Patrick wrote:PistolPoet wrote:Thank you! I was starting to think it was made-up French, like the made-up Mandarin later in the episode.
It is? Do you know that for a fact? A few months back I watched an episode of Two And a Half Men and I was surprised that the Polish woman (who didn't know a word of English) spoke actual Polish with a varsovian accent (that's where my mother's from). Well, I guess they thought it wasn't worth the effort to teach that actor a few words of actual Mandarin. I hear it's tough for a beginner. A friend of mine learned Japanese in college (which is easier to pronounce as a rule than Chinese) and told me that for the first year they kept doing articulating exercises because the words were so hard to say.
I know it's silly to quote people on Youtube, but there was a fair number of people who swore up and down that the sentence that Frasier said (which translated as "You're as lovely as a chicken beak") is pretty correct, but that the exchange between Clint and the girl from the station was nonsense and probably improvised. Unfortunately, the video where I saw those comments has been deleted, so I can't refer you to it.