Everybody knows it, even those who think French is a type of cheese, not a language. It’s one of the few fossilized remains from the glory days when France was the crème de la crème of European civilisation. It was a time when French language peppered the speech of the European aristocracy just like today’s hats by aesthetically challenged designers adorn the heads of the modern British royalty.
God knows it’s not easy to pierce through the Anglo-Saxon yeast that so quickly covers the grapes of contemporary culture. French may be mortally wounded but it’s still alive, and it fights for every gulp of air with Piafesque stubbornness, stuttering “Je t’aime!” after “Je t’aime!”
And here’s the next lesson from my Mapping Stereotypes project. It will finally help you understand what “Je t’aime” means.
