Episode42 : The Barrier of Time

It seems that French people are fond of “faire une enquête”. In French textbooks for beginners, we sometimes find the dialogues with people performing street surveys. In fact, I was asked by student in Paris why I opened an umbrella despite it being a sunny day in summer. So, I closed my parasol so not as to be asked by others.

As well as the students, we were also given the assignment to survey on the streets in French. We had to do the task in pairs. Each group must have a chosen theme and made questions in order to draw a conclusion from our statistics.

I paired with Firas. He was Syrian. I think he told us that he became a doctor. I didn’t know why he came here to learn French instead of studying medical science. He was 28 years old. But he looked like he could be one his forties because of his beard. After Firas and I discussed a lot about our theme, finally we chose “your favourite film” as our subject. Although I found it mediocre, we couldn’t find another solution to compromise. Then, we started making a questionnaire sheet.

  Q1 ; Which is your age range?
  Q2 ; What is your favourite genre of film?
  Q3 ; What is that?
  Q4 ; Why do you like it?
  Q5 ; Where would you like to watch films in the cinema, or on a DVD at home?

Simple questions. However, the problem was the question one. I suggested as the age range ; 0-15,16-19, twenties, thirties…, over seventies. On the other hand, Firas insisted ; 0-13,14-40, 41-45, eh…, I don’t clearly remember. Besides, he said that we didn’t have to consider about their gender. I persisted that we couldn’t put in the same range, teenage girls and males in their 40s. But, he insisted on his idea. I couldn’t understand where his concept came from. He was stubborn. So, eventually I gave up. I don’t know if it depends on a difference between our culture or on his own. Anyway, this is an interesting point when we consider about the culture. In “ À bout de Souffle (Breathless)”, Jean Seberg said, “Les Français disent une second au lieu de cinq minutes (French people say a second instead of five minutes)”.

 I must have gone back to Japan before we started our survey without knowing the result of his “enquête”. It’s a shame!

※毎月1日、15日に掲載予定です。
※この記事は、The Traveler’s Time vol.3に収録。

第42話　時間の障壁

フランス人はアンケートが好きらしい。初級のフランス語の教材にもよく街角アンケートの会話を見かける。実際、パリで学生から、なぜ夏の晴天下に傘を差しているのですか、と尋ねられたことがある。私は別の学生にまた同じ質問をされないように、日傘を閉じた。

その学生と同様に、私たちにもフランス語で街頭アンケートを行うという課題が出された。二人一組になってテーマを選び、統計調査をするための質問票を作成しなければならない。