Nick Lear has written this parable: it’s entirely fictional!
We went on holiday to France last summer. We had a lovely time. It was proper, rural France. We stayed in a little village in the middle of the countryside near Toulouse. Agriculture is not so much the main industry, it’s the only industry of the area. Everywhere we went were fields of sunflowers that were soaking up the sun that shone in the cloudless azure sky.
The pace of life was so much calmer and gentler than it is back in the UK. Nobody rushed around. It was so relaxing.
And the people were so welcoming, friendly and kind. They smiled at you as they walked past – looking you in the eye rather than down at the ground. I loved listening to them speaking to one another as well. Incongruously with their pace of life they would speak so fast in French that I could not understand a word they were saying. Mind you, I don’t actually speak French anyway. The only phrase I know is, “Voulez-vous du pain?” and that only gets you so far. I confess that in order to communicate I would always start (speaking slowly and loudly), “Do… you… speak… English..?”
Almost always the answer was a Gallic shrug and a fast-flowing French phrase which I think meant, “I don’t know what he just said but smile nicely and we’ll be all right.” And they smiled back at me.
I had to resort to miming, pointing and speaking slower and louder.
It didn’t often work.
We didn’t have a phrase book. I had left it in the ‘do not forget’ pile that was still on the table at home. My wife told me that on her mobile phone she had an app that could not only translate words from English to French but also speak them for you. But that would be admitting defeat, wouldn’t it? So I persisted with my approach and the people smiled back nicely. And all I managed to communicate was my arrogance.
