In France, greetings is a very important part of every social interaction. French people all shake hands with everybody they meet and they always do it twice, when they arrive and when they live. Not doing so will be considered very impolite. On the other hand, kissing in the checks is a standard greeting practice among family and friends. This can be done in private and in public meeting (called randez – vous) and the double kissing (one kissing per check) often start on the right side.
French people are extremely proud of being French and they like to express some of their thought with very typical. Among them the most common and characteristics are the following:
- ´very good´ (il est delicieux) : touch your fingers and thumb all together, kiss your fingertips, and then open your hand, as if tossing something in the air.
- ´Í have finished´ (c´est fini) : cross your arms in front of your body, with your palms out, then move them out, while saying, “C’est fini.”
- ´I promise it´(je le jure): place your hand on top of your head
For the same reason, French people are extremely protective over their language.
They don´t like to mix French with foreign words when they speak and they often translate them in a pretty funny way. For example the computer mouse, which is called mouse everywhere else in Europe, in France it becomes ´le souris´ which mean mouse (the animal) in French. For the same reason, French radio can not broadcast too much foreign music and a fixed ratio between French music/foreign one has to be kept.
But music is not the only example. The love for their country makes French people always choosing French product over foreign one even when kids entertainment is a concern. In fact, still today, many families chose the Asterix and Obelix Village entertainment park (Asterix and Obelix are famous comics book character invented by a French author) over Eurodisney, even though the two places are situated outside Paris and they pretty close to each other.
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French lessons for kids @ dinolingo.com
