Different countries, different signs

“Booze and ride?”

Not to be taken literally by Germans is this sign discovered in southern France.
The non-French speaking tourist is still lucky, at least he recognizes the no-entry sign. However he can only surmise that bicycles are excepted.

The German interpretation “Sauf und fahr Rad” (“Booze and ride your bicycle”), imperative Sauf! of saufen, is not recommendable, not only for health reasons! In Germany, as in France and Italy, the consequences are revocation of the driving license or at the very least heavy fines.

Knowing the correct pronunciation can be very helpful en route through Europe. The double phoneme (diphthong) au is pronounced [ o ] in France. Which is normally not a problem with expressions like restaurant or café au lait [olɛ] – to be read in pseudo Spanish as café ‘olé’ … –, but can quickly become one with city names like Pau or the feminine first name Claudine.

On the other hand German-reading French-men may be confused when Germans use «au!» to express pain, as both they and the Italians would cry out “ai!” in this situation.

The phonetic sequence [ai] is distinctly different in German and the affectionate character of “ei, ei!” could be misleading…

@ bine