Monday, December 08, 2014

Frenching

After listening multiple times to a short French-language recording, I now think that when the French speak, they lunge in at the start of a sentence, talking as fast as they can, blending all of the words into one long mellifluous mumble,  and only stop when they either run out of breath or hit a period. If the first, they swallow and dive in again; if the second, they race up and then slam on the brakes, coming to a abrupt gasping halt, apparently astonished that someone seems to have planted a linguistic STOP sign right in their path.

And yet it sounds lovely.

2 comments:

Tabor said...

I think that is true and I do not know French.

Cerulean Bill said...

I think that's an advantage. You can appreciate the sound of the language without ever feeling the necessity of trying to understand it.