Thanks, nice bottom
I have difficulty enough trying to get my tongue round French words but I was determined to say merci beaucoup, thank you very much, ... only to find out weeks later that with my slight mispronunciation I was saying beau cul, nice bottom!
Sent by: Tony
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This mistake is rather common and stems from the fact that most British people find difficult to recognize and pronounce the sound OU.
I am currently living in France for my forth year and although I am well aware of the problem with merci beaucoup and merci beau cul, I still can't seem to pronounce it correctly, much to the amusement of my French friends who constantly ask me to say it so they can laugh at it. Instead, I now tend to use merci bien instead. Much easier!
I know exactly how you feel! All the way through my trip to Marseille last summer I was getting some weird looks when I thanked someone. I know better now.
I did exactly the same thing for a week to the father of my best mate, with whom I was staying. He informed me of my mistake over family dinner one night - to my shame!
Haha my friend did that when we were on a school trip to Geneva. She wanted to say merci beaucoup to the barman to which he just laughed and explained to us in English that she had actually told him he had a nice bum!
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