I am working for this company called Babylangues and they set me up with two different French families to teach their young children English through songs and play. I had meetings with both families today. Ema was still in school when I met with her parents but I caught up with Alexis (a boy, the s is silent) and his family in the evening. On the way back to their house from the school, Alexis was telling me about his day. He has a "class" in which the kids learn English through little puppet shows featuring various characters. He explained, in his tiny little French voice, how much he enjoyed the stories about Mister Wolf and proceded to tell us about the new character they met today: Mister Fuck.
I know this child did not just drop the F-bomb. Maybe he's just confused. "Mister Phoque?" I asked, hoping for some clarification. "Les animaux qui habitent dans la mer?" In French, the word for seal sounds almost exactly like fuck. An easy mistake, right?
"Non non. C'est un animal mais il habite dans le forêt"Alexis corrected. Okay, seals definitely don't live in the forest. Even a 4-year-old knows that. So if he's not saying phoque, then he really is telling me that the name of this character is Mister Fuck. What are they teaching these children at this school??
Suddenly his mother, who I later find out speaks English quite well, suddenly realizes what he might be saying. "Ohhh! C'est un renard! Mais je ne sais pas comment dit-on en anglais."
Un renard? What the phoque is a renard? My brain is reeling, trying to dig this vocabulary word out of the depths of my memory. Not canard. That's a duck. Close in both English and French, but no cigar. Renault? That's a brand of cars, genius. No no no. This is a mess. Mom and Alexis try explaining to me what a renard is but I am drawing a blank, especially because I am so jarred by this child telling me about Mister Fuck.
"Maybe... Fucks?" Mom offers. FUCKS??? Are you kidding me? Yeah, I suppose sometimes there are fucks in the forest, but somehow I doubt they talking about my last camping trip.Why are these kids learning about Mister Fucks? What a terrible name for a character in a children's story! Mom plays with the word a little, hoping to land on something I'll recognize, but she just ends up sounding like a drunken sailor: "Fucks? Fuck? Facks? Fooks?"
And then, like a bolt of lightning, it dawns on me what we have been talking about for the last five minutes. "Peut-être Mister FOX?"
"Oui oui oui c'est ça!" Alexis shouts, thrilled to have conveyed his message to me. "Mister Fuck!"
"Attention, Alexis," his mother corrects. "Mister Fucks."
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