Englishman Charles Timoney was thrown into French life headfirst twenty-five years ago when he and his wife moved to her native France. He had studied French in school, but his memory of vocabulary lists and conjugation drills proved no match for day-to-day living. As he blundered his way toward fluency, he kept a list of words and phrases that wonderfully (sometimes wickedly) epitomized aspects of the French culture-and were used only by native speakers. tackles the delightful absurdities of French life and language and steers readers past the potential embarrassments of speaking French in France. It is a book no student, traveler, or language maven should be without.