French kissing
Upon arriving in France, where I now live, I used to tell people that in my home country, people don't baise each other as much as French people do. In contemporary French, baiser no longer means 'to kiss', but has become a very vulgar word for 'to make love' - if you know what I mean!
Editor's note: Faire une bise à quelqu'un is the correct phrase to use for 'to give someone a kiss' or play it safe by using the verb embrasser 'to kiss'.
Sent by: James
Comments
Unfortunately, I've often mistaken baiser to mean 'kissing' (learning Spanish before French really doesn't help, either!). It's something my French penpals will never let me live down ...
My mother and father in their late sixties, had the son and daughter of their French friends over to stay a few years ago. This was the first time they had visited England on their own and were about 15 and 17 years old. My father who was keen to make them feel at home, took them to the library to choose some French films to watch. Dad came across the film (as already mentioned above by someone else), and excitedly held it up for the two French childen to see and excitedly exclaimed Baise Moi, Baise Moi - Kiss me, Kiss me - or - F--- me, F--- me. Needless to say the children fell about in hysterics!
Bisou is also used to mean a 'kiss', and faire des bisous means to kiss.
I'm not sure if I'm getting this exactly right but some girl in my school wrote il m'a baisée trois fois. She meant to say "he kissed me three times".
Ed's note: It is correct to say that the translation is correct since baiser can mean to kiss but nowadays a French speaker would have understood that they had sex three times.
The departure lounge TV set at Monaco Heliport had a hand-written sign Ne baissez pas le volume - "Don't f*** with the volume [control]".
Ed'note: In fact, it is not baiser but baisser that is used here. It's the /s/ sound because of the double "S" and not the /z/ sound. It means to turn down (the volume) in that case.
My sister had baked the largest Christmas turkey we'd had in several years. When asked by her French-speaking mother-in-law how she managed to get the turkey so brown and well cooked all over she proudly responded J'ai baisé la dinde toute la journée, wanting to say 'I basted the turkey all day'. To which her mother-in-law replied with a very straight face: Really, I hope the bird was still alive. Best laugh we had at any Christmas.
She should have said: J'ai arrosé la dinde toute la journée.
I used to watch a programme on French TV that featured an American girl primarily so that they could laugh at her French, and on one occasion when the host was complaining that she was too tall, she asked him if he wanted her to 'come down' (baisser), but used the verb baiser!
If you are a German speaker, a Baiser is a meringue. A friend of mine (happens to be a Berliner which as we all know is a doughnut in German!) went into a pâtisserie in Brussels and caused general hilarity by asking for a dozen baisers.
Yes, a friend told me that a while ago. I was pretty embarrassed because I had actually used it in a sentence.
I live in France and my Dad, trying to learn a little himself, ended an email with Gros baisers de ton pere. It's bisous Dad, bisous.
Ed note: In fact baisers is fine as well ... it's less informal.
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