Pardon My French

My French is poor, though it shouldn’t be.

I studied it for years. I have spent time in France and can still understand quite a lot when I hear it or read it. But when I try to speak, the words disappear.

So a small public attempt to recover something I have forgotten.

Not to become fluent or pass an exam. Just five expressions a day for a week. 35 of them.

English is mine. Polish is the language I borrowed and then, over the years, partly inhabited. French is something else: familiar but neglected, neither entirely foreign nor properly my own.

A third language.

Perhaps a third space.

·  Un malheur n’arrive jamais seul.
It never rains but it pours.
Literally: “A misfortune never arrives alone.”

·  Rira bien qui rira le dernier.
He who laughs last laughs longest/best.

·  Ce n’est pas la mer à boire.
It’s not the end of the world.
Literally: “It’s not the sea to drink.”

·  Il ne faut pas pousser mémé dans les orties.
Don’t take the piss.
Literally: “You mustn’t push granny into the nettles.”

·  Petit à petit, l’oiseau fait son nid.
Little by little, things get built.
Literally: “Little by little, the bird makes its nest.”

Un malheur n’arrive jamais seul.
It never rains but it pours.
Literally: “A misfortune never arrives alone.”