{"id":22084,"date":"2015-06-03T13:45:22","date_gmt":"2015-06-03T11:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/?p=22084"},"modified":"2017-10-23T15:44:07","modified_gmt":"2017-10-23T13:44:07","slug":"confusing-french-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/confusing-french-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Confusing French Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are some differences between the US and France that I took for granted. The first time I ordered a coffee<\/a>, I was surprised by the size of the drink, and the first time I had a meeting in France I showed up at the right address, but on the wrong floor of the building! How could I have made such a strange mistake<\/a>? I had printed out the email telling me where to go:<\/p>\n

pr\u00e9mier \u00e9tage<\/strong> (first floor)<\/p>\n

Cependant <\/strong>(however), Monsieur Tout-le-monde<\/strong> (John Doe) was nowhere to be found. Apr\u00e9s avoir rev\u00e9rifi\u00e9<\/strong> (after double checking), I decided to call<\/a> Monsieur Tout-le-monde<\/strong> and find out where he was. The conversation<\/a> was rather strange:<\/p>\n

– All\u00f4 ?
\n– All\u00f4 M. Tout-le-monde, je suis John Bauer, la personne avec qui vous avez un rendez-vous.
\n– Oui.
\n– Je suis au premier \u00e9tage de votre b\u00e2timent, mais je n\u2019arrive pas \u00e0 trouver votre bureau. Vous \u00eates bien au premier \u00e9tage ?
\n– Oui, je suis bien au premier \u00e9tage\u2026
\n– \u2026<\/p>\n

– Hello?<\/em>
\n– Hello John Doe, I am John Bauer, the person with whom you have a meeting.<\/em>
\n– Yes.<\/em>
\n– I am on the first floor of your building, but I can\u2019t seem to find your office. You are on the first floor, right?<\/em>
\n– Yes, I am on the first floor.<\/em>..
\n– \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

After an awkward silence I remembered that le premier \u00e9tage<\/strong> (the first floor) in France isn\u2019t the same as the first floor in the US! Le premier \u00e9tage<\/strong> is the second floor and the first floor is le rez-de-chauss\u00e9e<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

– Ah! Je suis d\u00e9sol\u00e9 je me suis tromp\u00e9 d\u2019\u00e9tage ! J\u2019arrive tout de suite !<\/p>\n

– Ah! I\u2019m sorry, I mixed up the floors! I\u2019ll be right there!<\/em><\/p>\n

For people outside of North America, this little mix up might seem especially unusual. In most of Europe and in many other English speaking countries stories are counted like they are en France<\/strong>. The floor connected to the road is le rez-de-chauss\u00e9e<\/strong> or the ground floor, and le premier \u00e9tage<\/strong> only begins on the floor above. Mixing up<\/a> which floor is which \u00e9tage<\/strong> has made me check the floors whenever I’m meeting someone now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

There are some differences between the US and France that I took for granted. The first time I ordered a coffee, I was surprised by the size of the drink, and the first time I had a meeting in France I showed up at the right address, but on the wrong floor of the building!…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":22088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22084","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/124"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28784,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22084\/revisions\/28784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}