petite anglaise

I have been living in France for 8 years now and I’m saddened to admit that my English is now showing signs of serious wear and tear. Thanks to intensive use of my well-thumbed dictionary, I do aim to keep this blog free of ‘petiteanglaiseisms’ and spelling mistakes*. In conversation however – especially when tired – I frequently talk utter drivel, or worse, become hopelessly tongue-tied because I can’t think of a perfectly commonplace word in English.

There are some subjects which I’m definitely much more comfortable discussing in French, because my only experience of dealing with them has been in this country. Mostly grown-up things like employment, mortgages and gynaecological terminology. I could wax lyrical about my pelvic floor in French (should you want me to?) ‘til the cows come home, but I’d struggle in English.

The Frog speaks petite anglaise fluently and also makes charming mistakes of his own which I have been known to adopt. The fact that he must unwittingly slip some of my grammatically unsound constructions and invented vocabulary into casual conversation with his English-speaking co-workers is a little worrying, but I hope they find it rather endearing. After all, it’s not his own native tongue he is perverting.

I have no such excuse and also a highly impressionable tadpole to bring up, hopefully to be bilingual one day. I wonder if I owe it to her to sign up for English conversation evening classes?

* I look forward to a veritable deluge of comments pointing out all my spelling mistakes past and present