Hi Stephanie,

I know
> when I was 14, a friend of mine became very
> nauseated at Versailles.

Well, the decor isn't to everyone's taste!

She ended up dashing in
> front of a line of people waiting as well as the
> matron. I tried very hard to explain to the woman
> that my friend was sick but instead of saying
> "malaise", I said "malade". After several minutes
> of gesturing and etc, I finally realized my error
> and said "malaise" to which the woman went into an
> irate tirade at me, a little of what I caught the
> drift of. It was most definitely an opinion of my
> french. I was just a kid though.

There seems to have been some confusion here! If a friend of mine had been feeling ill, I'm sure I would have used "malade" to describe her, too. I wouldn't have said "malaise" (uneasiness, discomfort) ... Anyway, it sounds as if the irate woman completely misunderstood the situation!


Second was in
> Paris, age 17, my french apparently offended our
> waiter (even though my spoken french was supposed
> to be very good according to my french teacher who
> was very french). He made some snotty remarks
> about how I should just stick with English.

A waiter in Montmartre made similar patronising remarks to me once when I was with my husband ... big mistake, because he lost out on a tip.

>
> Maybe they've loosened up in regards to their
> language since then...was about 20+ years ago. I
> hope they have!

But were the two incidents you describe actually about language? The woman might have (erroneously) got it into her head that you were just rude foreigners pushing in; the waiter might have been the sort of person who enjoyed being rude to slightly bewildered young foreign women.

Hermione
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