Pierre Goiffon wrote:

> "Nick Kew" <nick@hugin.webthing.com> a écrit
>
> I often sees foreign people speaking and writing french better than
> me...

I know what you mean. After returning from a study abroad program in
Paris, I was hanging around with this Haitian. I was quite surprised
that she used subjunctif imparfait, which is not so common in France,
and even subjunctif plus-que-parfait. (!) I didn't know there was such a
thing until she told me. Her French was very formal.
 
>
> I didn't find even in my french-english dictionnary the word
> "merkins",

Ha ha, no you won't find that word. Nick made it up. Or maybe it's
something Brits use, I don't know.

> so I can't understand :/ Someone to explain that to me please ?

American. Just drop the first syllable, and slur the rest of it
together. You know, the way you French people say, "je ne sais pas".
;-)  (To the non-Parisians in the group: it sounds almost like "chez pas".)

--
Brian (remove ".invalid" to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/