Language point that may have been missed

[bluesqueak]

No: HPFGUIDX 54384

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Giselle Sicle 
<jizzkitty420 at y...> wrote:
> 
>  
>  Eric Oppen <oppen at m...> wrote:I was just rereading GoF to keep 
off the pangs from knowing OoP is coming
> out soon, and noticed something.  _Even when Fleur Delacour is 
talking to
> Madame Maxime or Gabrielle,_ she continues to speak English, 
albeit wiz an
> 'orrible French ack-sent.
> 
> When the other three champs find out that Harry's a champion too, 
Fleur says
> to Madame Maxime something about "zis little boy" competing.  
Later on, even
> in a very stressful situation, when she's speaking to her sister 
whom she'd
> given up for dead in the lake, she's speaking English.  "It was ze
> grindylows..."
> 
> Is this a Flint?
> 
> Eric, perhaps it is not a flint but literary help to us English   
> speaking people. If JKR were to have written all of               
> Fleur's "lines" in French, half of the readers would not be able  
> to understand, but that's just my pinion. <Giselle

And people speaking English when it's not their language is not 
unrealistic, either. I've had people gallantly (and politely) 
speaking English to each other because they knew that I didn't 
understand their native language.

The Durmstrang and Beaubatons students may well have had it drilled 
into them that Hogwarts does not teach foreign languages, and that 
none of the students/teachers can be expected to speak anything but 
English. 

This is supported by the rather dismissive comment of one of the 
Beauxbatons students in Ch. 9 of GoF. She promptly identifies Ron 
as 'Ogwarts' simply because he doesn't speak French.

[This is probably a joke, by the way. The British are notorious in 
Europe for their general inability to speak any language other than 
English.]

So Fleur and Victor may have been firmly told that they *must* speak 
English whilst in public at Hogwarts. They may also have been told 
(as champions) that English is the official language of the 
Tournament. Therefore they must speak it at all times during the 
Task or the judging.

But as Giselle says: it's probably because JKR can't realistically 
expect a hypothetical 10 year old English speaking reader to follow 
large chunks of French dialogue ;-)

Pip (who is also called Pip!Squeak)