[bossdog]

Can somebody tell me how to translate the phrase:

Please speak slowly

or

A little slower please

I work with a large contingent from France and my Canadian French can only get me so far. There is one individual that I work with on a regular basis that can not understand my slow and clear English but he understands my terrible command for the French language. I can not understand his native French but I understand his command for English.

I know, it's a long story...

Thanks in advance!

[snookums]

Pouvez-vous parler plus lentement s'il-vous-plaît?
or
Pourrais-tu parler plus lentement s'il-te-plaît?

and the other sentence would be:

Plus lentement s'il-vous-plaît

Hope it helps!

[bossdog]

so "lentement" is the key word for "slow"?

Even if I had to say "lentement a ton parlez sil vous plait", he would understand what I was trying to say?

I'm not worried about grammer, I'm worried about the POINT I'm trying to get across. I work with Spainish, Itilian, Morocan, German and Macedonians so terrible grammer is the norm...

[bossdog]

Sil vous plait - lentement...merci bein...

[Blue_Nose]

Roughly, something along the lines of,

Vous pouvez mettre votre croissant dans mon soufflé.

and he'll get the point.

[snookums]

Yup, lentement is the key word.

you could also use "moins vite" in case he doesn't understand

I would think he would understand what you're trying to say - I know I would (if he's from Paris, he'll probably pretend not to understand though

[bossdog]

hardy har har

I just didn't know the word for "slow"...I didn't say that I was slow...



















dick

[bossdog]

snookums wrote:

Yup, lentement is the key word.

you could also use "moins vite" in case he doesn't understand

I would think he would understand what you're trying to say though - I know I would (if he's from Paris, he'll probably pretend not to understand though

how does "moins" translate? I know that "vite" is fast or hurry.

[snookums]

In this context, moins means less, so less fast

[camerontech]

what snookums said. they'll get the point if you say those

[bossdog]

PERFECT!

I've been struggling with this for the last few weeks with "hand signals" but I've had no problem telling the guy to meet me in his office on this day at theis time and to give him other basic direction.

The thing is, as soon as somebody hears you say anything in their foreign tongue, they think you're fluent!

I really appreciate the help! I'll let you know how it works out.

[bossdog]

lentement

how would this be pronounced...phonetically?

[Blue_Nose]

lawnt mawnt

[bossdog]

[snookums]

No problem!

As for the phonetics... you don't pronounce the "e" so it would be like it's written LENTMENT. You also don't pronounce the "t" at the end. I'm trying to figure a word in English with the sound "en"

So it would be pronounced as LENTMEN

EDIT : Blue_Nose is right for the first part - it would be pronounced as lawnt mah (don't pronounce the last T