Has the baker asked if you want worries with your baguette?

After you’ve ordered something from a bakery or butcher, you’ll often be asked: “Et avec ceci” i.e. Do you want anything else? The reason I’m writing this post is because I initially had a lot of trouble with this question, with just trying to figure out what they were saying. Avec soucis? With worries?  The safe bet seemed: Non, merci. I did not want worries with my food…

So the best way of answering? Ca sera tout, merci. That’ll be all thanks. You’ll often have very irritating shopkeepers who’ll repeat that back to you to confirm that you don’t want anything extra (for a second time). You learn to live with it (or, like me, you’ll find a better baker).

French Fact – the clic clac

I thought I would dedicate this first ‘French Fact’ to the mystery of the clic clac, a word that many of the assistants in Le Mans have come to love, simply because of the nature of the word. Well you’re probably wondering by now what exactly a clic clac is. My hint: think about the sound. As you move it around, it clics and it clacs; figured it out yet?

It’s a sofabed. The French are linguistic genii, are they not?

Petits trucs

I often think of a number of random little trucs (things/tidbits) that I find interesting to do with my year abroad but will not post them because I haven’t written a proper update. What I think I will do though, instead, is as well as updating my blog (hopefully more often) is writing about these random facts for your amusement. So do start to expect in your inboxes – or at least on this blog – a number of additional very short posts with a short interesting detail about my French life.