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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Head-on collisions with the real language barrier

Columnist René Rice wonders why it is that Swedes feel the need to reply to him in English when all he wants is the learn the lingo and order a fiskburgare.

Published: 1 April 2008 15:53 CEST

Learning a new language can be a pretty daunting task for most of us. One of the most common pieces of advice to achieve the best (and quickest) results is to actually live in the country itself and totally immerse yourself in the vernacular.

For the most part, I'm inclined to agree – unless of course virtually all the natives of that country already speak your language fluently and would clearly much rather kidnap your mother tongue than communicate via their own. I'm referring of course to our beloved Sweden.

Now don't get me wrong – if you're a native English speaker who wants to learn Swedish then living here will still be highly beneficial; you'll be able to take Swedish courses, eavesdrop on conversations, read Swedish books and newspapers, watch Swedish television and movies with optional subtitles and have unparalleled access to a veritable smorgasbord of all things, well, Swedish really.

Just try however, to spark up a conversation in their language and you'll soon be chatting away in English again before you know it.

I'll be the first to admit that my Swedish isn't perfect yet, and there are times when I prefer to use English – at the bank, dentist, doctor and so on, but I can pretty much hold my own when it comes to shops, restaurants and hotels, among other things.

So why is it that when I ask – in fluent Swedish – for a fiskburgare (yep, you guessed it – a fish burger) in my local Max hamburger joint, the response I am given is a polite but decidedly English: “Yes, sir. It will just be a few minutes if you don't mind waiting…”

The most baffling part of all of this is that I have been told by many Swedes that I don't even have an accent when I speak the language, so unless I simply look like a native English speaker (your guess is as good as mine here), then I really have no idea why so many shop assistants, waiters and bartenders feel the need to reply to me in English.

No matter how enjoyable and personally fulfilling it may be for these Swedes to communicate in their second language as opposed to their first, I do wish that the culprits could spare a thought for people like myself who are still learning Swedish and basically need all the practice we can get.

I find being continually answered in English when you're doing your best to interact in Swedish not only extremely frustrating but also quite condescending – Aah, he's trying to speak my language, bless his little cotton socks. I'll answer him in perfect English to show him just how little he really knows.

I suppose many Swedes relish the prospect of showing off their heightened language skills, and quite rightly so. After all, my few years of elementary French at school doesn't really compare, especially when all I can remember now are some random swear words and the obligatory phrase: “Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to the train station please?”

Fortunately, as every Brit knows, the French understand English a lot better if you simply shout the words repeatedly at them…

 

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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