Sunday, November 13, 2011

Putain! it's French in One Word

Somewhere in our self-written job descriptions of being an exchange student, it is included for us AFSers students to share little videos, websites, poems, etc. about the language/people/exchange students in our host country.  Usually I take a look, laugh halfheartedly, and promptly forget about them.  Occasionally I remember long enough to use them to fill up silence (have you seen ___? yeah? pretty cute, yeah? yeah...).

This, however, is a video so accurately representing the French language (at least as used by Belgian high schoolers) that I thought more people should know about it:


It should be noted that, while this describes the French equivalent of a fairly profane English word, it does not have nearly the same connotation.  My seven-year-old host brother can (and does, frequently) say it without getting in trouble, where as other, less translatable swear words are des gros mots and cannot be said in front of his parents.

To finish us off, I give you a supplementary list of definitions for "Putain:"
          --  I just walked into the wrong classroom
          --  This tastes awful
          --  I forgot do do something
          --  I was trying to drink my water and accidentally inhaled it and now I'm coughing
          --  Aw, Audrey's blog post is over and now I have nothing to read

1 comment:

  1. Tempting... but perhaps a tad inappropriate... oh, putain, I'll just say it: Putain! Audrey's blog post is over!
    But wait, there's more...

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