Cela m'est égal.

Very quickly: the whole language barrier thing can be very frustrating, but it can also be exceptionally amusing, sometimes inappropriately so.

Our host family sometimes switches to English in order to ensure our understanding of important details. Normally, this is helpful. Sometimes, it is hilarious. But probably only because we're immature.

Mme asked Emily about her summer, and she explained that she had spent it in California, working for Pottery Barn, the large furniture chain. The brand unfamiliar to her, Mme tried repeating what she heard: "Potty barn? Potty barn?" And every time we burst into laughter, she tried harder, to the same end: "Potty barn? Potty barn?" It took us a full three minutes to stop laughing and help her with the correct pronunciation. Like I said, we're immature.

And then, tonight at dinner, Mme was telling us, in English, about some of their good friends, a couple whom they met years ago when M., a surgeon, performed an emergency operation on Anne, the wife. "Yes, it was awful. She got hurt very badly. She broke both legs and her spine in a car wash. Yes, it was a very bad car wash." We knew she meant car crash. And the story was really very sad. But it took all our self-control (which we ended up losing when M. finally corrected her) to keep straight faces. There's just something about the idea of someone being severely maimed by soapy water and soft, spinning brushes that makes it impossible to stop laughing.


Note: I have yet to have anyone laugh in my face for my mistakes with the language, but I now fully expect it. Karma, I think they call it.