My husband and I came across “un taxi conventionné” this morning when organising his visit for the cataract op. He immediately said that must mean we could use a regular, “conventional” taxi.
Mais non! said I. That would mean an “approved” taxi. Presumably, approved/certified by the health service for medical transfers?
Interestingly, we pay for said taxi/ambulance allez-retour and then present the bill and doctor’s ordonnance online for (hopefully) reimbursement.
Normally you ask your doctor for a bon pour transport in advance, and tgen hand this to the taxi driver. a taxi conventionée is one that has been aporived for medical transport and carries first aid equipment amd has first aid training. You need prior approval (the bon) to be reimbursed
Thank you, Jane for helping. We have the transport ordinance in hand, and as I understand it, we should use a registered medical ‘ambulance’ car, nor just an ordinary taxi.
We will still need a taxi ti take us the following day back to see the doctor at the clinic but I think that will be at our own cost.
It was all much easier when we had the cataract op for our Agnes!
I’d like to understand why my neighbour and best pal will mix “tu and vous”…
“tu es mignonne” with a big smile… and then later in the conversation ask “et votre mari, ça va?” with a very concerned expression…
(at times, it seems as if all the ladies of the village are very concerned about the health of my OH… nothing untoward, just a caring-society )
Best to keep an eye open indeed. However my OH occasionally mixes tu and vous in the same conversation or sentence. It’s mostly because when we first lived in France I drummed into him it was the way to go as it was more polite. Now he struggles conjugating with tu and falls back on instinct and familiar ground. Not always down to a problem just maybe the way you are taught. We are working on the tu thing now and he learns so fast by ear he will get there real soon. Also asked our good neighbours to use tu in a slow way with the verb in order to help. His mixing it up us really down to me wanting to be very polite.
That’s fairly normal for foreigners - for us though it is so ingrained that switching back and forth when speaking to the same person really is a marker for confusion (due to all sorts of things and right now dehydration would be a likely culprit) it really is very incongruous and I’d find it worrying if someone French did it.
The use of the word cochon can also describe someone as a pervert as my french DIL pointed out last night when her son called his dad a cochon for farting out loud. Will have to be careful there.
Be very careful when using couchon or porc in any phase apart from referring to the animal.
Avoid these
C’est un vieux couchon
Une truie
Elle est vraiment couchonne
Mangled Deepl English literary allusion to William Burroughs…? Have just learned that the French title is Le festin nu - presumably to avoid confusion with all those other naked French lunches…
Ooh just thought of another faux ami - flippant, something or someone flippant is seriously disturbing and gives you major heeby jeebies, not at all a demonstration of a lack of seriousness or respect.
eg ma copine Marie est flippante, elle conduit comme une dératée.
nothing untoward, just a caring-society )