Being in France, I am taking the opportunity to practice my French (in particular, spoken French, which has always been my weak-point). So, yesterday in the hotel restaurant, I worked out what I was going to have, mentally rehearsed how to order it, and made sure the pronunciation was perfect.
And so I ordered my starter and main course, and it was good.
Then the waiter asked, rather stiffly, "What would you like to drink?"
Disaster!
2 comments:
On the other hand, even foreigner's who have spent a good many years in the UK typically have an accent that betrays their origin. The waiter (I was going to say she, but you didn't specify in your post. Interesting how I made that assumption. Actually, it's probably a he, given that you didn't say waitress.) was bound to be able to tell where you are from, even if you tried really, REALLY hard to get the accent right.
The important thing is that they didn't say "I didn't understand that. Would you like to try in English?"
This is where it is handy to have filler phrases. We all have them in our native tongue while our brain catches up (sometimes my poor brain never makes it, the poor thing).
So you need "eeeeough, bof. Un bon question, garcon"
or repeat: "qu'est-ce que c'est que je voudrais pour boire?" (actually that is nowhere near right is it?! I will leave it as is to show I can accept being wrong and am not overly anal.)
This will buy you thinking time, while you work out what the French is for "Un Stella Artois".
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