'Words have sex in foreign parts.'
I have added to my List of French Sayings: 'comment ça va?'. Which means: 'how's it going?'
I learned the response, too (in the bath, with the CD player on, eating glace au chocolat and trying to keep up) but, as usual, it floated right out of my head (and, most likely, right down the plughole). I think it ended with 'vous'. Dormez vous? Voulez vous? Déjà vous?
At least I'm learning to pronounce the phrases I do know properly - you need to say everything very nasally (this comes naturally to me, living as I do with The Schnozz That Stomped St. Sebastian's), and push your lips slightly forward as you speak (it's the language of smooches, you know), and pay careful attention to what the pitch of your voice is doing (they've got all sorts of odd sentence-stresses: big list of guidelines).
I may have some way to go before fluency.
I learned the response, too (in the bath, with the CD player on, eating glace au chocolat and trying to keep up) but, as usual, it floated right out of my head (and, most likely, right down the plughole). I think it ended with 'vous'. Dormez vous? Voulez vous? Déjà vous?
At least I'm learning to pronounce the phrases I do know properly - you need to say everything very nasally (this comes naturally to me, living as I do with The Schnozz That Stomped St. Sebastian's), and push your lips slightly forward as you speak (it's the language of smooches, you know), and pay careful attention to what the pitch of your voice is doing (they've got all sorts of odd sentence-stresses: big list of guidelines).
I may have some way to go before fluency.