vocabulaire

Getting accustomed to the New Brunswick francophone world is a lot like having a radio in your head and not quite being right on the station. You can hear bits and peices coming through now and then, and if you fiddle with the dial and concentrate really hard you can pick up a better reception, but oftentimes it is hard to hear through the static. I find the most frustrating part is that in English I think I have a pretty decent vocabulary, but in French, my vocabulary is less than a quarter of what I know in English. It's usually really difficult to explain myself, but I am slowly improving. I'm not afraid of talking to cashiers anymore, I think that's a big step... Here's a sampling of some of the new vocabulary I am trying to cram into my tired brain.

colibri/oiseau mouche: both words mean "hummingbird" though I prefer the first (the second literally translates to "fly bird"). There are about a million of these guys, mostly of the ruby-throated variety, flying around my back yard. I bought and installed a feeder recently and in doing so unwittingly began the Great Hummingbird Civil War of 2009. A few males have established my feeder as their territory and will literally dive-bomb any enemy colibris who cross the invisible border. Even females! And they squeak at each other. I didn't even know hummingbirds made any noise beyond the whirring of their wings. Once when I took down the feeder to bring it in and refill it with sugar water (no food coloring, food coloring is not good for the little birds' digestive systems) the hummingbird I named Chet Baker was flying around my head. It was as if he was perturbed that I was taking away his sweet plastic sugar flower. Chet buzzed around as I untied it and then when I went inside with it he perched on my laundry line and looked imploringly (I swear imploringly!) into the apartment. No word of a lie the little guy then began to sing a small warbly tune of lament. I was pretty much astounded and laughed so hard that I almost cried. He waited on the line, in the rain no less, until I brought it back refilled. I wish you could have seen it.

foyer: this, I'm not entirely sure why, is what they (as in the francophones of this area) call an "elderly-folks home." There is one just up the street from me and for awhile I had no clue what it was. FOYER it said on the big blue sign, and I could see that it was some kind of a religiously themed place to stay. I thought maybe it was an asylum of some sort. I eventually learned this word because the Haut St. Jean Library Region will be the test region for the pilot Outreach project. What will happen is, with the help of a series of computer programs and specialized reports, certain groups of people who for whatever reason aren't able to come to the library can have boxes of books sent to them for borrowing. They will be able to fill out a questionnaire and books of a variety of genres, such as history, true crime, westerns, pet care, will be retrieved from the branches and sent as a package. The Outreach project will benefit foyers, daycares, hospitals etc, you get the idea. *Point of Interest* In English there is a genre called "romance," but there is no French equivalent for this genre name, even though there are plenty of French romance novels. If they are classified as anything, it's usually "emotif" which means "emotional."

garderie: means "daycare." I learned this for the same reason as above.

don: means "donation" and don d'impot (minus accents) means "donation for tax" (or something like that). I've been sorting through hundreds of donated books, where the donator has requested a receipt to be used for their tax purposes. It's a lot of paper work for what ends up being not a lot of money. Some books are worth only 5 or 10 dollars. Others are worth 30 to 40 dollars, but are too old and so aren't accepted into the collection. I was suspicious of one "kindly donator" who gave us dozens of hard cover popular novels. Though the books were mostly from the 90s I did end up acccepting about 300 dollars worth of popular hard covers from this individual to be distributed among the libraries in the region. The list price for these would generally be 30 to 40 dollars, as was indicated on the inside flap. However from time to time I would notice that there was a much lesser price written in pencil on the first page, or a price that had been erased. I was beginning to wonder if this man, thinking he had found a loophole in the system, had purchased a whole lot of second hand books, and then donated them to us for tax receipts.

formation: means "training." Because I am still en formation, I made several mistakes with the dons d'impot.

ouvrage: means .... or at least it is being used to mean "organization" or "planning." As in, the Hackmatack author books tour took a whole lot of "ouvrage" and it wasn't cool when a couple libraries re-arranged their pre-scheduled author talks. Drama!

reunion: means "meeting." So many meetings! The last meeting I was at was a manager's meeting in Grand Falls (Grand Sault) and it was actually really great because I got to meet a lot of people that I had already been conversing with via email. It made me feel proud to finally be able to introduce myself to all the librarians, and to let them know that they can contact me when they encounter problems in the catalogue. I did my best to speak in French, but I was nervous and that makes it even more difficult to get a grip on my vocabulary. Here's how one conversation went:

N: "Oh Beatrice! Bonjour, cette une plaisir de vous connaitre, je suis N.... Nous avons deja fait quel ques correspondances en email."
B: "Oui. Bonne-jou. Cette une play-zeer"
N: "Comment est-que vous trouvez votre travail?"
B: "Uhhh... il y a bow-coup a apprendre. Uhhh... j'aime bow-coup tout le monde que je travail avec. Ils sont.... uhhh... really great... and.... et... je get along with them tray bien."
N: "Votre francais est tres bien Hahahaha"
Other people listening in: "Hahahahaha"
B: "Non. non. non. ce n'est pas encore bien mais je will get better" *crawls under rock*

demeurer: means "to reside." People were always asking "si je demeure" in S.K's apartment. I would always say "Oui. C'est tres jolie" even before I knew what demeurer meant. For awhile I was confusing it with "demarrer" which means to start up. I thought people were asking me if I was starting up in my new apartment. I was confused.

coin: of course means "corner" but it's used as a geographical term. Kind of cool (or not?). At first I had no idea what it meant when someone asked me "Quel coin de Halifax viens-tu?" and I would say "sorry????" which is the international term for "what the hell? speak in English to me please!!" but now I know it means "what part of Halifax do you come from?" I even used it once, asking someone "quel coin de Toronto as-tu viste?" Smooth. *Point of Interest* "coin" is also what francophone ducks say... as in "coin!coin!coin!" instead of "quack!quack!quack!"

pi: pronounced "pee" means "and then." It's kind of a slang word that accents everyone's speech. It's really the francophone equivalent to "like" or "right." It's pretty much impossible not to start saying it, and it has already infected my own conversation.

Ouaiwaiwaiwai: is like "yea yea yea yea." That's the best I could figure to write this amazing word/noise. The "Ouai" can have up to ten "wais" attached to it. It's a way of agreeing with every aspect of what the person is saying, usually when a gossipy story is being told, or when instructions are being imparted. It can even be so prolonged as to interrupt what the person goes on to say next, after the initial agreeance is made. I like it. I use it now too.

That's all for me for now. I'll be in touch! Ouaiwaiwaiwai