For two years I have been buying my coffee ground to order from the place in the Halle on Place Martiniere and for two years I have avoided the noun "grind" as in which grind would you like, ma'am? I have never been quite sure how to say it and just kind of started with a syllable Mou... and then adding various endings, depending on my mood, or twisting the sentence around to accomodate the words I did know, saying perhaps one day "Ground in the style of Italy, please", or "Fait (with hand movement) Italienne svp" Lazy me. I never checked to see what the proper word (probably would have been easy!) because the moment passes, the message is conveyed easily enough. I always get my coffee, anyway. Last night I really mangled it and she finally came out and corrected me. THANK YOU! She even added that the word could be considered a trap, and it wasn't my fault. I love it when people excuse me for mangling their language.
In learning foreign languages, you grab a unique scenario in your mind that you can't forget. Imagine you're sitting around a fire the morning after a party enjoying particularly delicious ventreche and eggs in the country at Kate Hill's place.
Suddenly, the dog starts going crazy. Imagine that your hostess puts her garden clogged foot down and says - oh, you might want to go out and see this. Imagine actually feeling the vibration and hearing the sound before it comes through, and then witnessing an enormous mutton herd steamroll its way through Kate's backyard, along the tow path by the canal, smashing and killing everything green in its path. Imagine a mutton hoof coming down on a clump of grass and tearing it out of the ground, mud flying, the force of sheer mutton heft ripping it from the ground. The animals stop here and there to tug interesting bits from the garden and then run off to catch up. The sum of these forces leaves a dark muddy trail of mutton prints as a reminder of what just came through.
Mouture Italienne, s'il vous plait.
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