"Commander Kinsey" wrote in message
newsp.0pvpqhsawdg98l@glass...
I first realised that I shouldn't *always* believe everything they said
when
a new French teacher taught us the year after I started learning French.
The
first French teacher had told us that the French for "curtains" was
"drapeaux", whereas the correct word is "rideaux". "Drapeaux" means
flags.
The new teacher has one of those "Hmmm. I shall have to have words with
Mr
previous teacher" moments...

On my first holiday in France I manged to ask for a loaf of Champagne.
The baker laughed her head off then gave me a pronounciation lesson.

That's better than the typical Parisian's response which is to feign
complete ignorance of what you are trying to say, instead of trying to work
with you to work out what you want.

The other year when we were in Hamburg, my wife fancied crepes, so we found
a stall in the Christmas market that was selling them. The woman didn't
speak English (one of the few that didn't - I'm ashamed to say that in
general their English was a lot better than my German). My wife wondered
whether they did lemon-juice and sugar. "Sugar" and "juice", I knew
("Zucker" and "Saft"), but WTF was the word for "lemon"? "Limon"? No. "Ein
gelbes Frucht - etwa zehn Centimeter lang" (a yellow fruit, about 10 cm
long) did the trick. "Ah, Zitrone!" she cried with glee. At least I didn't
have to mime a "sucking a lemon" face! Sadly she didn't have a Jif lemon,
after all that. But I won't forget that word now.