To add to the list of swiss french words, (as opposed tp french french words) that i am learning@
someone asked me for a natal (portable/mobile)
and for a cornet/corner (i guessed this was bag, it was at a food stall at the market)
managed to understand all the rest!!!!
and lausanne was fab; looking forward to the move.
Un Natel is a portable/mobile phone.
And un cornet is the Romand word for a paper bag, but also a plastic one these days. You have a few more surprises to come- enjoy.
Much easier to count though - 70 = septante 80 = huitante 90 = nonante.
I am a native Romande, so just ask. Bonne chance. Where are you from btw?
My french teacher (who taught me 20 ahem something years ago) was 70 something years old at the time, and she taught us "cornet" for a small paper bag - the explanation being that when she was a girl, shopkeepers made bags from sheets of paper by rolling them into a cone shape. She grew up in Aix en Provence in the 20s and 30s. My French husband, who grew up many years later in Burgundy, didn't know the word though .. so even if it was in common usage in France, it seems to have fallen out of fashion.
I have never caught on to the (much simpler and clearer) Swiss French way of counting but find that when I refer to 60, 70, 80 and 90 in traditional French, people have to really think twice before understanding me. I think I'll be changing over soon ..
Another word: parquer .. as in "Il ne faut pas parquer votre voiture devant la maision." Really. Seen in a lift in a hotel in Villars.
Huitante is only used in Vaud - elsewhere in Romandie it is
septante
quatre-vingt
nonante.
The words that really get me, are those invented English sounding names which do NOT exist in English, like
un brushing - blow-dry
un parking - car park
un footing - jogging
un pressing - dry cleaner's
Pas de quatre-vingt in Fribourg, also. Huitante rules here, too.
Le quart de l'heure vaudois: If a meeting starts late: "that's okay, we know that we're living in Vaud, and hey, we're not that uptight, what's 15 minutes?"
Je suis deçu en bien. "I thought this was going to be really really disappointing, but it's turned out, like, great!"
Happy hour is a small glass of white wine, preferably from the Lavaux
Tom
(wikipedia)
A chope would be 5 dl. (another Swiss French term that is used when ordering drinks is "decilitre")
When ordering wine, soft drinks (from the bar), you will order them in dl. So you would order "3 dessee de coca" (for coca-cola). Of if ordering Diet Coke, it would be "Coke light" in Swiss French.
Can anyone add coffee vocab? My French is French French, and I got into a bit of a pickle when trying to order a milky coffee last time in Delémont ...
In Germany I learnt that a Schoppe was an old European one pint measure, hence the festival "Frühschoppen" when they start drinking at 10 am.
For a milky coffee ask for a "Renversé" (Spelling ??) when they put more milk in first before the coffee.
A friend of mine taught me that the part of Geneva known as Gex is pronounced Gay. And how do they pronounce sex, is it "say"?