Today was the last day of the preparatory French course. Two students in our group got a card for the teacher and a pot of orchids for her as a thank you. All the students signed the card in their native language and we went around the room after presenting it to her and pronounced it in both native tongue and English.
The woman in the back middle (grey tank top) is our teacher, Aline. Notice the photoshop job on the guy in blue in the front. He came in just as we'd all returned to our seats. The class let out a collective groan and thus he got added in after the fact.
Just to recap, the countries represented in this picture include: Czech Republic, Spain, India, Iran, Italy, South Korea, Turkey, Bulgaria, Taiwan, Mexico, Canada, Poland, and Belgium!
This brings me to two funny language screw ups people have had in the last week.
1) The Taiwanese student went to a local coffee shop and asked for a latté. Unfortunately for him, the barista heard "le thé" which is French for tea. The pronunciation is extremely similar. He couldn't understand why she insisted on giving him tea so he just gave up and accepted it. When he got back to class holding a tea in confusion we all busted up laughing and explained to him that what he really wanted was café au lait.
2) The card that the class all passed around and signed was not a thank you card... it was a sympathy card! A Bulgarian and a Taiwanese (Mr. Latté) student went shopping for it with their translation dictionaries and got flustered so ended up picking one that looked nice. It says something to the effect of, "Our hearts are with you" on the outside and, "Courage in difficult moments" on the inside. They asked me to translate it for them right before we started passing it around. At that point it was too late. At least the teacher thought it was funny when they explained what happened.
So that is the first two weeks finished! Next week starts all the university welcome days and the first few days of classes. Also, my 20th birthday! This weekend we are taking the train to the coast. I am very much so looking forward to the fresh air. The city center (where I live) is nothing but car exhaust. Yesterday I ran 7 km along the river and yikes. My lungs were not too thrilled with me after. We have all decided we need to get out of the city. Hopefully we'll get some sunshine because we've had nothing but clouds and grey sky for the last week.
Thinking of you all,
Jacqueline
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