This is our dog. I suppose he has learnt to pray and be thankful for all that is good in his life. We got him from a dog shelter some years ago where apparently he was found roaming the streets.
He is difficult to live with but with patience we’ll all learn to adjust. At least he is not as vicious and calculating as my demon cat.
The thing about this dog is that he has learnt French. Yes … you heard me right. He has learnt French.
We have one of those teach yourself French DVD Video which we play over and again on TV to learn various phrases. As we sit there repeating what is said on TV the dog sits on the carpet watching intently.
I’m sure he’s listening carefully and getting the different intonations and accents which so enrich the French language. You can see his ears twitching when certain words are pronounced slowly by the woman on TV.
“Bonjour Monsieur Dupont. Ou est l’hôtel Majestueux?”
Which I’m sure is very helpful and reassuring in case our dog ever gets lost in Paris and needs to find his way back to the hotel.
The thing is … I don’t know whether, in his head, the dog is pronouncing the words correctly, because, he has actually never said them out loud.
It could be that in his head the words are all distorted and garbled up because he pronounces them with a doggy accent. You know … it’s just like you or me trying to speak a foreign language. Our English, American or Australian accents would not pronounce the French, Italian or whatever language words as a native of those countries would. It takes a special skill to speak a foreign language just as a local does.
So how do I know if in his head our dog is pronouncing the French words properly if he never says them out loud like you’re supposed to on the Video?
But one thing I’ve noticed since he joined us in learning French by DVD. His bark has taken a distinctively French timbre as of late.
He no longer goes “Woof Woof” to scare cats away from our garden. His bark is a more elongated “Hein hein hein woooof woooof” as if to say “Oh zut alors! Qu’est ce que c’est ca?”
I’m not sure the itinerant cats roaming our garden understand him anymore.
