“Not you.”
The cab driver shoots me a look as I lean in after I say a polite “Excuse me?” to find out if he’s talking to me.
He continues to talk into his mobile phone headset as my ear adjusts to his West African French.
Senegal, maybe - or Cote d’Ivoire, I thought, wrapped in the particular kind of smugness tailored by the private glow of unshared and useless information.
Tomorrow: The longest November
Also on This Is This
I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. I am a nice chap. People who don’t normally use the words “nice” or “chap” even say: “That Cliff - nice chap.” I am civil and mild mannered and compassionate. Fuck you - I am.
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April 21st, 2007 at 1:29 pm
That’s happened to me! The accent completely foxes me. If someone from West Africa’s being interviewed on the television, and it’s subtitled, I can’t read them because of my glasses, and there’s always this thirty-second lag where I can’t understand how I can understand what’s being said. It’s like someone putting a Babel fish in my ear, only less, you know, fishy.
April 21st, 2007 at 9:23 pm
That’s EXACTLY it. I wasn’t even sure it was French until he said “cinquante” and then it clicked. Wow - great ears hear alike.
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Incidentally, you know when I said “I can’t read them because of my glasses”? Well, that isn’t what I meant. What I meant was that I can’t read subtitles without my glasses, because of being shortsighted. If I had my glasses then I would have no problem reading subtitles. They are good for that sort of stuff.
April 22nd, 2007 at 8:47 pm
So like its a lack of glasses, then? That makes sense.
I would imagine French people have trouble understanding South Africans, too.
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Probably. I speak German as well - unless you come from Bremen, in which case I cannot understand a word you say.
PS I am overitalicising, recently. It’s got to stop.
April 22nd, 2007 at 9:43 pm
It’s got to.
Get you, though. I speak only Rock German, after an unhealthy pre-pubescent interest when I was “very much liking the heavy metal music, yeah”
Ich bin deine Angstraum.
April 23rd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
God, that sounded really boastful. What I meant was, the same thing happens in German. Not “And I’m really great because I speak German too you know”, which is sort of how it came out. Gaaaaaargh.
PS all German is Rock German. You are officially fluent.
April 24th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
I speak German.
Ich bin fantastisch ja.