Off to Paris with the in-laws
Dr B.'s parents are coming down from Staffordshire tonight, then tomorrow morning the four of us are hopping onto the Eurostar and spending the next forty-eight hours in Paris.
He has organised this as a present for his dad's birthday, and getting his mother to come along took some planning and presentation skills, as in the past she had threatened to divorce her husband if he ever sprung a surprise trip abroad to her. Ireland? That's OK. Anywhere where people speak foreign and eat strange? Nah.
So Dr B. told his mum he was taking his dad to Paris, and would she be at all interested in coming along if I was there? She knew I lived there for six years, and having me around probably means that she would never have to interact with the locals.
I don't have more information about this, but I know her a little and she does not strike me as a closed-up or fearful person. Maybe she is a little like me, in that she gets extraordinarily frustrated if she is not able to communicate properly.
Why do you think I got so interested and good at languages?
Why do you think I made super human efforts to lose my accent?
Why do you think I start boiling with rage whenever I mispronounce something?
Thursday 26 April 2007 at 6:08 pm
Here's a good game I like to play with Bitful:
Whenever he mispronounces something I repeat the mispronunciation back to him with a questioning tone - he pauses and then corrects himself - nothing wrong there.
This is however HILARIOUS if you do it when he has not mispronounced the word at all, he pauses and then after a pause all the little language fuses behind his eyes pop at once, smoke starts to waft from his ears and his face does the human equivalent of the blue screen of death.
If you know him do join in!
Monday 30 April 2007 at 12:50 am
That's cruel. But fun. Thanks for the idea. ;-) This is the first comment I've ever done from my mobile!