A dozen eyes, please!
I went into a French corner store in Poitiers and in my best French asked for une douzaine des yeux, s'il vous plait. Of course what I really wanted were some eggs, but instead I had a dozen pairs of customers' 'eyes' looking at me, with the shopkeeper in fits of laughter!
Sent by: Andrew
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My wife was keen to practice her schoolgirl French and insisted on ordering our coffees in Lyons. She waved two fingers helpfully at the waiter and said douze cafés s'il vous plaît, twelve coffees, please. He looked slightly confused!
I thought I would be the only one to get this mixed up. I said my eggs were crying, instead of my eyes are crying.
My mum made this mistake as well, when she went into a cafe and asked for two boiled eyes. I still tease her to this day.
My husband had constant trouble with numbers while we were staying near Montpellier. The bakery finally got used to him asking for seize, sixteen, croissants instead of six, but they were very worried when he asked for soixante, sixty, because they didn't have that many.
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