Bilingual romance in Paris, “whatever” in Mexico, and the fog of Pentagon acronyms in Afghanistan

In this podcast I talk with novelist Vanina Marsot whose new book “Foreign Tongue” is about French, English, being bilingual, and most of all, translation. Marsot’s protagonist moves from Los Angeles to Paris, becomes a translator, at which point she starts living and breathing idioms. The novel includes more false cognates than you can hurl a dictionary at, a racy story within a story, and lots of French attitude.

After that we take a quick detour to eat sideways in Mexico. The Spanish expression we learn about is particular to Mexico.

Finally it’s to Afghanistan, where Pentagon acronyms are the lingua franca, which seemed to drive our correspondent there to distraction. Then he found out that it drives the GIs crazy too. Some have been known to dream up their own acronyms, and even include them in official reports.