Book description
Vocabulary alone isn't enough. To survive in the most sophisticated -
and the most scathing - nation on Earth you will need to understand
the many peculiarities of the (very peculiar) French culture. And for
that you need A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi.
If you want to fit in with the French you'll have to know how to
deal with sardonic waiters; why French children hate Charlemagne; the
etiquette of kissing, joke-telling and drinking songs, what to do with
a bidet, the correct recipe for a salade nicoise and, of
course, how to convey absolute, shattering indifference with a single
syllable (Bof!).
Charles Timoney, the author of Pardon My French, provides a
practical, pleasurable guide to the charms of the Gallic people - from
their daily routines to their peerless gesticulations, from their
come-ons to their put-downs. Read on and put the oh la la back
into your French vacances. Your inner gaul will thank you for it.
When Charles Timoney and his French wife were both made redundant in
the same week they decided to try living in France for a year or so. It
proved much harder than expected. Charles' O level in French was little
help when everyone around him consistently used a wide variety of
impenetrable slang and persisted in the annoying habit of talking about
things he had never heard of. But they stayed. Two decades and two
thoroughly French children later, he decided to write the two books that
would have saved him from so many blunders and misunderstandings along
the way:
Pardon My French
and
A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi.
