Product Description
Any French language guide can teach you a simple phrase like J'ai faim! ("I'm starving!") But only Wicked French will give you the edge on a snooty Parisian waiter: Garcon! N'avez-vous pas de glacons pour le vin? ("Boy! Don't you have any ice cubes for the wine?")
While humiliated tourists mispronounce "This wine is good" (Ce vin est bon), you'll handle the French impressively with expressions like "The Haut-Medoc tries to tickle but pinches instead." (Ce Haut-Medoc essaye de chatouiller mais il pince.) Make new friends by knowing the only compliment a Frenchman wants to hear: Vous etes les gens les plus intelligents du monde. (You are the most intelligent people on earth.") With quick-to-find practical tips throughout, Wicked French gives even the first-time visitor the confidence to keep his nose held high.
Amazon.com Review
Caveat emptor: Any traveler to France who actually says to the customs agent Bien sur, soyez le bienvenu pour reduire ma valise en miettes. Heureusement ce ne sont que des valises moches de Louis Vuitton! (Of course you're welcome to tear my suitcase apart. Lucky they're only these tacky Louis Vuitton bags!) is likely to find him or herself detained at the customs desk for a nice, long spell. Likewise, responding to a waiter's suggestion with Je reserve la lamproie a la bordelaise pour un occasion speciale (I'm saving a stew of blood-sucking eels for a very special occasion.) just about guarantees bad service. In other words, the French you'll learn from Wicked French for Travelers is probably best enjoyed at home before you go.
Like Henry Beard's French for Cats this slim volume is meant to amuse more than educate. Surely you wouldn't really expect some Parisian beauty to respond to a pick-up line like Comment vous appelez-vous, mon bijou de trente-six carats? (What is your name, my jewel of thirty-six carats?) or hope to make it out of a post office alive after demanding of the clerk if he has a porcupine stuck up his rear end (avez-vous un porc-epic coince entre les fesses?). Our advice: Read Wicked French and have a good laugh before you go--but take a different phrase book with you on your trip.
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