19 March 2009

plural en franglais

Working at Starbucks in France has definitely widened my vocabulary. At first, I was learning lots of french coffee vocab and greetings and french slang (always useful), but as time goes on my franglais has definitely been taking the front seat here. 

First of all, we have lots of anglophone words all over the place. It's an american company, so I think it's pretty understandable. They try to have that american appeal. Like McDonalds, it's seen as a place all the kids want to go because they think it's what americans do. Anyways, at Starbucks, we have shift supervisors & a store manager (said with a French accent) that we refer to (oddly, imo) as shifts & stores. Further to that, you rarely hear anyone say: Tu fais l'ouverture/fermeture demain?.  You're more likely to hear:  Tu fais l'open/le close demain?. This is obviously not a new phenomenon. The french love making English words French: le parking, le weekend, un camping.  Still, it makes me laugh a bit. Perhaps it's the french canadian in me, seeing as they love their random translations in Quebec. Chien Chaud anyone?

My biggest annoyance lately though is our food products. We have cookies, donuts, muffins, lemon cake, carrot cake, chocolate cake, etc. It is kind of hilarious to hear them pronounce some of them. I think Cinnamon Roll is my favourite. Anyways, for some reason they can't seem to get the plural right. I constantly get orders of 1 cookies, 1 donuts, 2 donut, 2 cookie... This means that ppls orders get screwed up a lot because they ask for mumblemumble cookie & I give them one & then they say they wanted 2...I understand that in French you don't generally pronounce plural s, but there is no singular s...so what's with the singular s is the franglais? 

By far my favourite is the actual Starbucks mispronunciation. You guessed it, in France it is often referred to as Starbuck. Not only that but I often get: Un moyen starbuck, svp... Translation: a grande vanilla frappuccino, please!

2 comments:

  1. ahh i just found your site and i love your post! Je voudrais trois cookie svp! I could see how it's cute and annoying at the same time!

    ReplyDelete
  2. haha thanks! I always forget to update, but have so many things to comment on about life here! haha. I love your blog as well. So well written!

    ReplyDelete

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