Difficult Child

Either a little devil or a child star . . . 

This girl I knew had a less-than-spectacular grasp of French. Someone asked her a question. She didn’t understand the whole sentence but got that she was being asked what she liked to do, so she answered, "Oh you know, shopping, tanning, going to night clubs and getting drunk.”

“You did that when you were a kid?”

“Ohhhh. no.”

-Joel Roman

Hot Peanuts

The recipe.

The French word for chocolate is chocolat, which basically amounts to saying chocolate in a French accent. This girl in my class had a brain fart and instead of saying "chocolat," said "cacahuette," which led to this interesting exchange:

“I’ll get you something. What do you like to drink?”
“I like to drink hot peanuts.”

-Joel Roman

A New Compliment

In French, "petite bites" means "small dick."

Thanks to John Gough for pointing out this ad.

The Language of Love

Amelie.

When I was about 17, we had a French exchange student come to live with us. During our first conversation, he asked me if I knew any French. I began singing my one French line, "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?" I was so proud of myself until he burst out laughing. He proceeded to ask me if I knew what it meant, which I obviously didn't. So he said, "Do you want to sleep with me tonight?" After that, I was creeped out when he would ever so quietly hang out in my room before bedtime each night and just smile and look at me.

-Jen Christensen

Say Hello to My Little Friend

Little friends.

While giving the Holy Ghost to a young boy as a missionary, I added the words "my little friend," which would be just fine in English. However, since I was speaking French, my "petit ami" didn't hold the same meaning. I was told later that I had called the boy my boyfriend.

-Anonymous (you know who you are)

Preaching in the Nude

There was a brand new missionary to Quebec and as is often the custom he was asked to introduce himself to the congregation at church. He said 'Bonjour, je m'appelle Elder Smith et je suis 'new'." In his nervousness he had forgotten the French word for new, which is "nouveau" and had unfortunately substituted it with the English word "new." The entire congregation erupted into a tremendous laugh at hearing the Elder say he was "naked."

-David Jarvis

Choked

Are you choking or can I offer some other kind of support?

I cannot vouch that this actually happened; it may be one of those mission field urban legends, But just in case:
It is reported that an experienced missionary in the French missions sometimes picked up a brand new junior companion at the train station, pretending to have such a raspy voice and sore throat that he needed the new man to request cough drops from the pharmacist. The new guy, not yet having a vocabulary that included medicinal terms, carefully practiced what he was told was the French word for cough drops: "soutien-gorge" (literally: "support-throat"). The newcomer would approach the counter and announce that he was in need of some very strong, very powerful soutiens-gorges, while the senior missionary would watch from a distance . . . where he could laugh at the red-faced younger missionary who had to endure the pharmacist's sign-language explanation that a soutien-gorge was a woman's brassiere.

-Ardis E. Parshall

Design Mom Story

Vintage family photos in France.

Design Mom, who is currently living in France, asked her kids for a Blabbergasting story and Ralph reported this one:

I was in French class (which is basically language arts). We were reading a story out loud, and it was my turn to read. Everything was going fine until I pronounced "baiser" like "baisser." This wouldn't have been too big a deal, except the fact that "baiser" can be the F-bomb in French. Oops!

-Gabrielle Blair

Horsey Hair

Quite the horsey hair.

My mission president's wife, who did not usually pretend to speak French, took me souvenir-shopping on the last day of my mission in Geneva, Switzerland. I understood the parking lot attendant's confusion, but I didn't want to get involved when Sister President kept trying to tell the attendant that her hair ("cheveux") was nice.

She was actually using the word "chevaux": "Your horses--your horses--so pretty, your horses!"

-Ardis E. Parshall

Compliment the Chicken

Knit your own poulet.

I had a teacher tell me a funny story about a time in France--she was trying to compliment a friend's sweater ("pull") and with a mispronunciation complimented her chicken ("poulet"). "Hey, I love your chicken. Looks soft. Is it new?"

-Melody Pyper Anderson