The Life and Times of the Curious Cockroach

Date: September 19, 2011

After a year of living in Belgium and eight months in France, I thought my French was pretty good. I mean, I could communicate with people. I had all the genders of vegetables and school supplies memorized. Even got some idiomatic expressions up my sleeve.

But this week’s translation class taught me that really, French still eludes me. And probably even hates me a little. But at least I’m not alone. My classmates and I spent a good while arguing over the meaning of the following sentence:

Il a levé le pied avec la caisse.

As homework, we had each looked at the sentence, consulted our dictionaries and/or francophone boyfriends, and came to class convinced that our translations were spot on. Here some are the sentences we proudly produced:

a) He slowed down the car.
b) He vanished with the cash register.
c) He lifted his foot with the crate.

Spot on, all right. After much debate, some of which went on after class, we agreed to disagree. Perhaps one of us was right, or the answer lay somewhere in between. Maybe he lifted his foot with the car, or his foot vanished with the cash register.

I think, really, what each of us were fighting for was a little vindication. That after four years of French classes, we sort of understood something…

Cheerio,
Roachy