Je ne care pas

I am finally a true citizen of Montreal. I was chatting with my coworker one day in French and in the midst of our conversation I told her, “Je ne care pas.” When I realized that I had mixed the two languages together I started chuckling.

Despite my nefarious use of franglais, she completely understood what I was saying. She assured me that my unthinking blending of the two languages means that I am a true Quebecer, since they’re notorious for stealing English words.

Of course, my French isn’t all sunshine and roses. There was a moment yesterday when I wanted to ask her a question about archiving emails. Just as I started to pronounce the word, “archiver” I realized I couldn’t remember if it had a hard or soft “ch” sound. Instead I stuttered over the “ar” syllable for a good 15 seconds before finally giving up. It went something like this: “Alexandra, quand je veux ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-AUGH!” We both burst out laughing at my complete and utter failure to speak.

Some other crazy things about languages here in Montreal is how they affect English. On the island, certain words and grammar are stolen from the French. Instead of convenience stores, we have dépanneurs. Instead of training, we go for formation. You don’t use highways, you use autoroutes. You also open and close things rather than turn them on or off. (E.g. I’m closing my computer. I’m opening the lights.)

Homonyms

On Sunday night I was arguing with two friends over homonyms. I felt that French had more homonyms (words that sound the same but are spelled differently) than English. I mean, come on, when conjugated, many French verbs sound the exact same. Take the Imperfect verb tense as an example. You add the following endings to the verbs:

• ais*
• ait*
• issons
• issez
• aient*

The endings with an asterisk sound the exact same even though they're spelled differently. Paul put me in my place when he pointed out English's foibles including there, their, and they're. Oops.

He put me even further in my place when he emailed me Alan Coopers' Homonyms. Wow. Them's a lot of homonyms. I don't think I'll argue against English not having homonyms anymore...

Nei gei hai psst!

Today near the end of the day, Henry and I walked to the cafeteria so I could buy some cookies. (Nothing beats the cookies in the vending machine and microwaving them for 30 seconds.)

Earlier on our way to lunch, Henry and I had been following Annzley down the hall, and Henry kept trying to get Annzley's attention by making a "psst" sound. She ignored him because she thought the sound was a leaky pipe.

Well, on our way back from the cafeteria, Henry kept making the Pssting sound at me. Suddenly he says, "neigeihaipsst."

I was like, "What the hell?" I realized he was speaking Cantonese. So I tried to translate the sentence out loud. I kept saying it over and over trying to figure it out. "You. You umm. You something is Psst." Well, he starts staring at me like I'm a freak (a sensation I've become familiar with). And repeats what he said once again.

That's when I finally realized what he was saying. "Leaky pipes. Psst." I don't know where I got Cantonese out of that, but I nearly died laughing when I realized what had happened.