Monday, February 11, 2008

Understanding French as a Beginner

As you may know, I live in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, and work in the French-speaking part. I've been sick all weekend with some sort of cold, and couldn't wake up in time to catch the normal train to Fribourg. My wife took pity on me and drove me to work. She came into the office with me, and was greeted by an elevator full of Cartier watchmakers (who work in the same building), all in their white lab-coats. Each of the lab-coated technicians greeted us with "Bonjour!" and Stacy later remarked that she almost responded with the Bernese German response "Gruess-ech Mitenand!"

We haven't bothered to learn French, as it just confuses the language learning process. My brain gets melted enough by trying to learn the Bernese German dialect... However, I have had the opportunity to pick up a few words here and there. Here is an excellent music video describing my French-Switzerland experience pretty well. The band who made this is called "Flight of the Conchords" and they have some amazingly funny music that can be seen on YouTube.

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