Our house hunting trip this past week has given us an opportunity to start living our lives in French. In that week, I noticed a few interesting things:
1) "Sans soucis"
I have always used "de rien" as the equivalent of "you're welcome". In Brussels, the standard answer is "sans soucis", literally "no worries" . This is not an expression I can recall ever hearing in Canada.
2) Excuse me, or Excuse you?
In Belgium be sure to use "excusez-moi" or "je m'excuse"
I have found that in Canada, "Excusez-moi" is often shortened to simply " 'scusez". Canadians, being ever polite would never dream of saying "Excusez-toi" if someone bumped them on the subway (instead I think we would just use "Excusez-moi" in a passive-aggressive tone. So the "me" goes without saying. Not so in Belgium. I received glares from kind old laddies in the subway when I did not indicate that I was excusing myself, my " 'scusez" being interpreted as "excuse you". I wonder if "pardon" will work the same way?
3) Seventy, eighty and ninety
Why on earth does Canada require multiplication and addition just for basic counting? In, Belgium they just follow the pattern and don't require unnecessary math:
Eng Fr (Canada) Fr (Belgium)
Fifty Cinquante Cinquante
Sixty Soixante Soixante
Seventy Soixante-dix Septante
("sixty ten", what is that?)
Eighty Quatre-vingt Octante
("four twenty", this is weird.)
Ninety Quatre-vingt dix Nonante
("four twenty and ten", really? come on!)
I think I'm going to switch to the Belgian vocab. That is so much easier and more logical.
Peter
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