"Stewart Paterson" <stewart.paterson@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> escribió en el mensaje
news:4729ab8e$0$27383$ba4acef3@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> I'm afraid it seems at my level of french I am not capable of
> expressing irony nor sarcasm. :-)
>
> I was trying to describe, in a semi-serious way, how many of the
> English in France have come here chasing a dream. A dream of a France
> in days gone by, a France unspoiled.
>
> Only to find, horror of horrors, that many hundreds of English people
> have done the same thing.
>
> Each feels that they were spontanious and unique and pioneering in
> following this dream, and so there is some natural resentment at
> finding that there are intruders.
>
> For my part, I am lucky. My dream is intact and playing out as it
> should, but I have worked in hamlets, plumbing for English clients,
> that have become "villages from hell" as the English neighbours snipe
> and carp and backstab. I've had the misfortune to have a drink in bars
> where the clientele is all English and listened to their cliquey
> *****ing.
>
> I've no doubt I'm expressing myself badly, and possibly even posting
> in English I'm not putting it well. The limitations of the written
> word over the spoken. Smileys can only convey so much . . .
>
> I'm in no way bitter. I am extremely happy here. I have done my utmost
> to "plonger dedans" and my participation in alt.languages.french and
> soc.culture.french are part of my attempts to ever improve my language
> and understanding.
Je vous dois des excuses!
It seems that I completely misunderstood the tenor of your previous
message...:-(
Having lived away from England for many years, I am under no illusions
as to some of the less-appealing tendencies in certain "ex-pat"
communities, or perhaps "ghettoes" might be a more appropriate
description, and I have always tended to avoid them like the plague.
During the six months that I have been in France, I doubt that I have
had more than two or three conversations with English people (about the
same strike rate as anywhere else I have lived!)
Please accept my apologies.
regards
uffy
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