Hey, so hi there! This was written as a sister-piece to my sister (momoxtoshiro)'s fic called "Guess". You may wanna go read it. I'll tell you how we thought of it all by the end.
-cough- And I take French. But I basically took 3 years, had an incompetent teacher for 2 years, and then took another. So I lost a lot of knowledge. Sorry if I make any mistakes ..
But I do have notes at the bottom for what they're saying, if you'd like to know.
Un Bon Repas…?
This was the second week Haruhi found herself at Tamaki's house. And no, not for that reason. He was actually teaching her…French, that is. She'd taken the language in middle school, but in high school, as she had more choices for languages, decided to opt for German. However, that wasn't working out so well for her, so she wanted to switch back to French the following year. The only problem was, she hadn't exactly been practicing French while she'd been taking German, and so she had swallowed her pride, closed her eyes, and asked Tamaki for help.
This was the second Friday. She was beginning to remember how to form sentences and some vocabulary already. Now it was getting late, and she hadn't eaten since lunch, so she was getting hungry. She hated to bother him, but by the time she got home and prepared a meal, she'd be absolutely starving, so she said to him,
"Tamaki-sempai…je suis faim." (1)
He looked at her confused. "Huh? Je…suis…Oh! No, see, you use avoir here, so it's like you're saying, 'I have hunger' rather than 'I am hungry' so- AH! MA FILLE A FAIM! SHE'S STARVING!"
"Sempai."
"-SHE'S GOING TO PASS OUT FROM HUNGER AT ANY MOMENT! SHE'S-"
"SEMPAI!"
"Oui?"
"It's alright. J'allai…Er…J'irai chez moi et…preparai une…um…un repas!" (2)
Tamaki laughed. "Séjour ici. Laissez un de mes cuisiniers vous préparer un repas, et nous confinue de bidon avec votre leçon. Vous faites tellement bien!" (3)
"…Could you speak slower?"
"…Séjour ici. Laissez un de mes cuisiniers vous préparer un repas, et nous confinue de bidon avec votre leçon," Tamaki repeated.
"Wait, what?"
"…You are going to eat here, and we are going to continue the lesson."
"…I would've gotten it."
"Par la suite." (4)
Tamaki called to his cooks to let them know to prepare a meal. The two were able to practice for almost an hour more before their meal was served to them. In that time, and to keep with the spirit, Haruhi was able to re-learn some food vocabulary, from lait to pain. (5)
When the food was brought up to them and served, Haruhi saw herself faced with a salad with bread, a small steak, and some brownish-blackish things that she couldn't figure out what they were.
"Uh-uh!" Tamaki scolded her, "The bread is used to soak up the dressing. AH! NO! Don't use your fork, your fingers are perfectly fine!"
"…We're just learning the language, not the eating…etiquette," Haruhi grumbled.
"Yes, but it's still important to know."
"Yeah well. Speaking of 'knowing', what are these little…things?"
Tamaki looked at her. "Oh? You don't know? Well then, I'll just leave it a surprise for you," he said as he happily ate one.
Haruhi groaned. "I don't like surprises. Just tell me!"
Tamaki thought for a moment. "Alright. You have…how many pieces are there? Six guesses. If not, I'll tell you when you're finished with them."
"…Fine," Haruhi consented and put one in her mouth. It had the consistency of shrimp almost, but tasted much worse. "Shrimp?"
"En français!"
"…Des crevettes?"
"Non."
Haruhi popped another in her mouth. Could it be a vegetable? "Des champignons?"
"Non," Tamaki laughed.
"Des pommes de terres!"
"Non!"
"Des pommes?"
"Non!"
Haruhi thought. "Um…saumons?"
"Non!"
Haruhi sighed as she chewed down the last one. "Je ne sais pas. Ditez-moi."(6)
"Escargot, mon amie," Tamaki smiled. (7)
Escargot, escargot…why does that sound so familiar? Haruhi thought. Wait… "Ew! Sempai! You fed me snails!?"
Tamaki laughed and she began furiously cutting into her steak. "You liked them just fine before you knew what they were, you know. Oh but wait…in that case you may not like the-"
"What? The steak isn't even cooked!"
"Oh but it is, mademoiselle. This is what we call 'biftek bleu'. It's only slightly cooked, but it's actually quite popular in France!"
"B-But sempai…we're not in France! No offence, but to someone who isn't French…well, it's sort of gross…"
Tamaki couldn't help laughing. "At least I didn't make you eat foie gras!" (8)
"…And what's that?"
"You really don't want to know."
See below for translations. So yeah, this was written for the snail part, because on Iron Chef America, that was the secret ingredient. And hey…Bobby Flay actually won that one! (sorry, but he looses a lot lol). So I made my sister write the original, which has no French but much snails. Please check it out :D
(1) I'm hungry (though she says this incorrectly, as Tamaki points out; it should be "J'ai faim")
(2) I went…Er…I will go to my house and…prepare a…um…a meal! (Note: "une" is feminine and "un" is masculine. Yes, it matters XD )
(3) Stay here. Let one of my chefs prepare you a meal, and we can continue with your lesson. You're doing so well!
(4) Eventually.
(5) Lait means milk and pain means bread. They're actually sort of pronounced "Lay" and "Pah". Sort of.
(6) She first guessed shrimp, then mushrooms, then potatoes, then apples (I thought it was funny, because even though the texture would be different when cooked, the word for "apple" is in the words for "potato"), then salmon, and finally, she says, "I don't know. Tell me." (also, "Non" means "No", plain and simple).
(7) "Mon amie" translates to "my friend" (although "mon" is masculine and "amie" is feminine, because "amie" begins with a vowel, you can't use "ma")
(8) That means goose liver –vegetarian- Basically they like force-feed the goose or duck to make it's liver really fat. It's apparently really popular in France…
