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Xenophobe's Guide to French (Xenophobe's Guides) - Softcover

Yapp, Nick

 
9781902825281: Xenophobe's Guide to French (Xenophobe's Guides)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1902825284 ISBN 13: 9781902825281
Verlag: Oval Books, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

Highlights the unique character and behavior of the nation. Frank, irreverent, funny--almost guaranteed to cure Xenophobia.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Nick Yapp spent his first night in France in a hay barn near Calais docks in 1961. Since then he has loved the French for their music, wine, space, and those purple onions you can¿t get in England. He fears their driving and is bewildered by the speed at which they speak.

When he sits outside a café in the centre of a small French town on a sunny day, nerves jangling from the first sip of hot, strong coffee, watching the world go by, he feels he has somehow made a success of his life. When he gets the bill and sees what this success has cost him, a little of the euphoria evaporates - but he returns the next day.

He used to be a teacher, but escaped to become a writer and broadcaster. In his dreams he lives in a beautiful Basque villa on the clifftops south of Biarritz. In reality, he lives in Catford.

Michel Syrett, French on his mother's side, studied in Paris and visits France regularly as a business commentator, lecturer and journalist. He claims that his French is better than it might otherwise be because, in order to hold his own in French business circles, he has to eulogise about the perfect style with which the Nuits St George cohabits seductively with the 'microbes' of the fromage while making a seriously intellectual evaluation of the påté de fois gras. This is a pleasure, naturally, since being French in his soul, he values food as a spiritual experience.

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The French care about what really matters in life - being French. They care more about doing everything with enormous style than what they do. They are convinced of their corporate and individual superiority over all others in the world. Their charm is that they don't despise the rest of us: they pity us for not being French.
Xenophobia is an irrational fear of foreigners, probably justified, always understandable.
Xenophobe's Guides - an irreverent look at the beliefs and foibles of nations, almost guaranteed to cure Xenophobia.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The Xenophobe's Guide to the French

By Yapp, Nick

Oval Books

Copyright © 1999 Yapp, Nick
All right reserved.
ISBN: 1902825284
Anything goes
The French are the most faddish people in the world; They love ideas, concepts, innovations - playing around with things, like democracy, railway systems, architecture. It's not the practical end of the road they're interested in, but the journey, the possibilities, hence the way they drive, as though safe arrival at their destination was the last thing on their minds.

I drink therefore I am
France is a country that eats, drinks and breathes philosophy. There is not a farmer, fisherman, waiter, car-worker, shop assistant or housewife who isn't a closet Diderot or Descartes, a Saint-Simon or a Sartre.

Souls of the soil
Intellectually and spiritually the French still associate themselves very much with the land, romanticising rural and village life to wild improbabilities. Inside every Bordeaux technocrat or sophisticated Parisian beats the heart of a genuine paysan.

Dress for power
French politicians look smart because power itself is chic, attractive, seductive, and one should dress to look the part. The French electorate would never allow any government to intervene in their lives if it were shabbily dressed.


Continues...
Excerpted from The Xenophobe's Guide to the Frenchby Yapp, Nick Copyright © 1999 by Yapp, Nick. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Verlag
Oval Books
Erscheinungsdatum
1999
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1902825284
ISBN 13 
9781902825281
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
64
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Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
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