The narrator in document B writes an e-mail to a friend to relate a family outing in a restaurant in America. (300 words)
Firoozeh Dumas, Funny in Farsi, 2003
Moving to America was both exciting and frightening, but we found great comfort in knowing my father spoke English. Having spent years regaling us with stories about his graduate years in America, he had left us with the distinct impression that America was his second home. My mother and I planned to stick close to him, letting him guide us through the exotic American landscape that he knew so well. We counted on him not only to translate the language but also to translate the culture, to be a link to the most foreign of lands. He was to be our own private Rosetta stone1.
Once we reached America, we wondered whether perhaps my father had confused his life in America with someone else's. Judging from the bewildered looks of store cashiers, gas station attendants, and waiters, my father spoke a version of English not yet shared with the rest of America. His attempts to find a "vater closet" in a department store would usually lead us to the drinking fountain or the home furnishings section. Asking my father to ask a waitress the definition of "sloppy Joe" or "Tater Tots" was no problem. His translations, however, were highly suspect. Waitresses would spend several minutes responding to my father's questions, and these responses, in turn, would be translated as "She doesn't know." Thanks to my father's translations, we stayed away from hot dogs, catfish, and hush puppies2, and no amount of caviar in the sea would have convinced us to try mud pie.
We wondered how my father had managed to spend several years attending school in America yet remain utterly befuddled by Americans. We soon discovered that his college years had been mainly spent at the library, where he had managed to avoid contact with all Americans except his engineering professors. As long as the conversation was limited to vectors, surface tension, and fluid mechanics, my father was Fred Astaire3 with words. But one step outside the scintillating world of petroleum engineering and he had two left tongues.
1 Rosetta stone: a stone that helped understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs
2 Hush puppies: fried food
3 Fred Astaire: an American musical dancer (1899 - 1987)
Quel type de production est attendu ?
Firoozeh Dumas, Funny in Farsi, 2003
Moving to America was both exciting and frightening, but we found great comfort in knowing my father spoke English. Having spent years regaling us with stories about his graduate years in America, he had left us with the distinct impression that America was his second home. My mother and I planned to stick close to him, letting him guide us through the exotic American landscape that he knew so well. We counted on him not only to translate the language but also to translate the culture, to be a link to the most foreign of lands. He was to be our own private Rosetta stone1.
Once we reached America, we wondered whether perhaps my father had confused his life in America with someone else's. Judging from the bewildered looks of store cashiers, gas station attendants, and waiters, my father spoke a version of English not yet shared with the rest of America. His attempts to find a "vater closet" in a department store would usually lead us to the drinking fountain or the home furnishings section. Asking my father to ask a waitress the definition of "sloppy Joe" or "Tater Tots" was no problem. His translations, however, were highly suspect. Waitresses would spend several minutes responding to my father's questions, and these responses, in turn, would be translated as "She doesn't know." Thanks to my father's translations, we stayed away from hot dogs, catfish, and hush puppies2, and no amount of caviar in the sea would have convinced us to try mud pie.
We wondered how my father had managed to spend several years attending school in America yet remain utterly befuddled by Americans. We soon discovered that his college years had been mainly spent at the library, where he had managed to avoid contact with all Americans except his engineering professors. As long as the conversation was limited to vectors, surface tension, and fluid mechanics, my father was Fred Astaire3 with words. But one step outside the scintillating world of petroleum engineering and he had two left tongues.
1 Rosetta stone: a stone that helped understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs
2 Hush puppies: fried food
3 Fred Astaire: an American musical dancer (1899 - 1987)
Quels temps doivent être principalement utilisés pour rédiger ce texte ?
Firoozeh Dumas, Funny in Farsi, 2003
Moving to America was both exciting and frightening, but we found great comfort in knowing my father spoke English. Having spent years regaling us with stories about his graduate years in America, he had left us with the distinct impression that America was his second home. My mother and I planned to stick close to him, letting him guide us through the exotic American landscape that he knew so well. We counted on him not only to translate the language but also to translate the culture, to be a link to the most foreign of lands. He was to be our own private Rosetta stone1.
Once we reached America, we wondered whether perhaps my father had confused his life in America with someone else's. Judging from the bewildered looks of store cashiers, gas station attendants, and waiters, my father spoke a version of English not yet shared with the rest of America. His attempts to find a "vater closet" in a department store would usually lead us to the drinking fountain or the home furnishings section. Asking my father to ask a waitress the definition of "sloppy Joe" or "Tater Tots" was no problem. His translations, however, were highly suspect. Waitresses would spend several minutes responding to my father's questions, and these responses, in turn, would be translated as "She doesn't know." Thanks to my father's translations, we stayed away from hot dogs, catfish, and hush puppies2, and no amount of caviar in the sea would have convinced us to try mud pie.
We wondered how my father had managed to spend several years attending school in America yet remain utterly befuddled by Americans. We soon discovered that his college years had been mainly spent at the library, where he had managed to avoid contact with all Americans except his engineering professors. As long as the conversation was limited to vectors, surface tension, and fluid mechanics, my father was Fred Astaire3 with words. But one step outside the scintillating world of petroleum engineering and he had two left tongues.
1 Rosetta stone: a stone that helped understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs
2 Hush puppies: fried food
3 Fred Astaire: an American musical dancer (1899 - 1987)
Quelle expression souligne que le processus d'adaptation à la vie américaine n'est pas encore achevé ?
Firoozeh Dumas, Funny in Farsi, 2003
Moving to America was both exciting and frightening, but we found great comfort in knowing my father spoke English. Having spent years regaling us with stories about his graduate years in America, he had left us with the distinct impression that America was his second home. My mother and I planned to stick close to him, letting him guide us through the exotic American landscape that he knew so well. We counted on him not only to translate the language but also to translate the culture, to be a link to the most foreign of lands. He was to be our own private Rosetta stone1.
Once we reached America, we wondered whether perhaps my father had confused his life in America with someone else's. Judging from the bewildered looks of store cashiers, gas station attendants, and waiters, my father spoke a version of English not yet shared with the rest of America. His attempts to find a "vater closet" in a department store would usually lead us to the drinking fountain or the home furnishings section. Asking my father to ask a waitress the definition of "sloppy Joe" or "Tater Tots" was no problem. His translations, however, were highly suspect. Waitresses would spend several minutes responding to my father's questions, and these responses, in turn, would be translated as "She doesn't know." Thanks to my father's translations, we stayed away from hot dogs, catfish, and hush puppies2, and no amount of caviar in the sea would have convinced us to try mud pie.
We wondered how my father had managed to spend several years attending school in America yet remain utterly befuddled by Americans. We soon discovered that his college years had been mainly spent at the library, where he had managed to avoid contact with all Americans except his engineering professors. As long as the conversation was limited to vectors, surface tension, and fluid mechanics, my father was Fred Astaire3 with words. But one step outside the scintillating world of petroleum engineering and he had two left tongues.
1 Rosetta stone: a stone that helped understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs
2 Hush puppies: fried food
3 Fred Astaire: an American musical dancer (1899 - 1987)
Quelle expression souligne la dépendance au père en matière de communication ?
Firoozeh Dumas, Funny in Farsi, 2003
Moving to America was both exciting and frightening, but we found great comfort in knowing my father spoke English. Having spent years regaling us with stories about his graduate years in America, he had left us with the distinct impression that America was his second home. My mother and I planned to stick close to him, letting him guide us through the exotic American landscape that he knew so well. We counted on him not only to translate the language but also to translate the culture, to be a link to the most foreign of lands. He was to be our own private Rosetta stone1.
Once we reached America, we wondered whether perhaps my father had confused his life in America with someone else's. Judging from the bewildered looks of store cashiers, gas station attendants, and waiters, my father spoke a version of English not yet shared with the rest of America. His attempts to find a "vater closet" in a department store would usually lead us to the drinking fountain or the home furnishings section. Asking my father to ask a waitress the definition of "sloppy Joe" or "Tater Tots" was no problem. His translations, however, were highly suspect. Waitresses would spend several minutes responding to my father's questions, and these responses, in turn, would be translated as "She doesn't know." Thanks to my father's translations, we stayed away from hot dogs, catfish, and hush puppies2, and no amount of caviar in the sea would have convinced us to try mud pie.
We wondered how my father had managed to spend several years attending school in America yet remain utterly befuddled by Americans. We soon discovered that his college years had been mainly spent at the library, where he had managed to avoid contact with all Americans except his engineering professors. As long as the conversation was limited to vectors, surface tension, and fluid mechanics, my father was Fred Astaire3 with words. But one step outside the scintillating world of petroleum engineering and he had two left tongues.
1 Rosetta stone: a stone that helped understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs
2 Hush puppies: fried food
3 Fred Astaire: an American musical dancer (1899 - 1987)
Quelle expression souligne les craintes du narrateur concernant les différences culturelles ?
Firoozeh Dumas, Funny in Farsi, 2003
Moving to America was both exciting and frightening, but we found great comfort in knowing my father spoke English. Having spent years regaling us with stories about his graduate years in America, he had left us with the distinct impression that America was his second home. My mother and I planned to stick close to him, letting him guide us through the exotic American landscape that he knew so well. We counted on him not only to translate the language but also to translate the culture, to be a link to the most foreign of lands. He was to be our own private Rosetta stone1.
Once we reached America, we wondered whether perhaps my father had confused his life in America with someone else's. Judging from the bewildered looks of store cashiers, gas station attendants, and waiters, my father spoke a version of English not yet shared with the rest of America. His attempts to find a "vater closet" in a department store would usually lead us to the drinking fountain or the home furnishings section. Asking my father to ask a waitress the definition of "sloppy Joe" or "Tater Tots" was no problem. His translations, however, were highly suspect. Waitresses would spend several minutes responding to my father's questions, and these responses, in turn, would be translated as "She doesn't know." Thanks to my father's translations, we stayed away from hot dogs, catfish, and hush puppies2, and no amount of caviar in the sea would have convinced us to try mud pie.
We wondered how my father had managed to spend several years attending school in America yet remain utterly befuddled by Americans. We soon discovered that his college years had been mainly spent at the library, where he had managed to avoid contact with all Americans except his engineering professors. As long as the conversation was limited to vectors, surface tension, and fluid mechanics, my father was Fred Astaire3 with words. But one step outside the scintillating world of petroleum engineering and he had two left tongues.
1 Rosetta stone: a stone that helped understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs
2 Hush puppies: fried food
3 Fred Astaire: an American musical dancer (1899 - 1987)
- Le texte doit respecter la mise en page du courriel et on doit voir les éléments suivants : adresse, destinataire, date, etc.
- Le courriel doit s'appuyer sur le texte auquel il fait écho.
- Le courriel doit mettre en avant les difficultés d'adaptation au pays du fait d'une mauvaise capacité à communiquer en anglais.
15 Queen Square
New York
15th November
My Dear Amir,
It's been such a long time since I last wrote an email to you. Please forgive me, but settling down in America has not been an easy task. It turned out that Father is not as fluent in English as he claimed to be…
We are still adjusting to the American way of life but there is one thing I was looking forward to telling you! Last week we went to an American restaurant after Father finished work at the gas station. I was a little bit scared to be honest as I was not sure things would go alright for us… we completely relied on Father to order our menus…
Going to a restaurant in America is an experience in itself. It has nothing to do with what we had home. First, when we arrived at the restaurant, we had to wait for a waiter to be seated. You are not allowed to go to a table on your own! You must be accompanied.
Once settled around our table… things started going wrong… Father was our interpreter… but what a poor interpreter! I think he didn't know what he was ordering for us.
Strangely enough, when the waiter finally showed up after a fifteen-minute wait, we were over the moon. The food was so delicious! And it was beautifully presented as well.
Of course I had ordered a burger! What else could I ask for? With my beef burger came coleslaw as a side-dish. Have you ever heard of it? It's a sort of cabbage salad. It tastes great!
I must confess our first family outing to an American restaurant was a success. Although Father was uncomfortable in the beginning, he finally relaxed and enjoyed himself. It's nothing but a question of time before he becomes more fluent.
With much affection!