A matter of languages
Title: A matter of languages.
Artist: Trekiael
Characters/Pairings: France and England
Rating/Warnings: PG. It's all for fun.
Summary: France makes England understand the importance of languages.
France was resting in his sofa, drinking red wine while watching a badly-subbed japanese movie.
He had received a letter from Arthur earlier that week, to which he refused to answer once again, and he knew the time was close until the man show up at his door. He was not one to wait for anyone, and would have rather been visiting Japan again to buy more of those manga he was so fond of, but this had been going on for too long.
As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Francis slowly rose from his seat and walked to the door, taking a sip of his wine as he opened it with his free hand.
There he was. On the other side, an eternally scowling england was glaring at him, arms crossed and jaw clenched. Francis silently let him in, turning around and leaving the door open for him to follow, walking to the counter and leaning against it, sipping his almost empty wine once again.
England started to talk: "why the fuck are you not answering my letters?!?" when Francis stayed silent, he insisted "Answer me!"
Francis slowly refilled his glass of wine, took some, licked his lips, and finally said "Pourquoi es-tu là?"
--
Not so long ago, a few centuries at most, France was overly popular among the World. Every country in Europe was speaking french, and Francis was proud to hear it at the Tzar's court.
But those time were long since passed. Now english had become Universal language. A large cause of it was the raising influence of USA.
Francis was not really bitter about it, those things just come naturally. Beside, he had been very influenced by United States himself, even if he was not on the best of terms with him right now (They would probably get along more easily now that USA had a new boss which was potentially better than the last (hard to do worse than that anyway) but his own boss was, so to speak, an asshole).
So despite what people generally think about him (he certainly remembers Sweden calling him very conservative), he DOES speak a good english, though with an horrible accent that is still one hundred times better than Kiku's.
But he is also proud of his language. Judged too difficult and not very useful, not many people learn it anymore. He doesn't care that it's pretentious, Francis love his language, finds it beautiful, it being the language of some of the greatest authors, philosophers, poets. As it's said "la langue de Molière".
And then you have english-spoken countries, like of course USA and England. The reason he acts as if he doesn't speak english is their behavior. It doesn't matter that english is declared Universal Language, he still hates how those countries, no matter where they go, act as if everyone should speak their language and make no effort to try to speak the one of the country they're visiting. How many times had he seen American people in Japan talking so fast and with such and heavy accent that it was impossible for those poor Japanese people to understand?
So he leads his own small resistance. When english-spoken people come to see him, they have to speak french, or at least try to. He wouldn't pretend knowing every language in the World, that would be presumptuous, but his Universities are full of students learning many different languages, and every time he was on a visit himself, he tried to learn some basic language, except for when he visit those country he already knew the language of, like germany, Spain, Japan and of course USA and England.
He doesn't deny the necessity of a worldly-spoken language, by no means. World Meetings would be very chaotic if everyone didn't speak the same language. And he could resort to it when something failed him in one language or another.
So he had no problem with english by itself, but he had problems with english being spoken so carelessly on HIS territory. His motto was to try to get to know another country through culture, and that meant language as well.
--
Arthur frowned in confusion for a while, but if anything, he was not stupid, so it clicked, and he looked at francis in realization. "...Tu préfères que je parle français?" [you'd rather I speak french?]
Francis stared at him for a while and slowly smiled. Aah, it's been so long since he heard his own words pronounced with that lovely accent! He finally answerd "Bingo!", straightened up and laid his glass on the counter before passing a hand through his hair and sighing "Oui, s'il te plait".
Arthur scowled and gritted out "And it's for that ridiculous reason that you didn't answer my letters??!?" At Francis' look he gritted his teeth harder and said it again in french "Et c'est pour ce stupide raison que tu n'as pas répondu à mes lettres?"
Francis smiled. Typical english mistake to confound feminine and masculine words. "raison" being feminine, you're supposed to say "cette" and not "ce". He never asked anyone to speak perfect french after all, he found those kind of mistakes charming, actually.
He shrugged one shoulder "Ouai, pourquoi moi je devrais faire l'éffort de toujours te parler en anglais et toi tu ne fais jamais l'éffort de me parler en français, hein?" [yeah, why should I always make the effort to talk to you in english and you never make the effort to talk to me in french?]
Arthur was shaking with rage "et tu ne pouvais pas me le dire??!??" [And you couldn't tell me??!??].
Francis could say he was on the verge of exploding. He took his glass once more and drank some wine carelessly "Je pensais que tu devinerais tout seul, ou que tu viendrais démolir ma porte" [I thought you'd guess by yourself, or that you'd come to destroy my door].
Fuming, Arthur angrily slashed the air with his arm as he lashed out "Tu m'a laissé sans réponse sur des sujets importants éspèce d'irrésponsable..."[You let me without an answer on important subjects you irresponsible..]. The words died in his throat as his english failed him. Francis was ready to bet that the last word coming to mind was either prick or git. He never was very inventive with insults.
Francis lazily made the wine in his glass swirl around as he said "Et bien, t'es là maintenant. Qu'est-ce qui est si important que ça?" [Well, you're here now, what's so important?]
England lowered his arm, calming down because of the confusion he seemed to be in. Had he forgotten why he came? Now that was priceless. Finally, he seemed to remember and scowled again, ready to lash out "Pourquoi tu ne m'as pas invité au concours de cuisine??" [Why didn't you invite me to the cooking contest??]. He faltered a little, certainly upon realizing he had slightly exaggerated the importance of those letters.
France, who was about to drink, lowered his glass and stared at England, the glittering kitchen ustensil behind him and freshly cooked Forêt Noire on the table seemingly talking for Francis himself as he said "t'es sérieux...?" [You're serious?]
Arthur growled "Va pas encore dire que ma nourriture n'est pas bonne! je SAIS cuisiner, merde!" [Don't do and say again that my food is not good! I KNOW how to cook, goddammit!]
Francis grunted but didn't say anything. Vaguely noting that Arthur's french wasn't as rusted as he thought it would be, he put his glass on the counter once again and crossed his arms, face set "Tu veux t'inscrire?" [you want to register?]. Arthur nodded. "Très bien, on va t'inscrire" [All right, we'll register you].
--
1 week later:
Francis watched in fascination as Jean-Pierre Coff, a famous french cook that had recently gotten very low by making commercials for low-price supermarkets, run from the table to certainly vomit, saying that "c'est trop deg'!", making the country raise an eyebrow at the sound of slang in the mouth of that old member of the jury. Francis glanced on the side, at Arthur's worried profile. When he heard his shushed voice asking what "deg" meant, he lied and answered it was slang for "salty".
One day Arthur will learn that "deg" is actually short for "dégeulasse", and if he doesn't already know, he'll understand that it's slang for "disgusting". But for now, he'll let slip that one occasion to make fun of him. After all, the man had been speaking french all day without protesting, so as long as Arthur kept speaking french in that rough, sexy voice of his, Francis would be more than happy to cook for him.
Artist: Trekiael
Characters/Pairings: France and England
Rating/Warnings: PG. It's all for fun.
Summary: France makes England understand the importance of languages.
France was resting in his sofa, drinking red wine while watching a badly-subbed japanese movie.
He had received a letter from Arthur earlier that week, to which he refused to answer once again, and he knew the time was close until the man show up at his door. He was not one to wait for anyone, and would have rather been visiting Japan again to buy more of those manga he was so fond of, but this had been going on for too long.
As if on cue, the doorbell rang. Francis slowly rose from his seat and walked to the door, taking a sip of his wine as he opened it with his free hand.
There he was. On the other side, an eternally scowling england was glaring at him, arms crossed and jaw clenched. Francis silently let him in, turning around and leaving the door open for him to follow, walking to the counter and leaning against it, sipping his almost empty wine once again.
England started to talk: "why the fuck are you not answering my letters?!?" when Francis stayed silent, he insisted "Answer me!"
Francis slowly refilled his glass of wine, took some, licked his lips, and finally said "Pourquoi es-tu là?"
--
Not so long ago, a few centuries at most, France was overly popular among the World. Every country in Europe was speaking french, and Francis was proud to hear it at the Tzar's court.
But those time were long since passed. Now english had become Universal language. A large cause of it was the raising influence of USA.
Francis was not really bitter about it, those things just come naturally. Beside, he had been very influenced by United States himself, even if he was not on the best of terms with him right now (They would probably get along more easily now that USA had a new boss which was potentially better than the last (hard to do worse than that anyway) but his own boss was, so to speak, an asshole).
So despite what people generally think about him (he certainly remembers Sweden calling him very conservative), he DOES speak a good english, though with an horrible accent that is still one hundred times better than Kiku's.
But he is also proud of his language. Judged too difficult and not very useful, not many people learn it anymore. He doesn't care that it's pretentious, Francis love his language, finds it beautiful, it being the language of some of the greatest authors, philosophers, poets. As it's said "la langue de Molière".
And then you have english-spoken countries, like of course USA and England. The reason he acts as if he doesn't speak english is their behavior. It doesn't matter that english is declared Universal Language, he still hates how those countries, no matter where they go, act as if everyone should speak their language and make no effort to try to speak the one of the country they're visiting. How many times had he seen American people in Japan talking so fast and with such and heavy accent that it was impossible for those poor Japanese people to understand?
So he leads his own small resistance. When english-spoken people come to see him, they have to speak french, or at least try to. He wouldn't pretend knowing every language in the World, that would be presumptuous, but his Universities are full of students learning many different languages, and every time he was on a visit himself, he tried to learn some basic language, except for when he visit those country he already knew the language of, like germany, Spain, Japan and of course USA and England.
He doesn't deny the necessity of a worldly-spoken language, by no means. World Meetings would be very chaotic if everyone didn't speak the same language. And he could resort to it when something failed him in one language or another.
So he had no problem with english by itself, but he had problems with english being spoken so carelessly on HIS territory. His motto was to try to get to know another country through culture, and that meant language as well.
--
Arthur frowned in confusion for a while, but if anything, he was not stupid, so it clicked, and he looked at francis in realization. "...Tu préfères que je parle français?" [you'd rather I speak french?]
Francis stared at him for a while and slowly smiled. Aah, it's been so long since he heard his own words pronounced with that lovely accent! He finally answerd "Bingo!", straightened up and laid his glass on the counter before passing a hand through his hair and sighing "Oui, s'il te plait".
Arthur scowled and gritted out "And it's for that ridiculous reason that you didn't answer my letters??!?" At Francis' look he gritted his teeth harder and said it again in french "Et c'est pour ce stupide raison que tu n'as pas répondu à mes lettres?"
Francis smiled. Typical english mistake to confound feminine and masculine words. "raison" being feminine, you're supposed to say "cette" and not "ce". He never asked anyone to speak perfect french after all, he found those kind of mistakes charming, actually.
He shrugged one shoulder "Ouai, pourquoi moi je devrais faire l'éffort de toujours te parler en anglais et toi tu ne fais jamais l'éffort de me parler en français, hein?" [yeah, why should I always make the effort to talk to you in english and you never make the effort to talk to me in french?]
Arthur was shaking with rage "et tu ne pouvais pas me le dire??!??" [And you couldn't tell me??!??].
Francis could say he was on the verge of exploding. He took his glass once more and drank some wine carelessly "Je pensais que tu devinerais tout seul, ou que tu viendrais démolir ma porte" [I thought you'd guess by yourself, or that you'd come to destroy my door].
Fuming, Arthur angrily slashed the air with his arm as he lashed out "Tu m'a laissé sans réponse sur des sujets importants éspèce d'irrésponsable..."[You let me without an answer on important subjects you irresponsible..]. The words died in his throat as his english failed him. Francis was ready to bet that the last word coming to mind was either prick or git. He never was very inventive with insults.
Francis lazily made the wine in his glass swirl around as he said "Et bien, t'es là maintenant. Qu'est-ce qui est si important que ça?" [Well, you're here now, what's so important?]
England lowered his arm, calming down because of the confusion he seemed to be in. Had he forgotten why he came? Now that was priceless. Finally, he seemed to remember and scowled again, ready to lash out "Pourquoi tu ne m'as pas invité au concours de cuisine??" [Why didn't you invite me to the cooking contest??]. He faltered a little, certainly upon realizing he had slightly exaggerated the importance of those letters.
France, who was about to drink, lowered his glass and stared at England, the glittering kitchen ustensil behind him and freshly cooked Forêt Noire on the table seemingly talking for Francis himself as he said "t'es sérieux...?" [You're serious?]
Arthur growled "Va pas encore dire que ma nourriture n'est pas bonne! je SAIS cuisiner, merde!" [Don't do and say again that my food is not good! I KNOW how to cook, goddammit!]
Francis grunted but didn't say anything. Vaguely noting that Arthur's french wasn't as rusted as he thought it would be, he put his glass on the counter once again and crossed his arms, face set "Tu veux t'inscrire?" [you want to register?]. Arthur nodded. "Très bien, on va t'inscrire" [All right, we'll register you].
--
1 week later:
Francis watched in fascination as Jean-Pierre Coff, a famous french cook that had recently gotten very low by making commercials for low-price supermarkets, run from the table to certainly vomit, saying that "c'est trop deg'!", making the country raise an eyebrow at the sound of slang in the mouth of that old member of the jury. Francis glanced on the side, at Arthur's worried profile. When he heard his shushed voice asking what "deg" meant, he lied and answered it was slang for "salty".
One day Arthur will learn that "deg" is actually short for "dégeulasse", and if he doesn't already know, he'll understand that it's slang for "disgusting". But for now, he'll let slip that one occasion to make fun of him. After all, the man had been speaking french all day without protesting, so as long as Arthur kept speaking french in that rough, sexy voice of his, Francis would be more than happy to cook for him.