Pain (of the sounds like pan and means bread variety)

"S’ils n’ont pas de pain, qu’ils mangent de la brioche!"

"If they don't have bread, let them eat brioche (yes that's right not cake!)

Quote from Marie Antoinette - although most modern day historians insist that she never said it anyway

Baguettes are such a French stereotype, but a stereotype that is (at least in the countryside) completely and utterly true. It's a common occurence to see people above the age of thirty walking through town with a baguette or five under their arm. Sometimes if they are feeling particularly sterotypical, they do this whilst on a bike, but never, unfortunatly whilst wearing a stripey top or a beret. (I have never seen a beret in this country)

I may not have made an awful lot of progress on the language side but I now feel that my time in France has been worthwhile because I have learnt the difference between une baguette and un pain.

A baguette is stick of bread that is fairly small in girth - like one you would expect to find a hot dog on. There are two types of pain, one is thicker than a baguette, more like the size of the bread at Subway and the other is a loaf (right)

One of the kids actually asked me a question about bread a few weeks ago. He said: "You know the bread in England? Can you buy baguettes?"

To which I replied, "Yes we can in supermarkets, but there aren't as many as in France". He followed up this question by saying, "Do you buy bread in..." and made a slicing gesture with his hands. I nodded and said "Yes everyone buys bread in slices". The look of disgust on his face was classic!