Suzanne Harrington: In the middle of a French heatwave I needed a whole new vocab

Suzanne Harrington: I’ve learned loads of useful, practical French this trip

Language apps are all very well if you want to know how to say ‘my aunt has a green pencil’ or ‘I like eating parsnips on Tuesday’, but what if you need to say something real, like ‘my car is overheating’? Such a question may come immediately after learning a new word like canicule, which sounds like a bone in your inner ear, or an unpleasant growth on your foot, but is French for heatwave.

There you are, barrelling through France in your ancient car as giant road signs flash instructions to HYDRATEZ-VOUS on the endless baking shimmer of motorway, your Google Maps stuttering and blinking, your phone melting like cheese on the dashboard. It’s all a bit Dali clocks - 39 degrees and the only functioning air conditioning system is driving with the windows open. What’s French for coolant? Coulant? Culottes? Cul de sac?

Liquide de refroidissement – 'recolding liquid' – is my most recently learned French motoring term, alongside more general requests like ‘give me all your ice cubes’. You might already know French summer basics like sorbet or Perrier, but this heat elevates the need for cooling-related words to next level; except it’s not really just a canicule, it’s le changement climatique. 

However, that’s way too much of a summer bummer to think about, so I do what we all do – block it out, open the car windows, call it a heatwave, and hope there’s not a bouchon – wine cork, the very French word for traffic jam - anywhere between Calais and the Med. Try not to think about places like Lahore, where the humidity burns like kettle steam.

Driving through France is like driving through a vast off-licence – instead of passing through wine aisles, you pass through wine places evocative of past hangovers. Champagne, Chablis, Burgundy, Beaujolais, until a road sign for Chateauneuf-de-Pape flashes into view and you know you’re almost there – almost at the sea. (I should clarify – my past hangovers were rarely based on such quality appellations, but were more likely to have been generated by off-licence versions of off-brand liquide de refroidissement).

On the beach, the canicule has made the sand so hot that it’s not just crème that gets bruleed, but also feet, as I hop across the molten grains like an arthritic donkey fleeing war. Still - after the worst summer in living memory back home, burnt feet are a luxury. As is sleeping in a hammock between two trees because inside the tent is like being at hot yoga, even as the cigales - those screechy tree insects whose noise levels can reach 100 decibels – are having a canicule party overhead. My bouchons d’oreilles – ear corks, like Shrek - block them out.

I’ve learned loads of useful, practical French this trip. Two days before the drive home, as every locksmith on the Cote d’Azur shuts for the weekend, the most useful of all: ‘I have lost my car key.’ That’s cle de voiture singular, the only one in existence. What’s French for ‘kill me now’?