Que Sera Sera

The first thoughts that came to mind upon learning that sera is the third-person singular future tense of être were the lines of the song “Que Sera Sera” from the Hitchcock movie seen a long time ago.

I was quite sure that the words “que sera sera” was in French till a Facebook friend put the song on her wall. Just to confirm I checked up the Wikipedia and to my surprise I found that nobody is quite sure which language this is in. Spanish? Italian? Nah!

Given the confusion, I shall stick to my version that que sera sera is in French. Que = what; sera = will be. So, this becomes, “what will be, will be.” I think the confusion comes from the line of the song that follows que sera sera, which goes: “whatever will be, will be.” I like to think that the “ever” in “whatever” is there to get the rhyme properly. The last line of each stanza gets it right though: “what will be, will be.”

Here enjoy the song:

The only problem with my version of que sera sera? The pronunciation of the word 'que' is French is not 'kay'. Oh well, Hollywood might have got it wrong!

Learning From Copyright Statements

Apparently one cannot use the material contained within the Tintin comics even for a blog like mine. Not that I intended to scan and reproduce the whole story in my blog.

But you know what? There is always something to learn even if it is a copyright statement, as long as it is written in French (I have highlighted words or phrases that are learning points):

Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. Il est strictement interdit, sauf accord préalable et ecrit de l'editeur, de reproduire (notamment par photocopie ou numérisation) partiellement ou totalement le présent ouvrage de le stocker dans une banque de donnée ou de le communiquer au public, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit.

This translates word for word into:

All rights reserved for all countries. It is strictly prohibited, except agreement prior and written of the editor, to reproduce (especially by photocopy or scanning) partially or totally the present work to store it in database or to communicate to public, under any form and manner whatsoever.

I wonder what they will do to prevent me from quoting extracts from a book that I paid for, especially when torrents of the scanned copies of Asterix and Tintin float all around the Internet - a cease and desist order, followed by a lawsuit?

Useful French Vocabulary

Here are some of the vocabulary that I needed during my recent trip to Belgium and France. These are not readily available in any phrase book, but can be easily constructed using your existing vocabulary.

Où est la pizza que j'ai commandé? – where is the pizza I ordered?
Quel est le nom de la station suivante? – what is the name of the next station?
La prochaine station est Liège? – Is the next station Liège?
Le train aller à Liège? – Does this train go to Liège?
Quand est le prochain train pour Liège? – When is the next train for Liège?
Le ticket est valable pour ICE aussi? – Is the ticket valid for ICE also?

Quand vous allez devenir un docteur? – When will you become a doctor?

The query regarding Pizza was needed in a small but very comfortable hotel in a tiny town in France. This hotel did not have its own restaurant, but placed an order to a nearby Pizzeria on request. I needed the rest of the language during my frequent train trips within Belgium.
The last question was addressed to a young girl who was reading probability and Statistics, and claimed that she was studying to become a doctor.
"10 years," was the answer.
10 years???
I think there was some miscommunication here.