My first Christmas in France was in 2006. I had just arrived in September and met David shortly after, and since I had no plans (no money) to go back to the US for Christmas, I spent it with his family. It was interesting and different but it just didn’t feel right. Especially when they brought out the oysters. As soon as I could, I bought tickets to Michigan for Christmas 2007. We were only there for a week, but I got to eat traditional (at least to me) Christmas food – turkey, NOT seafood! – and be surrounded by decorations and carols and actual Christmas spirit. To be fair, we decided to stay in France for Christmas 2008 and planned on doing even years in France and odd years in the US. Then 2009 arrived and the uncertainty of… let’s just say many work and family-related things led us to stay here for another year. It was extremely hard for me because I had decided long ago that Christmas in France will never be real Christmas to me, because real Christmas can only be in Michigan. I honestly don’t know if we can afford to go back to the US for 2010, but I certainly hope so.
David spoiled me a lot this year and I definitely don’t deserve it. He got me an iPod nano as well as a French dictionary specifically designed for people whose native language is not French (that includes lists of faux amis in 14 languages!) and an advanced French CD-ROM program.
Then for the tirage au sort we do with his family, I got two books, one on teaching French and one on Quebec (Irréductibles Québécois), and two DVDs: Bon Cop, Bad Cop and La Grande Séduction.
I noticed that Bon Cop, Bad Cop had a version française along with the version originale sous-titré (the movie is half in French, half in English). I wanted to see if they had actually dubbed the Quebecois dialogs into European French, and yes they did, but the French voice actors put on a very slight (and probably) fake Quebecois accent yet still use European French vocabulary so that French people will understand. Oddly enough, they did not dub the English dialogs into French, but just use subtitles, and even when Patrick Huard is speaking English instead of Quebecois French, they dub his perfectly understandable English with some other guy’s English!!! It’s so bizarre because sometimes it’s his real voice when he says something in Quebecois French that isn’t radically different from European French, but then at other times, it’s the French or American voice actors that completely redo his scenes. I really don’t understand why they felt the need to redub the English parts, but I can understand why they left the English scenes in since Quebec vs. Ontario / French vs. English is a major theme. But three voices for one character is really distracting!
