… some of
the Google translations previously used by the owners were somewhat off the
mark. For example, their starters included crudités (raw
vegetables) translated as “crudeness”, and salade aux deux
magrets as the mind-boggling “two breast salad” instead of “roast and
smoked duck breast salad”. We also found mignons de porc (pork
fillet) became “cute pig”, but the final straw had to be crottin
de chèvre chaud (warm goat’s cheese) which was unappetisingly
described as “warm goat dung”.
From Neuville de Poitou, a small market town in
western France, the Daily Telegraph's
Duncan Webster broaches 'the
thorny subject of “false friends”.'
What is a false friend? Well, in recent years, many Anglicisms have been
adopted into the French language but they are not always used in ways we
would expect. For example, a French town may have several parkings (not car
parks), people erect tents on a camping (not a campsite) and may communicate
by talkie-walkie.
Other uses of English words are less obvious. A French person having a
makeover is going for a "relooking". They wear baskets (not
trainers) on their feet, and use Scotch (tape) to seal a parcel. In English,
too, we have misappropriated French words. For example, the French sit on
canapés (their word for sofas), but would not sit on a commode, because that
means a chest of drawers. It is, of course, necessary to explain these
strange uses of our two languages and the resulting discussions are often a
source of great amusement.
