Step away from the dictionary

One aspect of the English language which non-native speakers find difficult, as

Stuck up cow?

there is not generally something similar in many other languages, are phrasal verbs and verbs with prepositions.  Even people with a good level of English seem to have difficulty with this form of English and need extra work at it.

A stuck?

One example this morning was the story of the Scots Guard ‘sacked’ from Royal wedding duties after referring to Kate Middleton as a ‘Stuck-up cow’ on his social media site. A report on the French media this morning had the soldier saying she was a ‘vache coincé’.  Coincé is the first translation you find in the dictionary for ‘stuck’ – making the translation a ‘stuck cow’. You have to look below it for stuck-up which my dictionary has as ‘snob’ so the correct translation would be ‘vache snob’, showing the problem of a hurried look at the dictionary by someone not aware of the phrasal verb.

Tags: Daily life, France, language, Pictures