I've been meaning to post this little antidote for awhile now, but I keep forgetting. As you know by now, the region where I live has its own words and accent and God knows what else. True Picards really pride themselves on this. Here's an exchange from during a class with my first level of BTSers. And yes, 95% of the English class is conducted in French.
Claude: C'est pour Shannon. Comment dit-on "oui" en picard? (For Shannon, how do you say "oui" in Picard?)
Student: Ouais. (The French version of "yeah")
Claude: Mais non! En picard! (No! In Picard!)
Another student: Ben oui.
Claude: Je vous ai dit en picard!
Another student (jokingly): Ben ouais!
Another student: Oui.
Claude: Exactement. Oui.
All the students nod in agreement.
Cut to me, looking very confused. What? There is apparently a very subtle difference between the way "oui" is said in Picard, and the way it is said in French. Claude wrote it out phonetically on the board for me, which was such a big help considering I don't know phonetics! The boys proceeded to repeat the two different "oui"s for me, but I just could not pick up the difference, not at all.
But don't worry, even if I can't hear the difference, I have the nonchalant "ben ouais" down pat. My students love it. Claude probably wants to beat it out of me. And I know it annoys Vero. But you can't blame me for that one when it's all I hear all day.
In other news, it snowed today. It actually started to stick! The maintenance guys were even putting down the all impractical sand so people wouldn't slip. Then, it turned to rain. Of course.
Yes, they seem to enjoy the fact that NO ONE ELSE IN FRANCE has a clue what they are saying most of the time. I really only run into this when random old people chat me up at the bus stop, and at cafes and such. Everyone else in this town is either not French (TONNNNNNS of North African immigrants) or just simply from another part of la France, and they live here to work in Paris.
ReplyDeletePlus, Beauvais is just to close to Paris to really come across the Picard accent. Once you hit about Chauny and go further north, that's when you get it. I got a hole lesson on this last year. You can even start to hear the difference between someone who comes from Noyon (further south) who has no accent and someone from Chauny or St. Quentin, etc.
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