Let me just clear something up for all of you who think that you can become fluent in a language from hardcore studying in school. You may get damn good at the language itself, but you cannot become well-versed in culture, which you need to call yourself anywhere close to fluent in a language. What brought this one? “Si vous voulez bien patienter quelques instants…” Literally: “If you’d be willing to wait a moment…” That, however, is not an accurate translation. I waited two hours and fifteen minutes, not a moment, to see the director of La Résidence Bethany, a sort of dormlike residency for les jeunes travailleurs de Lille (young working people in Lille), with zero apologies. And that’s normal. Waiting “just a moment” in France can mean a moment, but it can easily mean
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