General Chat

"Bad French might fly in Portugal but it won't get you far in France."

Who said it was bad, Rollo? I said I had a Normandy accent - I also said I spoke to the locals in France.
For that matter, JouLouise didn't say her French was bad - just that she had a lovely accent.
Your take on it? MUST be bad French judging from your comment: " warning: school French will not get you very far with RTL"

Rollo, Why do you always have to presume you're 'better' than anyone else, know more about everything and be negative at anything anyone else has done?
It gets really tedious.

To be clear I meant that some genius who liked Maldon ensured that the BR branch line to Witham was closed thereby saving the town from the endless sprawl of spec housing that has overwhelmed Braintree, also on a branch line to Witham.

Witham itself is on the main line and thus unlikely to be closed. Once upon a time the Braintree line extended to Bishops Stortford. It is now a cycle path called the Flitch Way.

Bad French might fly in Portugal but it won't get you far in France.

Kirkcubreeshire?

Llanfairpwyngyll.

Kirkcudbrightshire

?? any takers?

Mainwaring
Manring?

Few, if any, of our political representatives are multi-lingual. Doing business abroad must be fairly difficult for them & their hosts.

Poor Mrs May was having a spot of bother yesterday with her expensive translators.

Oh, I see, it's the Maldon to Witham, not the Witham to London line - I read the post wrong.
But I think Rollo was in rush to make another negative point, and didn't specify which line. :-D :-D :-D

No Maggie he said the line from Maldon to Witham was closed, not Witham station, which as well as being on the main line also has a branch line to Braintree.

Near Witham and Braintree is Terling which the locals pronounce as Tarling.

It was the Witham to Maldon line that closed. Witham is still on the main London to Colchester, Ipswich, Harwich etc. line.
There's been quite a bit of housing development at Maldon recently so the line might have been viable nowadays for commuting to London or Chelmsford, much as Braintree is.

Brian, when we lived in Blackmore End, locals pronounced Witham, Wit'm, too.

Strange you claim the station was closed in the 1960's, because, according to 'Trainline' There are at least four trains per hour to London Liverpool Street, from Witham, with more at peak times.
...but why bother with finding out anything.

Local way to say St Austell is 'Snozzle' :-D :-D

Edit: JoyLouise, I had the opposite problem!
Just before I took my French Oral, we went on holiday to Normandy, where my sister and I met 3 students from Paris.
One bought me 'Le Vieil Homme et La Mere (The Old Man and the Sea), and made me read it aloud at every opportunity, 'correcting' my pronunciation. I also spoke to a lot of the locals.
When I took my Orals - the examiners couldn't believe my 'incredible' Normandy accent! :-S
So, I sounded like a yokel! :-D

Not too sure 'school French' is useless - it all depends on how/where it's used, surely?.
When I went to Portugal, the locals all spoke a second language, usually English or French.
They could understand my French perfectly!

Witham may possibly be the most boring small town in the UK. Sometime back in the Jurassic there was a major train crash at Witham (steam engines, that far back). Other than that, nada, zilch. It would have made a good setting for one of the recent Philip K Dick progammes a town of wall to wall zombies.

The nearby small town of Maldon ( on the Mud) is quite good fun. Plenty of places to eat and drink, nautical themes. Some genius got the railway line to Witham closed in the 1960s. The result was that Braintree ( a UKIP stronghold) ended up as part of commuter land with through trains to Liverpool St via Witham. Braintree may be one of the few places within an hour of London where you can still buy a house for under £ 250 K. .

I think it is usually pronounced "Wittum".
Q. passenger: "Is this the platform for Wittum?"
A. (booking clerk) " Um. " closes window.

Featherstonehaugh = luxuryyacht

The French have a cruel and rigid class system from which there is scant possibiility of escape however cut glass your French and whatever aplomb you may show in handling the pluperfect subjunctive. The Indian caste system is sweetness and light by comparison.

My OH auntie was married tio a French admiral and she herself went to a top girl's school in Paris. Her father was a well known restaurant prop. so for us we have avoided the worst of it and even get invites for tea in the 16e ( but not the 8e)..

There is of course no end of angst about it but nothing seems to change. There is a French language radio channel ( now online only, they close the real radio down ) which deals with all sorts of French matters in an entertaining way RTL.

http://www.rtl.fr

" Les Grosses Têtes" (Fatheads) is very funny.

warning: school French will not get you very far with RTL. One of the big reasons why the UK fails at international trade is not the EU but the near total inability of the country to cope with other languages and cultures.

It's that far queue for Kew.

We are sometimes amused by the pronunciation of local place-names by the sat-nav in the car.
E.g. Witham is pronounced locally as Wittam (or Wit'm) but the satnav says Wit Ham.

Pronunciation of some English words slightly varies from state to state in Oz, something I first discovered when mixing and working with South Australians and Victorians.

I was asked once, when visiting south-west France, whether I came from Paris. My French conservation teacher came from Paris so, understandably, I had picked up her lovely accent.

Ah!

Cholmondeley....Chumley :-D

"Haze-bruh" apparently Allan :-D

Just listened to a lovely light-hearted programme on BBC Radio 4 concerning 'words' - whose use defines which social class we belong to - upper class or aspiring middle class.

I'm sure there must be a French equivalent. Rollo might know.

Hapsbruh? Or thereabouts