Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Friday 23 November 2007

Words, words, words...

Apparently, some words of mine sent Claude to her dictionary.

As it happens, I've been trying to read some Fred Vargas that I bought on a previous trip to France. No chance of reading it on the train*, I'm afraid, as I find almost every page contains something to send me off to my huge Robert - accastillage, baffe, mettre en boule, plastron, bousiller (she likes that word, does our Ms Vargas), crânement.......

Proof once more that when it comes to languages, there really is no substitute for just doing it, over and over again.

The book's just introduced the idea of a Breton village crier - Ar Bannour - whose voice can carry from the church to the wash-house. The first is an obvious title for a blog: but then the second might better reflect the reality of a lot....

*There was a man on the tube this morning reading a book by an author with a Turkish-looking name, and a title that looked like no language I could recognise; I guessed Albanian - but then he pulled out of his bag a Kurdish dictionary. That's London for you.

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