I believe you're right, Christina. I think it's pronounced Fou-kats.

Actually the French in Action series has a few episodes set on the terrace of Fouquets. I don't have time to verify it now, but if you've access to a Media Player, you can get the whole series for free on the PBS website.

http://www.learner.org/resources/series83.html

Pierre Capretz will pronounce it for you.

Sorry, it's not PBS, but Annenberg. Should be episode 30 something if I remember correctly. (The whole series has 52 episodes.)

It's Lesson 41 ("Getting and Spending I") and probably Lesson 42. Lesson 41 starts off with a shot of Fouquet's.

Unfortunately it's a little too conspicuous for me to don a headset to check Capretz's pronunciation, but someone else can check it in the meantime if (s)he has too much time on his/her hands.

Come to think of it, the last dozen or so taxi drivers I've had in Paris were Asians, most with very heavy accents. I had communication problems with several of them, one, for example, not understanding "rue Buci" no matter how many times I said it slowly. I had to show him on the map. So speaking good, unaccented French isn't necessarily going to get you where you want to go.

Are you sure it wasn't your accent that was confusing the Asian cab drivers, StCirq? :-)

I deal with this in NYC daily. I take a cab to work every morning, and I frequently think that there must be something wrong with my English. These days, rather than giving the name of the street as ordinal form (for example, 23rd as twenty-third), I just say it once or twice and if the cab driver looks confused, repeat and say "2 3 (two three)."

>Come to think of it, the last dozen or so taxi drivers I've had in Paris were Asians,....<

It's not easy to find a cabby in NY who speaks English.

nytraveller - this may be a bit off-topic, but the only time I have ever had a cabbie pull a fast one was NYC, travelling from La Guardia.

There was a taxi strike on at the time. My companions and I were speaking French (the only language we all had in common).

We get to our destination and, instead of the fare we expected, the cabbie starts talking really fast about how there is a different fare structure in place during the strike and how it is very complicated to work out the fares because it's not done the regular way blah blah blah.

Well, none of his story made sense, and it kept changing, but it was late, we were tired, we paid. But I insisted on a receipt and took down his licence, medallion, and company phone numbers.

The next day I phoned the NY Port Authority who confirmed my suspicion that we had been scammed and that we could lay a complaint which would likely lead to the cabbie losing his licence.

My next call was to the cab company where I explained what had happened and what the consequences would be. I kindly offered them the opportunity to get out of a jam.

Early the following morning, the cabbie showed up at the hotel and silently refunded the entire fare.

Glad there was a happy ending to your story, curiousx.

I think that in the old days, the meters were frequently doctored -- that was my impression anyway. But I was younger then and I didn't know enough.

Now the fare is flat $45 from JFK to Manhattan (tolls and tips extra), which I regretfully shell out every time I'm coming home from somewhere else. As I far as I know, trips from LGA still use the meter.

M. Capretz does pronounce it fou ket. I don't think the "s" would ever be pronounced.

Thanks. My fault then. I've not had the time to check, but at least you can be sure that Capretz pronounces it properly.

I need to work on that series again.

Another tip on the French: even if you intend on speaking English, it's always helpful to greet the shopkeepers/cabbies/anyone you want to help you with a confident "Bonjour Madame/Monsieur" It goes a long way to warming their hearts.

brosar~ absolutely!!! also practice until you are comfortable with & have correct phrasing and pronunciation for (in French) "I'm sorry, I don't speak French". that with alot of merci-ing and bonjour-ing will get you far.

And to the original posted question, I stick with my response, have the address written down and hand it to the cab driver.

My brother was a diplomat, and he spoke fluent English, German, Russian, Swedish, and Romanian. He did not like French (language <u>or</u> people) and insisted that their mother tongue was &quot;merely badly spelled English.&quot; The one phrase he deigned to master was &quot;I regret profoundly that I am unable to understand one word of the French language.&quot; It never failed to elicit a nervous laugh from his Gallic counterpart.