A 10-year-old who attends public school and was previously dutiful and considerate has turned into a little a-hole, refusing to acknowledge his foreign-born parents’ attempts at Luxembourgish. The little a-hole’s mother Tatiana says she doesn’t know what happened to him, noting that he used to happily assist his parents, whether it was translating a menu […]
Code red: non-native French speaker pronounces ‘u’ as ‘ou’
What started as a functional yet tense conversation between a customer and a supermarket employee on Friday ended in disaster after the customer pronounced the French “u” like “ou.” Karen Aradóttir, who regularly shops at the Dudelange supermarket, was looking for items for her son’s birthday party including candles, chocolate sprinkles, and lastly, a children’s […]
This expat was lightly shamed by a Luxembourger for not being able to speak Luxembourgish, so in his mind he shamed her for making an English grammar mistake
An exchange in English with a Luxembourgish plum jam vendor ended with an expat delving into a pedagogic interior monologue about present tenses in English. The imaginary lesson was delivered after the expat accepted a sample from the vendor at a shopping center. After a brief exchange in English, the vendor said, “You have lived […]
Oh, sweet child of innocence: expat oblivious to tremor after French person says ‘en français, S.V.P.’ to Luxembourger
An expat who speaks neither French nor Luxembourgish and has no awareness of the centuries-old linguistic tensions in the region remained peacefully oblivious on Tuesday morning after a French woman asked a middle-aged Luxembourgish shop assistant to speak French. The situation occurred at a boutique in Mersch when 59-year-old Chantal Arndt approached a customer and […]
How to fight back when the cashier insists on French
For too many years, expats in Luxembourg who don’t speak French – maybe because they tried signing up for a course at the INL that one time but couldn’t navigate the website, or because they are allergic to certain language families – have been victimized by the Francophonie. As these expats innocently try to complete […]
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