I was watching the 2014 French crime series “Witnesses” (Les Témoins) and there was an exchange that I think I didn’t quite understand because it involved some kind of cultural joke between Belgian and French speech.
The story is set in the seaside town of Le Tréport in northern France. One of the cops is Sandra Winckler (portrayed by Marie Dompnier), who is, I believe, supposed to be a native of the town. Her partner is Justin (Jan Hammenecker), who is, I think, supposed to be from Belgium.
In Episode 3 (at about the 11:47 mark in the Netflix stream), Sandra and Justin are at a snack bar having a bite of pâte à choux, and they have this conversation, according to the English subtitles. My French isn’t good, but I’ve tried to stick in what I think I might be hearing when I can make out any words:
Can anyone with knowledge of French and Belgian language and pastries explain this exchange?
I’ve seen a transcript,** acsenray**, and it differs a bit from what you write, maybe because the subtitles were misleading. The transcript says:
— C’est bon, hein? J’adore les chocottes! (It’s good, hey? I love chocottes!
— Les chouquettes!
— Chez nous, c’est des chocottes. (Back home, they’re called chocottes.)
— Tu mens! Chocottes, ça veut pas dire ça. (You’re lying! Chocottes doesn’t mean that.)
— Ça veut dire quoi? (What does it mean?)
— Avoir peur! (To be afraid!)
In French slang, “avoir les chocottes” means “to be afraid”, coming from the fact that when you fear, your teeth “s’entrechoquent”, “clash againt each other”. And I am not aware that Belgian French has any other meaning for the word for “chocottes”. Maybe a Belgian doper will come in and say that I’m wrong, but I doubt it.
“Chouquette” is indeed a pastry, kind of a cream puff. And “chou” has many meanings in French, the main one being “cabbage”.
I think this is probably a case of an untranslatable joke (the policeman eating a pastry and saying he loves to be afraid, wtf?), and the translator didn’t know how to get out of it.
I haven’t seen the episode but from the transcript, it looks like Intelligently Designed is right: I’m not aware of any usage of the word “chocottes” refering to a pastry but, for the record, I’ve never heard “chouquette” either. Judging by the Belgian actor’s name, I suspect that he is actually Flemish so that his mother tongue is NOT French. It’s probably a “joke” about a “foreigner” confusing two similar-sounding French words. I don’t think that a Belgian French speaker would make that mistake. In other words, I agree with the French-French actress.
Note however that, small as Belgium is, there are some dialectal usages and pronunciations that can sometimes result in misunderstandings like this funny ad illustrates. The dialects heard are those of Brussels and Liège, two of the most famous ones in Belgium. They’re talking about sweets and biscuits, I hope this helps :D.
This movie scene however is more focused on the differences between Belgian accents. He’s teaching the French actress how to distinguish them.
Thanks guys! (I was hoping an actual Belgian would come into this thread!)
So the whole “chew pastry” thing was a failed attempt to rewrite the joke in English?
And if Justin was just misunderstanding the words, why did he say that they called it “chocottes” in Belgium? He’s just being goofy?
At one point in the series, a witness refers to Justin as “that cop who sounds like he is from Belgium.”
Would a French person be likely to say that only about someone speaking French with a Flemish accent or might it also be said about someone whose native tongue is Walloon French?
2 - My wag is that he’s trying to get away with a mistake by saying that the word is different in Belgium but he fails because the woman knows better. It’s mildly funny because it could plausibly have worked (at least it’s funnier than just making fun of the guy because he got a word wrong).
3 - A person speaking Belgian French will be spotted because of his accent in France, no matter were in Belgium he comes from. If not the accent, numerals and several other words will be giveaways.
The opposite is true, too much to the French’s surprise (“I don’t have an accent, I’m French !”)
Isn’t she ? I think it’s Anne Marivin and she’s French.
Weirdly, I noticed this joke when watching Witnesses, and wondered how it could equally work in French and English, using a homophone. I find the English version mildly funny. Better than the German jokes in Freud’s book on the matter, anyway. A lot gets lost in translation.
? I think it’s