While visiting Switzerland and practicing German I consistently referred to the language and people as Schweiss Deutsch (sweat Germans) instead of Schweiz (Swiss) ones

** The expression in France is directed at one who speaks poor French".

The real expression is "qui parle français comme un basque espagnol" but it has been altered by usage.

Thanks all for the good wishes

Thanks, hanl (and congrats!). I already knew it meant loaded/stuffed with money. I just wondered if there was some sort of negative connotation as well, that is, obsessed or just "drunk" with their money because the family I lived with used the phrase only to talk about new money, not old money.
Also, the family couldn't seem to use that phrase without also using the hand gesture for lots of money (rubbing thumb and fingers together).

"The real expression is "qui parle français comme un basque espagnol" but it has been altered by usage."
You are almost right Voyageuse it is ".comme un basque l'espagnol" (like a Basque speaking Spanish because they had a strong accent)

My daughter's French teacher once told me the story of one of her visits to Normandy. She was dining with a group of French English teachers and she was the only native English speaker in the group. She was so proud of herself as they conversed only in French all evening. One of the subjects they discussed was the difference if food between the USA and France. She told them that she loved the fact that French food was grown without "preservatifs" - she used the word for condom rather than preservatives. None of the group let on about the gaff and it was only after everyone left that her hostess told her - and had a good laugh.

she should have used "conservateurs" (just in case someone would like to use it in a conversation! ;-))

Last year, my husband and I went to Rome. While there, we had dinner at Maccheroni. Everything was going great until the wine encouraged my first idiotic moment. I decided to go the ladies' room and stupidly forgot how to ask where the bathroom was. I repeatedly asked a waiter where the “basura” was. Uh, that’s Spanish for “trash” or “animal dung”. Guess I was close. He seemed to get it and pointed me downstairs.

The other time was in Paris. My sister and I had a night on the town and arrived back at our hotel really late. We were in the Bastille area, in this tiny little hotel, where only French was spoken. I tried really hard to ask for our room key correctly but it came out wrong. We were in 422 (quatre deux deux), which came out "Cat Doo Doo". Luckily, no one but us realized how absurd it was in English but they did realize how absurd we were when we started giggling nonstop.

I remember telling someone I was embarasada...Instead of embarrassed, I was saying I was pregnant (I was 12)

I wrote about this in a trip report.
My last trip to Paris I bought a beautiful handmade bracelet from a little shop. As it was being wrapped up for me I told the saleswoman that I loved it, but I really said I love you. I didn't realize it until she turned all shades of red and her assistant started giggling. I apologized but she started laughing too. When I left the shop I blew her a kiss and she blew one back at me and laughed and waved. My friend who was with me and doesn't know a word of French didn't know what the heck was going on.

travelbunny wrote: "I mispronounced to kiss in French...what I said was a rather indelicate verb to describe what is sometime an outcome of the verb to kiss."

I suspect you used the verb "baiser", in which case it was not a mispronunciation, but a change of usage. It used to mean kiss, but now it means fuck.

A teacher friend of mine fell into the same pit. He went on a teacher exchange programme to Belgium, and told his class of French-speaking adolescents that they did not seem to fuck one another as much as French students do.

I guess my lesson didn't stick with me because many years ago I took a language course in Paris. The teacher was telling us we would say we loved a person differently than to say we loved, say, chocolate.

I asked, what if you picked up a piece of chocolate and said I love you to it before you ate it. The teacher said before the class, then you would be crazy so it wouldn't matter what you said. The class laughed so long and I was teased for the rest of the class. I guess no one talks to their food in France?

I guess not, I don't know anyone who talks to their food in the US, though.

I've studied French quite a bit and don't know what you are referring to as saying I love you to a person differently than about a thing. YOu can use the verb aimer in both places, don't see why not. You can say je t'aime as well as j'aime chocolat, and you could also say j'aime (person's name). You don't use the definitive article usually in a case like a general statement about a collective or category or concept (such as chocolate in general), but I doubt if that was what you and the teacher were discussing. You could use different verbs (like adorer) but I suppose you could also use those for a person and a thing. Maybe there is some nuance your teacher taught you which I'm not familiar with or wasn't taught.

I made a faux pas in French once where I said je suis fini rather than j'ai fini for being finished with my dinner. You'd have to know French pretty well to understand why the waiter thought that was so funny (I realized my mistake after I said it). The first refers to yourself (like if you were dead), the second is the past tense of finished.

<You don't use the definitive article usually in a case like a general statement about a collective or category or concept (such as chocolate in general)> I'm not sure about that Christina, we say "j'aime le chocolat, j'aime les enfants, j'aime la crème à la vanille...)
Actually it is what we French learn in English (no article for things in general, like in "I like cars" ) Are we wrong then?

Padraig, indeed you are correct.

http://slowtalk.com/groupee/forums/a...1/m/6231063044

Many years ago, upon finishing a restaurant meal, I made the mistake of saying, "Je suis terminé" although I was évidemment vivant! Apparently I had said that I was dead. The waiter laughed and asked me whether, perhaps, "vous avez terminé?" It was another of those "am" vs. "have" language differences.

I went into a small grocery shop in a village in Spain which was packed with the local women doing their shopping. Walked up to the "deli" counter and confidently asked in my recently-learned Spanish for a half kilo of what I thought was goat cheese but turned out to be cheese of cuckold. The local ladies almost collapsed in laughter.