You will be very happy the day you can pronounce heureuse.

A young student I know here in NY is Hungarian and speaks quite good English, as you'd expect since she just received her MBA here. She says French is not as difficult as English, and Hungarian makes them all seem easy.

The funny thing about pronouncing heureuse is that your lips don't move at all. It's all in the throat!

Vegaslocal, you must see a lot of tourists in Vegas, even quite a few foreign ones. There are probably some who you perceive as are endearing and charming and some who you perceive as obnoxious. Just behave like the charming ones.

nmsky2007: I am with you on pronouncing eggs. On our first trip to the Monoprix, we just could not find the eggs. We asked in french but we could never get an answer, just a funny look. It turned out we were asking for just one egg, but of course we left out the pronoun. I have never gotten the courage up to ask where eggs are again, but at least now I now, that they are not refridgerated.

Thank you Brenda.

was non-on else "listening"?

I received many a cheese and salmon sandwich from room service over the years before determining that my poor pronunciation of "seulement" was remarkable similar to the word "saumon." YUCK.

Sheila, I am listening.

I have always thought of France as the apogee of Western culture and thought. Teenagers discovering prehistoric art down holes in the Perigord. Monet, Renoir, Picasso, Chopin, Debussy, Claude Levi-Strauss, Proust, Baudelaire, Camus.

When I drive through the French countryside I feel like it is hallowed ground.

I grew up thinking of Paris as a place where people discussed philosophy on the street corners. I want to join the discussion; I'm just worried that my French and my analytical skills might not be up to the task.

Nikki, I know that the French as a people are not all as Erudite and thoughtful as the ones I see on that TV import in which they seem to hold courtr on art and politics and literature ... (not that I understand a word of it, I just always pause when I come upon it since we have nothing comparable: an audience watching intellectuals talk?)

BUT France has produced some big time philophers, and since travel always holds the power to change a person, what better place to contemplate the change than the banks of the Seine.

If you have some time I recommend at least trying the Pimsleur's traveler's French set. It's just the first half of the first set of the training audios, but it will give you some grounding in the essentials. You will feel more comfortable expressing yourself. If you have more time I heartily recommend Pimsleurs. I'm re=playing the whole set in preparation for my second visit in January.

This is NOT THE SAME as comprehending, but that's okay.

I've told this story before. We always stop one day to dine at a favorite bistro where we have been going for many years and the staff knows us.
Our waiter looked very down so I wanted to say smile,( sourire), instead I said
mouse, *souris).
That took him out of his funk and we had a good laugh

Vegas
I say 'ditto' to everything DLB said! Go to Paris. It's beautiful, easy to get around, fun, romantic and 'do-able' on a budget with a bit of planning. We get by on very little french and Paris is my absolute favorite city. Savor it.

I am too intimidated by the original topic to make much of a contribution ;) but Sheila, yes, I was not only listening, but you made me have a most interesting internal debate about the meaning of 'apogee' in the context you used it:

"you Amurrican chappies (usually/ sometimes/always) seem to think that you are the apogee of western democratic civilisation"

I was all set to pounce on you and suggest you meant 'apex' instead of 'apogee' when I was reminded that when viewed from the perspective of the earth, the sun's apparent orbit at its highest point is known as the apogee, giving apogee its alternate meaning of 'highest point' or 'climax' (in this case, of civilization).

However, that is not the usual way I interpret 'apogee' - I'm used to thinking of it as the point in an orbit in which the orbiting object is furthest from the earth.

I know, I know, but wait, there's a point to all this: you confessed to being mystified as to why someone thinking they were the apogee of Western civilization would be intimidated by anything. But the mystery exists only if you use the alternate meaning to apogee; in the primary definition, it might mean that someone feels they are presently at their furthest point from Western civilization, which would certainly help them feel intimidated by the prospect of an outing to Paris.

Yes, I know, I need a life. But as for who thinks of themselves as the apogee (alternate sense) of Western civilization, I think you ought to treat yourself to a return trip to Versailles!

Geez... I thought for a minute it was another of my attempts to type that had gone wrong. But I see, that, for once, I was right.

BTilke wrote-
The only Americans I knew who were intimidated about going to Paris were those who a) hated or were seriously afraid of flying--and this was a surprisingly important reason--the thought of spending 10 hours in a plane was the main reason they hadn't gone to Europe, might as well have asked them to spend their vacation time and money on root canals b)spoke no foreign languages at all c) spent little time in big cities, period. They would have been almost equally intimidated in NYC.
----
I think one of the posters here finally got it right; it's the mystic of the place. It's what you hear, read and see at the movies growing up that makes you sometimes thin that you could never go there and fit in or really grasp the "mystic" and complexity of such a city.

My husband and I had some reservations about going to Paris initially for the reason listed above, and NOT for the reasons BT wote about. Of course, once you are there, all of the worries diappear and you fall madly in love with the city.

Next to New York, there may be no city in Western culture remembered more often in song than Paris.

One of my favorite phrases is in the verse to "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" :
The loveliness of Paris, seems somehow sadly gay ...

"The Last Time I Saw Paris" has a poignant lyric by Oscar Hammerstein II, who had never been there. (written after Paris was occupied by the Nazis)

Cole Porter knew Paris well and wrote about her - and the French -brilliantly. (I Love Paris, Paris Loves Lovers, Paree What Did You Do to Me?, Ca C'est L'amour, Les Girls, Who Said Gay Paree?, Can-Can, Allez-Vous-En, D'est Magnifique, Give Him the OO-La-La, Mesdames et Messieurs, Si Vous Aimez Les Poitrines, Neauville-Sur-Mer)

A great Porter lyric that is not well known comes from his 1929 show, FIFTY MILLION FRENCHMEN:
You Don't Know Paree

verse:
You come to Pari, you come to play;
You have a wonderful time, you go away,
And from then on, your talk of Paris knowingly;
You may know Paris, you don't know Paree.

refrain:
Though you've been around a lot,
And danced a lot, and laughed a lot,
You don't know Paree.
You may say you've seen a lot,
And heard a lot, and learned a lot;
You don't know Paree.
Paree will still be laughing after
Ev'ry one of us disappears,
But never once forget her laughter
Is the laughter that hides the tears.
And until you've lived a lot,
And loved a lot, and lost a lot,
You don't know Paree,
You don't know Paree.


That lyric marries nicely with the melancholy melody Porter provided.

A final offering: though Maurice Chevalier's signature song was Rogers and Hart's "Mimi", and he later brought to life the brilliance of several great moments in GIGI, I particularly like a very "peppy" Paris tune - one that seems to have no sadness built in whatsover, called
Paris Sera Toujours Paris - which pretty much sums it up.

"My husband and I had some reservations about going to Paris initially for the reason listed above, and NOT for the reasons BT wote about. "

Ummm, Sandi, where in my post did I say I was talking about you? I talked about the people I knew personally who were afraid to go to Paris and those WERE their reasons. That certainly doesn't mean I assumed they were YOUR reasons.

My error then. I misinterpreted the way it was written. It seemed as though you were indicating that if people were intimidated by Paris then a, b, or c, etc were also true. Again, my error.