5 Cultural Divergences made Awkward
With all the travelling around I have done in the past 7 years, I don't think I am too mistaken if I say that I adapt pretty well. Wether it is to the weather, the noise, the people, the culture, the language I usually try my best to blend in.
But sometimes, sometimes you just can't help it but stand out.
And it's quite often not our fault. Because as much as we try to be part of a new culture, it is simply impossible to completely shake out of us the culture that's been there all of our life.
So at times, my French is blatantly obvious.
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1 - How do you pronounce 'sausage' ?
Homemade English breakfast
It might sound strange and silly to some, but sausage is the word with which I struggled the most. It took me almost 2 years in England to finally FINALLY master the pronouciation. I never had any trouble with the infamous English 'th-', neither did I find it difficult to pronounce 'how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?'.
But sausage, I pronounced it that way : sauce-age.
It has never really bothered me as many English people I met found it cute and endearing (just as I find extremely cute the accent English people have while speaking French). But I like speaking a language properly so I ended up training myself and saying sausage A. LOT.
The first time someone pointed it out to me was in 2009. I'm glad to say that by 2012, I had no problem with sausage anymore.
That may have been the biggest Oups! moment of my life.
I was 19, my second (out of 4) time as an aupair in England. I was with a family of 2 tiny children - they were 15m.o and 1m.o. They were both still on bottles so we had a big stack of them in the kitchen. And almost every month, we had to throw away 2 teats to buy some new ones.
Once, I was on food shopping-list duty and wrote ... aheum ... tits rather than teats on the kitchen blackboard.
It's one of the English language subtlety that I learned the hard way.
The parents and I had a good laugh about it because, I mean, both are kind of used to the same purpose and me being French were all basis to my very legitimate mistake.
I do still feel mortified by the event, though.
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3 - Would you fancy a (ham)burger?
My fourth (and last) time as an aupair, I was -again- in London. It was just over a year ago. I was very comfortable with the city that I knew well, with English that I had finally mostly mastered and with the job that I just loved.
Nothing surprised me much anymore about the language and I was actually (and in all modesty) impressing quite a few people with my proper British accent, the vocabulary I knew and was going as far as correcting the children (but when they're 4 years old, it's easy).
Then, I felt like I knew nothing all over again.
I was to make burgers for the children, one night. We had minced meat but no buns so I had to get creative and cut up some sliced bread into round shapes then toast them etc. It was all pretty nice and the plates were completely cleared by the time dinner ended.
When the mum got back home from work (she was French-Scottish so she spoke perfect French but we communicated mostly in English), she saw the breadcrumbs and asked what the toasted bread was for.
I said, 'well, the burgers'.
And there is all of the misunderstanding.
In my French mind, there is no difference between a burger and a HAMburger. It's the exact same thing.
But, as I discovered after that night, an English burger isn't a French burger. An English burger is what we call a 'steak haché' which translates into English -rather strangely- as 'minced meat'. The difference in French between minced meat and steak haché is that a steak haché is a small amount of minced meat in an oval shape.
So to every French person living in an English-speaking country: don't let yourself be fooled, a burger ISN'T a burger!
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4 - La Bise vs. Hugging
It might look extremely simple to give La Bise to someone. Kiss. Kiss. But it is actually extremely codified.
-> Don't stand too close. Hand on the shoulder. Respect the appropriate number of kisses depending on the region you're in (see the map above). Don't kiss anyone who's higher than you on the corporate ladder. Please, DO make a kissing noise or accept the annoyed stares afterwards.
Loads to remember. But it still comes to us naturally.
What doesn't though, is greeting with a (quick or not) hug. I don't know why people do that, it just seems like unnecessary physical contact to me. Oh, don't mistake me, we do hug too. But mostly friends and relatives we haven't seen in a long time (and by that I mean more than a year) and your significant other.
Other than that, we avoid it.
So when I first came to England as an aupair in 2008 and tried to give La Bise to the children when we met at the airport ... I wouldn't say they recoiled, but they definitely didn't know how to react.
Learnt the hard way, again! And I (kind of) got used to it, in the end. Still not a hugging monster..
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5 - For starters, Ma'am?
As I mentioned in this article and as mostly everyone on the planet knows, we French tend to have lengthy meals.
It varies between 3 (starter, main, dessert OR main, cheese, dessert), 4 (starter, main, cheese, dessert) and 5 (starter, fish, meat, cheese, dessert) courses. Although to be fair to us, 5-course-meals only happen at Christmas. And then again it more like 6 (starter, fish, Trou Normand*, meat, cheese, dessert).
Okay, my head's spinning I'm so hungry.
You can, then, simply imagine my surprise when I got to England (or even Australia) and found out that apart from the main dish and the occasional dessert, daily mealtimes weren't consisted of much more.
That's the one thing I will absolutely never get used to (yes, that big of a never) no matter where I go. I respect it and at times even did it myself when I was dining in the UK but I strongly dislike it.
* a Trou Normand is a habit we have during long meals of eating a tiny bit of (usually apple or pear) sorbet with a touch of Calvados alcohol (for the adults) to facilitate the digestive process and help you recover your appetite.
because there are some things completely inherent to the human being I am that would fight tooth and nail before they get dislodged.
I can't say that I'm very patriotic. I love my country. Loads of people seem to too. I diss on France when I'm with my friends and family. But when I'm abroad, I have this protective side that kicks in and that makes me French all the way.
Till next time xx