10-11-2008, 01:13 PM
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Learning French had not been a difficult task for Ahren, whose father had spoken it fluently. It was being confronted with having to use it daily that drew back his accent, and this was a false one. His native tongue was German, and that showed even now—there was a twang, a throaty hook, and that gave it away. Peculiar, considering he had been to Germany only very briefly. Old habits die hard, he supposed. “Orient,” he said, “Au cours de la montagne.”
This was a most peculiar thing to have come across. He had met foreigners here before, ones that spoke anything from Russian to French to Spanish, but that was few and far between. “J'ai vécu en France,” he continued, then almost as an afterthought: “Quel est votre nom?”
Learning French had not been a difficult task for Ahren, whose father had spoken it fluently. It was being confronted with having to use it daily that drew back his accent, and this was a false one. His native tongue was German, and that showed even now—there was a twang, a throaty hook, and that gave it away. Peculiar, considering he had been to Germany only very briefly. Old habits die hard, he supposed. “Orient,” he said, “Au cours de la montagne.”
This was a most peculiar thing to have come across. He had met foreigners here before, ones that spoke anything from Russian to French to Spanish, but that was few and far between. “J'ai vécu en France,” he continued, then almost as an afterthought: “Quel est votre nom?”