A Little Language Lesson and a Faux Pas

I have always had a fascination with the French language. When I was in high school and EVERYBODY was taking Spanish, I chose to take French. And then a year later I decided that I wanted to be cool too so I took a Spanish class with some of my friends so I wouldn't be the only one not who didn't know how to speak Spanish. Well...it became a little confusing because the Spanish & French languages are very similar. Of course, they are both Latin languages and so the spellings and meanings of words are similar but their pronunciations are not. For example,

bibliotheque (F) = biblioteca (S) = library
livre = libro = book
un, deux, trois = uno, dos, tres = one, two, three

Then there are words that are spelled exactly the same and also mean the same thing, such as:

bien = bien = good

Then you've got words that are spelled the same, pronounced the same, but mean completely different things:

tres (F) = very
tres (S) = three

So in French when someone says, "comment allez-vous?" you would reply "tres bien". In Spanish, "como estas?" would get "muy bien".

Do you see how it was a little confusing to me, especially since growing up in Arizona, I heard a lot of Spanish? So even when I went away to college and continued my French classes, I would slip up every now and again and confuse my French with my Spanish.

In my French class at the then Ricks College, we were only allowed to speak in French, which is very typical of a language course. I do very well reading languages and hearing languages but not so good in speaking languages so this was a little tough for me. So one day we're sitting in class and three men walk by our open door and peek in. They made some smart comments to the class about the teacher (who couldn't see who they were) and then went on their way. So, the teacher asked the class, "qui est?" or "who is it"? Since we were a beginning French class, it took a little hesitation on everyone's part to tell him who was there. Shouts of "hommes" (men) began to ring out, to which the teacher said, "Combien?" (How many?) I chose to spout out my answer right then, during the few moments of hesitation: "Tres hommes!" I said, about as loudly as I could. I was a little confused when the teacher looked at me quizzically instead of praising my quick response. It was a few moments before I realized my little faux pas. Instead of saying there were "three men", I said there were "very men". Of course, with my Spanish-French combo, it made perfect sense to me.

Yes, they were very men indeed. And there were three of them.