein for a while (we were sitting at the bar of our son’s budget hostel in Hopkins – lovely – the bar is up under the trees where it is cool and there are a lot of young people from all over the world) and an Australian joined us. Surely, I said to the American, you can hear that his accent is different ? Nope. No way.
Having been in France many years I can now tell a “working class” accent, I suppose. Certainly in this area. I can also tell accents from the south of France where they have a delightful twang. France does have regional accents, of course, but they are not as pronounced as the British ones. Or at least so it seems to me.
As always, just as they pop in to my head (accents – the other sort of accent – missing):-
un clin d’oiel – a wink
rouler au pas – drive dead slow
une ordonnance – a prescription
en revanche – on the other hand
eternuer – sneeze. In French this is a verb and not a noun. We Brits have the luxury of being able to sneeze ( a verb) and to do a sneeze (a noun).
rien n’y fit – there was nothing for it
une petite voix – a small voice, ie you don’t sound on form: tu as une petite voix
abonnement – subscription (to a magazine for example)
au fond de mon lit – huddled up in bed
figure-toi – mark you
drolement – particularly, eg he was particularly rude: il etait drolement impoli
un particulier – an individual person (as opposed to a firm/company)
mere poule – motherly
le cadet de mes soucis – the least of my worries
chanceux – lucky. One would usually say “il a de la chance”, or “quelle chance!”
hot on his heels
la vache ! – blimey!
le footing – jogging
un beau coup de crayon – good at drawing
un beau coup de pinceau – good at painting (pictures)
sacre bon – this food is sacre bon – ie excellent. Or sacre mauvais or whatever.
forte – fat. Une femme forte: a fat woman. This sounds better than une grosse femme/une femme grosse, which is unkind. I suppose in the UK we’d say “a cuddly lady” …?
le grand trot – canter (for a horse). Trot is trot (pronouned tro) and gallop is gallop (pronounced gallo)
Catherine Broughton is a novelist, a poet and an artist. Her books are available as e-books from this site, (click below), from Amazon/Kindle, or can be ordered from any leading book store or library. Catherine Broughton spends her year in either the UK, France or Belize, and travels a great deal. Her travel stories and sketches from around the world are on http://www.turquoisemoon.co.uk
https://payhip.com/b/tEva “A Call from France”
https://payhip.com/b/OTiQ ”French Sand”
https://payhip.com/b/BLkF “The Man with Green Fingers”
https://payhip.com/b/1Ghq “Saying Nothing”
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