And by the second year she not only spoke with the village accent, but was at the top of her class in French (where she remains, jockeying for first place with another English girl). There were some downs as well as ups, like when the teacher (rightly) banned English speaking in the classroom, but the desire to play overcame everything and after three months she spoke French very well. Before the week was out, she’d been invited back to a new best friend’s house and everything looked OK. But by the end of the day she had both English-speaking and bilingual friends. On the first day, it was hard to send this little person into a playground where she knew no one and had no way of communicating. But she’s a very sociable person and we didn’t worry too much about how she would cope at school. Despite the best efforts of Her Outdoors, she knew next to no French. When we arrived in France, The Daughter was six and a half.
Bidule in english how to#
The height of accurate inaccuracy resides in knowing how to combine all of these filler words: the “truc-bidule,” the “machin-chose,” the “truc-bidule-machin-chouette.” If you get to this point, consider yourself a master of French chit-chat.One question that comes up from time to time is: How did the children cope with French? Not sure how to use it? Just remember that chose is also the French name for “Thing” in the Addams Family, and, like Thing, chose should really be attached to a body (in this case, other words), rather than running around on its own, freaking everyone out and prompting a reaction like, “Qu’est-ce que c’est que cette chose ?” (What the hell is that?!) ChoseĬhose wouldn’t mean anything by itself, but in combination with the right words it can mean just about anything. For example, “I saw Anna with machin in the subway last week.” 4. It’s mostly used to replace someone’s name which is especially practical for those friends of friends whose actual names just won’t stick in your memory. Machin is used more frequently than bidule but less than truc. Use with moderation, or you risk saying something ridiculous like, “You’re looking for the bidule? I biduled it for the next bidule.” 3. You can even conjugate it: Je bidule, tu bidules, il bidule… (I bidule, you bidule, he bidules…). Bidule can also be the name of a pet, if you aren’t feeling particularly creative. It mostly stands in for objects whose real names nobody really uses because they are so rarely talked about - for example, the socket wrench you need to fix your bike. Saying truc in a foreign accent is even more charming! 2. If you’re struggling to pronounce it correctly, don’t sweat it. It’s used pretty informally and reveals a familiarity with idiomatic French, so we’re always impressed when we hear foreigners dropping it into conversation. Since the word itself doesn’t mean anything in particular, it’s often accompanied by a hand or head gesture.
Bidule in english tv#
It can mean “lightbulb,” but also the TV show you watched last night, next Saturday’s party, or that specialized piece of kitchen gadgetry that nobody knows the name of. Here are some guidelines to get you using them right away. So they are simply unavoidable if you want to gain some fluency in the language of Molière. For the rest of us, filler words like truc and machin can mean nothing and everything at the same time - and they pop up in French conversations all the time.
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The poet and critic Boileau may have claimed that, “what is well conceived is clearly said,” but he was a bit of a purist concerning the French language.
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Worse still, when you try to explain your predicament to your girlfriend you can’t even remember the word for lightbulb!
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Your brain is still fried from last night’s party, and you’re having some trouble activating your memory precisely when you need it: you’re on the top of a ladder, trying to fix the lamp, but you can’t remember where you left the lightbulb.