2008 Woodie Awards
Four Thousand Miles Across the Sea
Life outside the Bubble
Meghan McCallum
Issue date: 10/26/07 Section: Features
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My host family often calls our household "L'auberge espagnole". This comparison emerged one night around the dinner table, when Florens, the German exchange student, and I were telling the rest of the family English and German translations of French phrases.
Though as a group we aren't a whole lot like the film's characters, it's true that there is rarely a dull moment in the house, especially around the dinner table. Every night we each bring our separate cultural backgrounds to the table -- literally -- as we sit down around a delicious meal. And I mean it when I say "delicious"; my host mom is amazing in the kitchen.
For me, the most important lessons I bring away from the dinner table are those relating to plays on words or certain expressions that I didn't know beforehand. For example, during my first week I learned that "bien fait," which literally means "well done," is only used sarcastically.
For example, if a mother tells her little kid not to run on the sidewalk, and then he trips and hurts himself, she could say, "Bien fait!" to give him sh*t for not listening to her.
I had assumed that the phrase's meaning was the same as in English; that you can say it sincerely and sarcastically. It turns out that the phrases are not the same… unfortunately, I had already said "Bien fait!" a few times to the people I play Ultimate with.
Dinnertime enlightenment doesn't stop there. Florens will every so often ask how to say certain words that he has forgotten, and sometime last week he bought a little pocket notebook to write it all down. It's not uncommon for us to spend a minute or two writing or drawing things out.
When I first met him I felt a serious, quiet vibe from Florens, but he is often the person that brings the jokes and general laughter to the table. One day, after asking our host family for the French word for "spanking" ("fessee (accent over first 'e'"), he got up from our dinner table bench to make room for our host father to open the dishwasher. This is a regular routine; most every night Olivier clears the plates and then puts them in the dishwasher. Florens and I have to stand up and move our bench slightly down to make room for the dishwasher to open. I hadn't been paying attention to the dishes, and I saw Florens standing up, looking at me expectantly. After a moment of trying to figure out what he was doing, I asked, confused, "Fesse(accent)e?" This word now remains an inside joke in our house.
Though as a group we aren't a whole lot like the film's characters, it's true that there is rarely a dull moment in the house, especially around the dinner table. Every night we each bring our separate cultural backgrounds to the table -- literally -- as we sit down around a delicious meal. And I mean it when I say "delicious"; my host mom is amazing in the kitchen.
For me, the most important lessons I bring away from the dinner table are those relating to plays on words or certain expressions that I didn't know beforehand. For example, during my first week I learned that "bien fait," which literally means "well done," is only used sarcastically.
For example, if a mother tells her little kid not to run on the sidewalk, and then he trips and hurts himself, she could say, "Bien fait!" to give him sh*t for not listening to her.
I had assumed that the phrase's meaning was the same as in English; that you can say it sincerely and sarcastically. It turns out that the phrases are not the same… unfortunately, I had already said "Bien fait!" a few times to the people I play Ultimate with.
Dinnertime enlightenment doesn't stop there. Florens will every so often ask how to say certain words that he has forgotten, and sometime last week he bought a little pocket notebook to write it all down. It's not uncommon for us to spend a minute or two writing or drawing things out.
When I first met him I felt a serious, quiet vibe from Florens, but he is often the person that brings the jokes and general laughter to the table. One day, after asking our host family for the French word for "spanking" ("fessee (accent over first 'e'"), he got up from our dinner table bench to make room for our host father to open the dishwasher. This is a regular routine; most every night Olivier clears the plates and then puts them in the dishwasher. Florens and I have to stand up and move our bench slightly down to make room for the dishwasher to open. I hadn't been paying attention to the dishes, and I saw Florens standing up, looking at me expectantly. After a moment of trying to figure out what he was doing, I asked, confused, "Fesse(accent)e?" This word now remains an inside joke in our house.
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