Dans le train

 dans le train / les passagers / la destination

Today we listened to a short conversation which was happening between a few people on a train. One of them was supposedly a Russian guy. He spoke with an actual growl to his voice. Seems like some people still think that not only bears roam the streets of Moscow — they actually believe that said bears are breeding with Muscovites.

Second observation — just as I found it curious and a bit embarrassing that the the dialogues in my “Spanish for beginners” books were concentrating on appearances (“how is the new girl? she is short and ugly and has black hair”), in French for beginners I find it curious and amusing that during the casual introductions people give each other their ages almost first thing. I mean like “Here is my seat number four, oh, hello there, nice to meet you, I am Laura and I am 23 years old”.

It is rather reminiscent of this passage from Jerome K Jerome on the subject of learning French — in school, in his case:

... the importance attached by the French nation to pens, ink, and paper. “Have you pens, ink, and paper?” is the first question asked by one Frenchman of another on their meeting. The other fellow has not any of them, as a rule, but says that the uncle of his brother has got them all three. The first fellow doesn’t appear to care a hang about the uncle of the other fellow’s brother; what he wants to know now is, has the neighbor of the other fellow’s mother got ’em? “The neighbor of my mother has no pens, no ink, and no paper,” replies the other man, beginning to get wild. “Has the child of thy female gardener some pens, some ink, or some paper?” He has him there. After worrying enough about these wretched inks, pens, and paper to make everybody miserable, it turns out that the child of his own female gardener hasn’t any. Such a discovery would shut up any one but a French exercise man. It has no effect at all, though, on this shameless creature. He never thinks of apologizing, but says his aunt has some mustard.

Arguably, learning someone’s age is is more useful than knowing if they have ink, so there was some progress made since Jerome’s times.