Anyone who has learnt another language knows that one of the true joys is when you finally get the jokes, or learn how to tell a joke in that language. There is so much comedy to be had also in the mispeaking and and the minunderstandings. The French woman who doesn't understand that the French word 'Vierge' can be interpreted in English as both 'Virgo' the astrological sign and 'Virgin' and accidentally uses the wrong one to describe herself. The Australian woman who mispornounces the word for queue and accidently says that she was making an 'arse' in the bank. If you are able to laugh at yourself then there is much fun to be had with language.
One of the things that made me sad when Jerome died was that we had so many jokes together. Jokes that only he and I laughed at most of the time. Without him those jokes died too.
But last week, staying with my friends Magalie and Arno in Normandy, I rediscovered my ability to laugh in French. We laughed alot but there was one night in particular when we were laughing so hard about the untranslatability of certain idiomatic expressions, it actually started to hurt! Side splitting laugher is such a gift and I feel as though a little piece of what i lost when Jerome died has been given back to me.
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