"Bon Jour je suis anglais"...erm...what next?

[ChrisKH]

There's no need to explain that you are 'Anglais', they almost always seem to know!
It's expected that you will start a conversation with 'bonjour' and possibly a handshake, say when meeting a bikeshop proprietor to explain a problem.

'Je Voudrais..' (I would like) is an important start to many transactions, don't be afraid to speak pidgin French, it's best to keep it simple if in doubt and not feel embarrassed.

On parting it is polite to say 'au revoir'.

I was once sitting in the bike compartment of the train on the way to work which also held the train toilet. A very attractive young lady went into the toilet but failed to lock it. It requires a button to be pushed that says "locked". Thirty seconds later the door opened with this young vision (e.g. Luisa partially dressed, suitably perched). She eventually found the door lock and I averted my eyes as quickly as I could. When she come out she said "I'm so sorree, I am French.....".

No apology was necessary, I can tell you.

 

[dragon72]

Excellent advice, Arch. The French love people with your attitude.
As a teacher of French I couldn't help pick up on two teensie-weensie errors in what you wrote.

"Slowly" is actually doucement (approximately pronounced "dooce-mon"), not "douchement" which would mean "showerly"!
And it's "mon croissant", not "ma croissant". But really that's nitpicking because you'd have got the meaning across despite the tiny grammatical mistake.
I teach my schoolkids not to be too worried about grammar anyway. It's communication that counts. I once heard a (probably apocryphal) tale about a bloke who let his hotel burn because he couldn't remember whether the word for a building fire was "feu" or "incendie". (It's incendie, by the way, but let's hope you never need it!)

I think it's nice to have a phrase up your sleeve to tell people about your story. Such as:
"Je fais un tour de vélo de [Strasbourg] à [Bordeaux]"
"I'm doing a bike ride from [Strasbourg] to [Bordeaux]"
It breaks the ice and has been known to result in a drink being bought for you by a new friend as a reward for your impressive feats!

 

[Arch]

Excellent advice, Arch. The French love people with your attitude.
As a teacher of French I couldn't help pick up on two teensie-weensie errors in what you wrote.

"Slowly" is actually doucement (approximately pronounced "dooce-mon"), not "douchement" which would mean "showerly"!
And it's "mon croissant", not "ma croissant". But really that's nitpicking because you'd have got the meaning across despite the tiny grammatical mistake.

Cheers! Yes, I was thinking doucement, I don't know why I thought it needed an h. And I debated the ma/mon, and decided the wrong way. D'oh!

One of my friends who has the house over there also said not to get too hung up on grammar - la or le for example, because most of the time you only say a sort of l' anyway, just like we drop syllables in English in normal speech. I must say, I've come back from this trip much more confident than before. By the penultimate day I was even having a conversation with a family who were looking at our recumbents, and explaining (in awful French, with mime) about how comfortable they were, how fast downhill, etc...

It's made me wonder about the way we teach kids French - I dunno how it is now, but we did the standard lists of words, verbs etc, and stock phrases, and yet I feel much more confident having just exchanged odd words and chat with real people. That said, the stuff I did learn at school probably backed up what I was picking up, but seemed quite disconnected.

Also, being in a group with a couple of people who very little French at all, I was very pleased when I could help out - even when it was just one chap asking for a beer and not understanding the waitress' question in reply (basically asking him which bottled beer he wanted). I'm certainly not fluent, but I hope it's not long before I go back and have another try...

With regard to the stock phrase - it's a good idea. I'm reading a book at the moment about a chap cycling round the word, and he had a 'magic letter' - just a basic thing about "I'm cycling round the world for this charity, thank you for having me in your country" etc and for each country he got it translated to show to people he met. Maybe that's something worth having Bigtallfatbloke, if you can get it arranged in French - just basics about where you're going, who you are, where you're from, maybe a few emergency details as well. In case of feeling/being unable to attempt to speak the language...

 

[Speicher]

This might be blindingly obvious or not

If you need to ask anyone for anything at all, either two beers or a stamp or anything else. Please - start off with saying "Please". Then if you make a complete hash of the rest of the sentence, you have at least started off politely.

I am reasonably fluent in French, but even so, if you are tired, or extremely hot and flustered, or worried, it is easy to forget every word you thought you knew in any foreign language. Or if you start off in French and they interrupt in English, then you have still started off politely.

I particularly noticed this in a busy restaurant one evening. I could not understand why the waiter was being very friendly to us, but very off-hand with another party. Then I realised I was using please and thank you fairly often, and the other party seemed to think it was not necessary.
Just my 2p worth.

 

[Rapples]

You could try this

http://www.radiolinguamedia.com/cbf/www/index.html

 

[Rapples]

This might be blindingly obvious or not

If you need to ask anyone for anything at all, either two beers or a stamp or anything else. Please - start off with saying "Please". Then if you make a complete hash of the rest of the sentence, you have at least started off politely.

I am reasonably fluent in French, but even so, if you are tired, or extremely hot and flustered, or worried, it is easy to forget every word you thought you knew in any foreign language. Or if you start off in French and they interrupt in English, then you have still started off politely.

I particularly noticed this in a busy restaurant one evening. I could not understand why the waiter was being very friendly to us, but very off-hand with another party. Then I realised I was using please and thank you fairly often, and the other party seemed to think it was not necessary.
Just my 2p worth.

Also, it,s very easy to forget monsieur and madame which the french nearly always use when addressing people.

 

[yoyo]

It's all about making the effort. Three years ago, having not used French since school days I dredged up ' Avez vous une chambre pour deux pour un nuit s'il vous plait?' I had spent the previous few miles cobbling it together. AS I blurted it out I went into a blind panic that I would find the reply totally incomprehensible and I quickly said ' Parlez vous anglais?'. The man laughed and the rest of the conversation took place in English. I felt so ashamed but I found that much of my French came back and in th epast two years I have understood everything that has been said and just struggled to speak when under pressure. I find reading French cycling sites on the Internet and then checking my understanding by clicking on teh English button very helpful both for forgotten or relevant vocabulary and for thinking in French rather than English. When booking our accommodation for our holidays this year I actually wrote our requests in French. Whether they have been understood remains to be seen!

German is so much more challenging as I never studied it and am attempting it using phrases with little understanding of grammar. My party piece is 'Sprechen zu English' and 'Ich spreich nicht deutche'. I can order a meal and pass the time of day in German but I cannot deal with being asked any questions on what I have said. I keep promising myself German lessons!

 

[Arch]

It's all about making the effort. Three years ago, having not used French since school days I dredged up ' Avez vous une chambre pour deux pour un nuit s'il vous plait?' I had spent the previous few miles cobbling it together.

Yes, I found myself having practice conversations with myself in French in my head as I rode along. They were easy, because of course, I always knew what I was about to try and say...

The first time I was on my own, I was driving that afternoon (we had a back up car, and took turns to drive) and had to get to the hotel and check us in, as the cyclists were likely to be arriving after 6 as they'd planned. Having heard my friends do this I had the vocab to hand, and could easily say "Hello, I'm with Mr Skinner's party, we have a reservation of 5 rooms for 9 people? I'm here in the car, my friends will arrive later by bike". We checked the bookings (how many doubles, how many twins etc), arranged the time for breakfast, and that we'd be dining there, and then I needed to know where to park the car and that was where I ran out of words. At which point the lady kindly broke into English for me. I felt really pleased though, that I'd managed all alone. The main thing was, I didn't walk in and announce "I am nine people!"

Also agree about basic manners like s'il vous plait and merci. I ended up using them almost as a sort of punctuation - if you're trying to ask a question, sticking s'il vous plait in the middle gives you a second to think ahead for the next word you're groping for...

 

[WJHall]

D'accord pour une utilisation fréquent de s'il vous plait, merci, bonjour, au revoir, monsieur, madame, pardon..., je voudrais...svp etc.

Notez que c'est possible que ces politesses sont peut-être absents de votre recueil d'expressions pour raison de manque de place, mais vous pouvez toujours les insérer vous-même.

Et évidement, vous devez vousvoyer et non tutoyer.

Cordialement,

John

Et maintenant.... si quelqu'un pouvait m'aider avec des phrase essentiels pour l'Italie.

 

[yello]

Indeed, 'vous' rather than 'tu'. It pays to err on the side of politeness.

 

[dragon72]

Et maintenant.... si quelqu'un pouvait m'aider avec des phrase essentiels pour l'Italie.[/quote]

Per piacere ("pair pya-chair-eh") - please
Grazie mille ("grats-yeh mee-leh") - thank you very much
Signore ("see-nyor-eh") - Sir
Signora ("see-nyor-ah") - Madam
è molto gentile ("eh molto jen-tee-le") you are very kind
va bene ("va beh-neh") - okay
Faccio un giro in bici da Palermo a Venezia ("fat-cho oon jee-ro in beechee da Palermo ah Veh-neh-tsya") I'm doing a bike tour from Palermo to Venice
sì, sono pazzo ("see sono pat-soh") - yes I'm crazy
Il movimento centrale - my bottom bracket
è rotto - it's broken
non funziona - it doesn't work
il suo cane mi ha morso e sono in grande dolore - your dog bit me and I'm in great pain
ancora un mezzo litro di vino per piacere - another half litre of wine please
hai un fidanzato/una fidanzata? - do you have a boyfriend/a girlfriend?

 

[yoyo]

Et maintenant.... si quelqu'un pouvait m'aider avec des phrase essentiels pour l'Italie.[/quote]

Je ne sais pas.

 

[Fnaar]

Waving your (...) buns and grinning should help.

Get out your buns in the bar and wave them about!

 

[Kirstie]

Ooh ooh I know one for campsites:

Est-ce que vous avez une emplacement libre ?
(pron: essker voos avay oon omplassmon leebra?) <----it was fun writing that!
means
Do you have a pitch available?

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Everything you need to know...

Flight of the Conchords - Fou de Fa Fa