Readers reveal their funniest French language blunders

To the Editor,

We lived in France for many years. Although my French was good, in the early years I did make some pronunciation faux pas.

Visiting a French friend one day, I complimented him on his beautiful hedge (haie).

After a puzzled look he laughed and said his beautiful garlic (ail) was in his potager.

Before reluctantly returning to England we lived for a while in the cathedral town of Condom (Gers), which caused much amusement with our English friends and family.

We had so many happy times in both Var and Gers, and always found the people welcoming and ready to share a joke.

D.M., by email

To the Editor,

This did not happen to me, but it could have! 

A colleague, with minimum French, was in France training some operatives on one of our CNC spring-making machines.

The programming system requires the use of many pairs of brackets to enclose lines of code.

Unaware that he should have been using the word parenthèse, he wondered why everyone was laughing every time they thought they heard him say ouvrez la braguette and fermez la braguette (open and close your flies).

R.A., by email

To the Editor,

A Brazilian friend who had learned remarkably good French during a year in France once complained to her landlady that her flat was infested with cockroaches.

Unfortunately, she confused cafard (cockroach) with canard (duck).

"Il y a des canards dans l'appartement ! Des fois je vais à la cuisine au milieu de la nuit et j'allume la lumière et il y a des canards partout !" (There are ducks in the flat! Sometimes I go into the kitchen in the middle of the night, turn on the light and there are ducks everywhere!)

The landlady calmly replied: "Ah bon ? Il faut que je voie ça" (Really? I must see this).

Another colleague, an American keen to practise his newly acquired French, approached an attractive female colleague at an office party and announced: "Permettez-moi de m'introduire à vous."

He thought he was saying "Allow me to introduce myself", but his choice of words suggested something rather more intimate: "Allow me to penetrate you."

Although blunders go both ways.

A French colleague with fluent English but a strong French accent was giving a presentation in our UK office.

He repeatedly asked the projector operator: "Could you focus a bit more, please? Yes, focus just a bit more."

Unfortunately, his pronunciation made it sound like a very different proposition.

J.E., by email

What are your worst language blunders in French? Share them at letters@connexionfrance.com