How to abuse a phrase book

There are a number of reasonably priced phrase books of a high quality around these days. High quality, that is, if you want to ask somebody the way to the beach, or thank someone for their conscientious help. Absolutely useless if you want to tell someone what a moron they are, or treat a waiter like dirt (incidentally, most people think that you call for a waiter by saying "garcon!". Garcon translates literally as "boy", and so most French waiters find this a degrading form of address. It is therefore to be encouraged).

Here then are a few tips on how to use your phrase book in order to meet such needs as you may have. Hopefully this will make up for the dead wieght in it, taken up with phrases such as "Pour aller a ...?" ("How do I get to ...?". Let's face it, you're not going to understand the response.) and "C'est bon marche" ("That's cheap". In a country where a glass of orange juice can cost over $5 -, it's not a phrase that crops up much).

Any phrase beginning with the words "Je voudrais", should be started as "Je veux". This is roughly equivalent to changing "I would like" to "I want". It makes you sound more impatient.
Only the arrogant and uncivlised neglect to put "S'il vous plais" at the end of a request. Be one of them.
If the word "mal" comes up, replace it with the word "merde". This is like changing bad to sh*t. It may not always be gramatically correct to do so, but even if it is not, you end up sounding like a vulgarian.
Replace "Madame" with "vieille femme". This is like changing "Mrs" to "old woman".

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(C)1996 Conrad Leviston.
If you end up in trouble by being stupid enough to take the contents of this page seriously, the author considers it your own fault.