The above is a picture of Mr and Mrs Jacques Chirac, the former French president. After decades of marriage, apparently they still "vous" each other - as in "je vous aime" rather than the more intimate, "je t'aime". They do look a bit uptight, no?
Herein lies another cultural ambiguity I experience almost on a daily basis - the "tu" versus the "vous", or in English, "you" versus the "you" - see what I mean? For me, you is you is you! I tend to default to the "tu" because for me that is not only easier to conjugate, but I also just don't see the point of "vous". I noticed, however, that some people, notably some moms at the school, default to the "vous" when addressing me. Only after I repeatedly use the "tu" do some of them also start to "tutoyer". However, there are some moms that resolutely maintain the "vous" with me, as if "I would rather not get too close to you" - at least that is how I interpret it.
If the rule is always just use the "vous", say, outside your immediate family, I think I could live with that. However, at some point in the relationship, the "vous" becomes "tu" and where and what that point is, I think is very hard to figure out, and sometimes hard to agree on.
The confusion gets compounded because "vous" can also mean "tu" in plural. For people who pride themselves in the intricacies of their language, this lack of precision is quite astounding in my view. So someone who has been "tu"-ing me suddenly can ask me something with a "vous", meaning me and the girls, for example- and that throws me off and I start to "vous" back to the person, when I am just talking about her. Then the other person gets confused and starts "vous"-ing me back, thinking that I all of a sudden want to start being more formal. Confusion all around. Avoidable? Not in French!
A friend advised me to just ask "on peut se tutoyer?" (can we "tu" each other?) - however, what if that person ever says no? What to do then? Being a foreigner, I can get away with just "tu"-ing everywhere, I guess. But when the rights and wrongs are so unclear, I just find myself more annoyed than anything else...
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