Language barrier causes misunderstanding – all for an ‘h’
France’s Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner had a bit of a language problem when an Israeli newspaper misquoted him. It seems that a dropped ‘h’ caused a misunderstanding.
The Haaretz newspaper quoted Kouchner as saying “I honestly don’t belive that it will give any immunity to Iran…because you will eat them before.” He was talking about Tehran gaining a nuclear weapon.
But what he meant was “hit” them, not eat them, and he was referring to a pre-emptive strike. Oops.
You see, ‘h’ is silent in French. So when French speakers switch over to English they sometimes forget to pronounce it. And that can make a difference. Instead of saying “hay” it would sound like someone’s channeling Fonzie (ay!).
The French Foreign Ministry issued a statement about the phonetic misunderstanding. Now you can go back to your regularly scheduled programming.
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