Squishing the flea on the microchip with my thumb.

Learning Chinese has helped me with my French. Seriously. While there aren't many (or even any) similarities between the languages, understanding tones has helped me to understand the differences between some words.

For example, in French the words, "au-dessus" (meaning: above) and "au-dessous" (meaning: below) sound EXACTLY the same to me. Even when I asked my French friends, they couldn't explain the difference. It was only when they repeated the words over and over that I could hear what changed - au-dessus has a slightly higher tone than au-dessous. That's the only way I can describe it. Normally I could just figure out which word meant what by the context of the sentence, but "above" and "below?" Obviously very interchangeable.

I ran into another tonality difference last night, but one not so easily apparent. We were talking about credit card fraud, etc. Someone mentioned that France has been using credit cards with thumb identification (e.g. biometrics) for 20 years. I expressed my surprise that France had been using biometrics - I thought that was a relatively new technology! I told them that I'd never be able to use such credit cards because I have no thumbprint, etc. That's when we discovered my error.

In French, the word "microchip" is "puce" while "thumb" is "pousse" - but the words sound the exact same. The entire time that I thought they were talking about biometrics, they were actually talking about microchips! Whoops! We all had a chuckle when we sorted things out, but again when I asked what the difference between the words was, they weren't able to explain adequately. The only difference that I can hear is that "puce" is pronounced in a higher tone than "pousse."

Oh, and to complete your language lesson for the day, "puce" can also mean flea.