November 11, 2008

Avocado near the loin

My wife, she teaches French. (And in that avatar, she has made a previous appearance in this space). She lectures at a nearby college, and over the last couple of days has been correcting papers from an exam she gave the students a few weeks ago.

Here are some answers, or excerpts as appropriate, from these papers, offered without comment.

Q: Who was the King of France at the time of the Revolution?

Correct answer: Louis XVI.

Answers given include: William, James, Henri, Herald, Lukes.

***

Q: Opposite of "avec"? ("with").

Correct answer: "sans". ("without").

Answer given: "n'avec".

***

Q: Translate the word "because" into French.

Correct answer: "parce que".

Answer: "bécause".

***

Q: Translate into English: "J'habite très loin."

Correct answer: "I live very far."

Answers given include:

* I live in lion.

* I live near loin.

***

Q: Translate into English: "Pierrette habite à Dunkerque."

Correct answer: "Pierrette lives in Dunkirk."

Answers given include:

* Pierrette lives to

* Pierre lives in Dunkerque.

* Peter lives in Dunkerque.

* Pierrette lives in Duckenberg.

* Pierrette is habituated to drinking.

***

Q: Translate into English: "Mon père est avocat. Tous les jours il va au tribunal."

Correct answer: "My father is a lawyer. Every day he goes to the court."

Answers given include:

* My father is a vocalist. All his friends pay tribute to him.

* My father is an avocado throught the day.

9 comments:

MinCat said...

hee hee hee makes me want to teach spanish again! but french is quite a lot more evil than spanish. if only we didnt have all this NET nonsense in this country.

R. said...

Ok. I've made an attempt at learning french and it was'nt the easiest of experience. I ended up cheating off a 13 yr old who sat next to me in the class whenever there was a test.

km said...

Tears in my eyes from reading "my father is a vocalist..".

We *demand* several more posts on this subject.

Anonymous said...

Well french is evil - can you blame the students?

Rahul Siddharthan said...

Classic but probably made-up examples:
coup de grace = lawn mower
pas de deux = father of twins
moi aussi = I'm an Australian

I once thought a French friend was asking me "do you have dessert?" when the question was "tu as des soeurs?" (do you have sisters?)

And in Italy I thought I asked for a "succo di arancia", but I pronounced it "suck-o di arancia". The woman said, "you want orange juice?" I said yes. She said, "you just asked for a sack of oranges."

Unknown said...

Merci !

AmOK said...

I would love to see the French translate Hindi -- or maybe, Sanskrit, which should be "familiar" to them. Sigh -- we are nowhere on the world stage to command that type of need. So we laugh at our struggling soldiers, students of French. Why not clap for them?

On another note: okay, funny!!

Anonymous said...

Someone might've already played this one.
Avogadro's avocation is as an advocat. he likes gawk-a-mole.

Anonymous said...

Students do come up with gems:-