How refreshing to read Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s piece on the advantages and fun of learning languages (At last, a proper excuse for monoglots to learn another language: it helps keep your brain young, 12 July).
I first heard something similar to the expression she mentions from my future French father-in-law when he opened a very good bordeaux with the comment “C’est le bon dieu en culotte de velours”.
Years later, trying to impress the principal of an upmarket professional college for young ladies, I used it to describe a particularly good bottle she had ordered. Given the presence of middle-class ladies, she gently corrected me with the more genteel “en habit de velours”.
Malcolm Bower
Gunnislake, Cornwall
Not being French, I can’t verify the currency of Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett’s favourite French saying, “C’est le petit Jésus en culotte de velours!”, but as a lifelong teacher of French I can support 100% the comment “in order to truly embrace learning another tongue, you have to be prepared to look foolish and vulnerable”.
I taught adult education French for over 50 years, and would always begin my classes with the caveat that a willingness to “act the goat” is the greatest predictor of success.
It is noteworthy that most foreign language classes in the UK are predominantly female. Now retired, I volunteer to chair French conversation groups for u3a and the gender mix is still the same. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Barbara Hull
York
I enjoyed the article on learning a language and it reminded me of trying to speak French in France. I was repeatedly told that my French couldn’t be understood until I started speaking it in what I thought was a comic French accent. On another occasion, I was trying to explain a joke involving a “double entendre”. This was met with great confusion. I was then informed that the French don’t say “double entendre”, they say “double sense”.
Richard Haszko
Sheffield
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