Whenever Julien asks me, “Ca va?” over the phone I sadly realised that I only have two answers in French:
- “Tres bien”
- “Pas mal” (which I ripped off from one of our chats; automatic disqualification)
To which a friend pointed out (well, I’m not sure if she considers me as hers but if you’re reading this, I’m holding up my middle finger… plus the pointer finger in a peace sign, comeon! don’t be so sensitive!) mentioned that I was utterly embarassing, since I’ve known Julien for three years and should at least now be able to construct more creative sentences in French. Well, I can’t. Gender-assigned words don’t exactly make them endearing to learn. Of course I’ll learn. Eventually. French is hard. Sign language is easier, but unfortunately the ratio of the hearing French population outnumbers those who cannot hear. And anyway, what does he say when I ask him “Kamusta?” Does he say, “Eto, ganon pa rin, buhay pa naman…”? No, he does not. But in fairness, he can order San Miguel Lite in Filipino. His engineer resourcefulness shines through in his choice of sentence composition.
And their accent is way too sexy to put into words…
I can say rude French words, which will come in handy in a situation of trying to run away from the drunk French bums in the slum areas who shall most probably be in the attempts to grab my wallet and/or kill me.
Or I can just scream…?
Quick, I need more phrases. Can someone translate “Damn, you wouldn’t believe how long it took for the train to arrive, and to top it all off it stopped in the middle of the tracks, between the Ortigas and Shaw stations, isn’t that funny, the whole train had to walk on the tracks about fifty feet away, ridiculous! Hahaha!” to French for me? Please email your answers. First ten will get a brownie with happy holidays hallucinatory effects. Or not. Happy Holidays!
