Thursday 12th May

For as long as I can remember I have woken thinking, “Today is Thursday” or whatever day of the week it is.  In fact I always know what day of the week it is, and when I get to the Café and head up the little sales pad I always record the day “Jeudi” or whatever day it might be, in French. This comes automatically just like the numbers; at least up to seventy, but the French habit of not having an Eighty but Quatre Vingts (four twenties) still confuses me, especially in le Supermarche when they rattle out the amount due trop vite pour me.

My French is getting better, slowly. Painfully slowly I think at times, and it doesn’t help that most of our customers are either English, or French who speak much better English than I do their language.  But sometimes, if I am engaged in conversation I catch myself actually thinking in French, or the limited French I know, and not rapidly translating in my head. I suppose I will consider myself fluent when I wake up and say to myself “Ce jour est Jeudi”.

And we constantly meet English people who have lived out here for a number of years who can barely say “Bonjour”.  The lazy English take the easy option of expecting everyone else in the World to speak their language; victims of our earlier World domination when three-quarters of the globe was either painted pink, or America (which was really English anyway) or places nobody wanted to live (like China or Russia).  Other nations automatically teach their kids English, as it is the language of Commerce, whereas languages are considered a choice in the UK rather than a necessity.  C’est la vie…..