The Dog

The first thing every townie does when they move to the country is to get a dog! Of course it also has to be a country sort of dog and there's no exception here!

Much research on the net produced the ideal breed,fitting ALL the above criteria; a golden retriever. It's the same breed in french, except that equal weight has to be put on each syllable, so it's one word "gol-den-re-triev-er"..you try saying it! Through the same research I also found a suitable litter and the last remaining pup, the runt, was available. The issue of two champions she was a bit too short in the leg to win big money so available cheap, as long as I agreed to have her speyed.

Still a very pretty little thing, she became a great aid in learning french,because everyone we pass stops to talk, usually with the exclamation "Ah! petit mignon". This is usually followed by me trying to explain that it's not a labrador but a gol-den-re-triev-er, when this is established there's a natural progression to the weather and, if I'm really lucky, the other persons (whom I might never have met before) latest operation. I've aquired an extensive meteorological vocabulary and an equally extensive knowledge of the human body, except, that is, for the bits I'd really be interested in!

Like everything there are pitfalls and I have learned, with great embarrassment, not to make assumptions about the french language. All french nouns have a gender, most either male or female but some like dog decline with a generic and male gender i.e. chien and a female i.e. chienne. This often occurs when a noun ends in a consonant, the female gender doubles the consonant and adds an "e", like chat and chatte for cats

So chien has it's chienne and thus it follows that chiot (pronounced she-oh) for puppy has the female chiotte (she-ot) but NO "chiotte" translates literally as a SHITHOUSE !!! Oh Dear!! (which translates literally as merde)

You've also got to be carefull with a female cat because of the pussy connection