Êtes vous française? Est ce-que j'ai tort ici ?

[Babyinmytummy]

I speak good french and my husband is French.

We have a one year old and are visiting his French grandparents.

The thing is, FIL swears a lot. There's obviously a lot of merdes and putains on the tv but that's not aimed at babies.

But is it normal for FIL to be going on with the merdes, (t'es) chiants and putains as well as a lot of slang like bouffer, cul, and similar words in front of an 18 month old who is learning to speak?

You see, I picked up some of this language when I was at uni, thinking it was fairly banal but I got absolutely roasted by the 20-something teacher (age mentioned so you don't think it's a generational difference), and I have met various French people of my age over the years who enjoy telling me I'm wrong in French about stuff like this. When I was young and full of energy I was happy to debate but now...

Anyway none of my family uses bad language around the little one. Is it just a French thing? Is it ok in French?

For the record husband does swear but doesn't really do so in front of the baby.

So what do you think?

Thanks grandbleu. You sum it up really nicely and it's good to read the experiences you share. for the record I think it's just FIL who is rude. They're from the north and MIL and BIL don't talk like this and FIL just told DH he was an idiot. For the first time ever I shouted back il est pas con!

He answers DS' sweet little noises with copying grunts. I asked if we could teach the baby some words rather than grunts!

I can't wait for DS to be old enough to sweetly say papy pourquoi tu dis que mon papa est con quand c'est toi qui fais tout le temps la geule ?

Thanks awesome :-) again, it's really interesting to hear your experiences. I personally feel that in the British media - film tv and music - there is so much use of F--k for example it makes the language poorer as it feels like they have been thrown in for a cheap shock or laugh when clever writing could have improved the scene. To read your input is both insightful and interesting.

When we were 20 DH once told me to ask our boss if I could me barrer. DH fell about laughing at the boss' reaction. Fortunately as l'anglaise I had a bit of immunity!

Babyinmytummy oh dear. This is tricky.
In my experience, people can't change , so your FIL is who is is, and what you can do is what my gouvernante used to tell me " un si villain mot dans une si jolie bouche " or repeat when your FIL says bouffe ça, you repeat, tu veux manger des haricots, to your child.

I don't think he gets it. For many it is a quite natural way of talking . And it is funny to see that when you write the F word, you don't write it down, you ( and others) will write F--K or F , in French nobody does that . You don't write me. This just to show the cultural difference.

Don't ruin a relationship, just accept it is part of the character. And maybe turn it into a joke and once you start reading Tintin to your child, you can say that papy is a bit like capitaine Haddock.

I love French swearing

Yeah I feel that fuck is considered pretty rude though there'll be huge variation on mumsnet. I think it's old English with its angular sounding consonants so it sounds like a proper insult.

If I struggle to write fuck in polite company, I can't even READ the c word, another very old word. I'm not sure if a word that is quite so bad as the c word even exists in French..?? Not sure if its still policy but for a long time you could say the c word on the BBC at all. F yes, c no.

Oops I mean you could not say c on the bbc

I'm sat at the table at the end of the cheese course and for the record MIL just said "nom d'une pipe" hee hee that one's worthy of Tintin 😁😁😁😍

I live in the south of France and you do hear these words. Not in front of DCs, schools clamp down any any swearing very quickly and I haven’t heard any DCs using them, but the older primary school ones know them. One of my first experiences in France was hearing a Baroness go around muttering putain every second word and, in friendly conversations, when people feel at easy, these seems yo be more swearing.

My friend's daughter's first word was "putain". Basically it's "fucksake".

I am not a swearing expert, but I don't think we have a "c" equivalent.
Chatte is the slang word for the anatomic part, but it is not an insult.

That's what I thought. You're not missing much

Oops I mean you could not say c on the bbc

Definitely no longer policy, OP. Stewart Lee uses it on BBC and I'm sure Frankie Boyle does too. And Tom Hardy delivered the word beautifully in the last episode of Peaky Blinders.

My French ‘swearing’ is clearly lacking. I had to google translate most of those and I clearly need a better translation site as the translations were ‘off’.

Elle est chiante - she is boring

And jets just say putain was more of an occupation than ‘fucksake’ though I can see some connection!