This is from many points of view a peculiar book.  To start with, although it is a Penguin with the logo on its cover, it looks unlike any Penguin Book I’ve ever seen.  It has an unusual format: a 191xmm129mm page-size with rounded corners on the edges away from the spine.  It has a buff card cover which, though it isn’t, has a plasticized appearance, making it look rather like a driver’s manual.  More importantly, it is a book about the French language which falls between the available stools of dictionary, phrase book and glossary.

The author’s idea, he tells us, was to pass on ‘key words’ that he would have found helpful when he started working in France with inadequate French: ‘a selection,’ as he puts it, ‘of the various words that would certainly have made my life easier had I known them when I started work here all those years ago.’ 

He has grouped his selection under headings like Food and Drink and Education, which sounds reasonable enough until the classifications become as vague as How to Sound French and Day-to-Day Life.  The idea of associating words with contexts is not new:  a taped language course I did years ago came complete with a book of what were called ‘situational vocabularies’.  Thus, at the airport we had the words for take-off, landing, check-in and so on (though not, curiously enough, a translation of interminable wait).  This made it relatively easy to learn a couple of dozen terms that would stand you in good stead in that environment.  Mr Timoney’s method excludes most of these; for instance, his section on Public Transport is limited to carnet, Carte Orange and RATP, RER, SNCF, all of which relate to big towns and some exclusively to Paris, plus composter, the method of cancelling rail tickets on checking-in.  Not only is this latter usually to be found in all guide books to France but it is explained in situ, so that not even a first-time rail traveller in France is likely to be foxed by it.

One can, of course, judge the author’s selection only subjectively.  Did I know these words and phrases when I first came here?  Do I know them now?  Have I missed anything by not knowing them?  Every reader will have a different set of answers to these questions.  My own is that, while there are some things here that were new to me, they have never been sufficiently relevant to my life to matter.  Similarly, explanations that Mr Timoney offers are either of things I already knew or those I did not but also did not need to, entertaining though some of these are.

I find it hard to see how this book is meant to be used.  Despite the attempt at classification, the words and phrases apply to such a wide diversity of situations and circumstances that learning them all  –  the index has nearly 350 listings  –  is probably not a practical proposition.  On the other hand, how realistic is it to look these up whenever one or other comes up in conversation with colleagues at work, friends of neighbours?  That said, most foreigners living in France (unless they have given up on the language altogether) are interested to know more French expressions and to understand the sometimes subtle differences between them  –  to say nothing of the unsubtle ones, such as that between baiser and embrasser, explained here.  So, perhaps what we have here is simply a non-academic word-book for the interested Francophile?

If that is the case, the manner may become more significant than the matter, if we are not going to cavil at being instructed in the importance of mercredi as the day on which Parisian cinemas change their programmes.  There is more than a touch of tongue-in-cheek about the atmosphere of this book, as the subtitle ‘Unleash Your Inner Gaul’ suggests.  The style is chatty, rather than erudite, and the lump of solid information is well leavened with humour. In the section on Young People (and Their Slang), for example, we are told that the French have equivalent euphemisms for common rude oaths (though one is surprised to learn that they are used by the young in particular).  Thus the English ‘Oh, Sugar!’ (does anyone still say that?) is compared with the use of punaise or purée for the stronger putain.  This information carries the comment: ‘Clearly, anyone shouting ‘drawing pin!’ or, worse, ‘mashed potato!’ at moments of extreme emotion is someone to be treated with suspicion.’

As with all attempts at humour, some come off and some don’t and which is which will depend on the reader more than the writer.  I found myself laughing out loud several times but wincing too, probably more often.  You will have gathered that I didn’t find this book of much practical value but it is far from uninteresting and sometimes very funny  –  though I can imagine that some readers would find the tone of relentless jokiness extremely wearing.

Published in paperback by Allen Lane
256 pages

ISBN 978-1846140525       £7.99