The trick is to leave the last bit of the word unspoken...

Mr. Elinoire gamely listened to many, many hours of French lessons on CD before we left for our trip. Some evenings he would come home and greet me with "Bonjour Madame. Est-ce que vous voudriez boire quelque chose? Du vin ou de la bière?," which was adorable, if slightly disconcerting.* (I think the less formal version of "you" is appropriate once you've done each other's laundry.)

But, well, there are a lot of words in the French language, and you can only remember so many, you know?



But you know what? He loved France! Okay, okay, he didn't actually use a lot of his newly acquired vocabulary, but Mr. Elinoire was like a lexiconically-enabled vacuum cleaner. He understood so much of la langue française by the time we left that I could only snark about him in French if I spoke really quickly.** Our friend Nathalie even taught him to talk to French cows.***



Here are three words Mr. Elinoire enjoys saying the way French people do: blog ("blugg"), wifi (weefee), and iPod (ee-puhd).

* Also? Mr. Elinoire doesn't drink wine or beer... so he only knew how order things he doesn't like. Note the past tense "knew" in that sentence. He has since learned how to request not one but two different beverages: sirop de pamplemousse (grapefruit syrup) and café au lait.

**I kid. I would never snark about him to his face. Give me some credit.

***Apparently French cows**** don't moo like their American counterparts -- they meugle. Imagine Mr. Elinoire saying "meuh" conversationally out the window while passing random fields and voila! a window into our vacation experience. If you need more, here is an MP3 of a French cow, courtesy of www.randonneur.net.

****Swiss cows really do wear cow bells, in case you were wondering. This is what it sounds like if you step out of the car next to a lush green Swiss valley. And yes, I know we're talking about France, not Switzerland, but hey, cow-related thought.