Porthos
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Lunch BreaksWhere you live, how long is your average lunch break, and what do you with your schoolmates or co-workers on a typical day during lunch?
Where I live, lunch for us schoolkids is about 30 minutes. Most employees get about 30 minutes to an hour for their lunch break, which is usually spent walking, eating, then going to the bathroom, freshining up, etc. This might seem strange to the Francophones here who have this stereotype of the "Anglo-Saxon" lifestyle, whereby all Americans work straight thru their lunch break, only pausing to stuff down fast food while still at their desk or during a meeting.
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Uriel
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30 minutes, and you can't leave the building. But at my old job, it was an hour and a half.
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KSa
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You may find it strange but in my country there is no tradition of lunch breaks. I work from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and approx. 15-20 minutes "breakfast break" is included. Then I go home to have my lunch at around 5 p.m. Interestingly, we don't call the afternoon meal "lunch" but "dinner".
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fab
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At my present job I have one hour and half for lunch, from 13.00 to 14.30
I usually have enough time to return at home, or to go to restaurant with collegues.
legally we have to work an maximum avarage of 35hours a week. in my field we usually shoud do more hours, and have recuparation of the suppelemntary hours during long week ends.
When teenager, at school we had 2 hours breack, beetwenn 12.00 and 14.00
On the evening most families generally eat around 20.00 and 21.30
I personally tend to eat aroun 22.00 to 23.00
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Walker
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| KSa wrote: | | You may find it strange but in my country there is no tradition of lunch breaks. I work from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and approx. 15-20 minutes "breakfast break" is included. Then I go home to have my lunch at around 5 p.m. Interestingly, we don't call the afternoon meal "lunch" but "dinner". |
I'd be starving at work if I were you!
Here we generally have 30-60 minute lunch breaks. At my work we have to take at least 30 minutes. I usually take almost a whole hour.
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fab
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This topic seems alone...
Quick survey, which are your lunch and dinner times in your countries, and to you if you have different times than most of your compatriots ?
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greg in noord-frankrijk
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| fab wrote: | This topic seems alone...
Quick survey, which are your lunch and dinner times in your countries, and to you if you have different times than most of your compatriots ? |
I have no particular time. Dinner time may vary between 17h & 23h roughly. Lunch time : 11h up to 15h maximum.
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Benjamin [inactive]
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At my school, we have an hour for lunch. Most of the time, we spend lunch in the common room, although when it's warmer we sometimes sit outside or go to the park. Some people might go to the pub, even though they're not supposed to. I bring sandwiches from home, as do a lot of people, but a lot of people also by lunch from the canteen or go to the shops and buy lunch there (sandwiches, baguettes, pizza, fish and chips etc.).
Lunch time — at school it is theoretically at 13:00, although I usually have it at 12:00 if I have a free period before. At the weekend or in the holidays, I often don't have lunch until about 15:00 or 16:00, if at all.
Dinner time (I actually call this 'tea time', for some reason) — usually at about 20:00, +/- two hours.
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Porthos
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Why do French people here use military time? I never knew they did that. I usually eat lunch between 12-2 pm, and dinner anytime from 6-10 pm. Most people eat lunch around the same time, although most families will have dinner earlier than I do. I just often arrive home late, because I'm gone from the house a lot.
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Sander
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| Porthos wrote: | | Why do French people here use military time? I never knew they did that. |
They don't use military time, it's just that, like most europeans, they do not have a PM/AM system.
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Benjamin [inactive]
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| Porthos wrote: | | Why do French people here use military time? |
You might have noticed that I used 'military time' in my post as well.
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Deborah
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In the US, any civilized (by US standards) office will give you an hour for lunch. Some jobs only give 1/2 hour. Usually it's between 12:00 and 2:00/14:00. I rarely eat on my lunch break, since I sort of graze all day long. I use my lunch hour to exercise, do errands or do my Spanish homewark. Or fritter away my time on langcafe.
Whenever I do have a regular dinner, I tend to like to eat late. The Spanish schedule would suit me just fine.
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Elaine
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| fab wrote: | | Quick survey, which are your lunch and dinner times in your countries, and to you if you have different times than most of your compatriots ? |
I get 1/2 hour for lunch and usually take it at around 12:00. That doesn't really give me much time to go out and have a sit-down lunch at a restaurant, so I grab take out and eat my lunch either at my desk or in the conference room.
Dinner time is usually at 18:00, if I have dinner. Sometimes I skip a meal and just snack on baby carrots and sunflower seeds.
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Porthos
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| Deborah wrote: | In the US, any civilized (by US standards) office will give you an hour for lunch. Some jobs only give 1/2 hour. Usually it's between 12:00 and 2:00/14:00. I rarely eat on my lunch break, since I sort of graze all day long. I use my lunch hour to exercise, do errands or do my Spanish homewark. Or fritter away my time on langcafe.
Whenever I do have a regular dinner, I tend to like to eat late. The Spanish schedule would suit me just fine. |
Your attitude toward lunch and schedules sounds a lot like mine! I think I would truly love the Spanish schedule too.
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fab
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I didn't know that 15h, 16h, Etc. were considered "military" in the US !
Here (I think it is European) we don't use the pm/am system.
Greg, tu manges à 17 heures !! c'est pas facile de trouver un resto ouvert à cette heure là !! 
Benjamin, you seem to eat late for an English. In Paris restaurants you see plenty of Anglophones having dinner at 18h. we tend to go to restaurant more around 21-22h.
Actually I'm having my dinner now (it's 23)
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Porthos
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To be honest, I was completely oblivious to the existance of such a method of time keeping in Europe. I thought our time system was the international standard. I suppose the European method makes more sense.
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Benjamin [inactive]
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Here, we tend to use 12-hour time in speaking. Like, I don't look at the clock now and think 'it is twenty-two o'clock'; I think 'it is ten o'clock'. However, we usually use 24-hour time in writing. You do sometimes see the am/pm used here, but I see it as a bit old-fashioned.
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Sander
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| Porthos wrote: | | I thought our time system was the international standard. |
Actually the 24 hour clock is the international standard notation of time ...
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André in Zuid-Afrika
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| Benjamin wrote: | | Here, we tend to use 12-hour time in speaking. Like, I don't look at the clock now and think 'it is twenty-two o'clock'; I think 'it is ten o'clock'. However, we usually use 24-hour time in writing. You do sometimes see the am/pm used here, but I see it as a bit old-fashioned. |
Same here. I would for example invite people to come around at seven (not seven pm), but then they would know I mean seven in the evening (or I would say: Come over at seven on Saturday evening. When I write, I will usually use 19:00. This is how it's generally done in SA.
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Uriel
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I grew up on military time, since I was an army brat, and we have to use it in the hospital as well -- I'm always squinting at the clock and mentally adding so I can note my charts correctly -- but I wouldn't want to have to live on it!
What really screws me up is I work at night, so my work "day" really spans two different dates -- plus after midnight I have to start over -- 0030 for twelve-thirty, 0145 for when I clock out. Of course, I'm eating breakfast at 5 pm (1700), lunch anywhere from 8:30 to 11:00 pm (depending on my workload) and munching on cereal while vaguely thinking about turning off the computer and going to bed right now, at 4 am.
I'm still not that sleepy though, but I've been going to bed later and later -- sometimes not until 8 or 9 in the morning -- and I need to pull it back, since Thurday (Thanksgiving) I have to work the day shift ... which will start only six or seven hours after I clock out the night (or early morning) before!
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greg in noord-frankrijk
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| fab wrote: | | Greg, tu manges à 17 heures !! |
Disons que ça peut m'arriver.
| fab wrote: | | c'est pas facile de trouver un resto ouvert à cette heure là !! |
Non, c'est vrai. Y a de très bonnes brasseries en revanche. Ou le petit libanais (souvent succulent) qui sert à toute heure. Ou encore un indien qui livre tôt. Ou bien un petit frichti à la maison. Ou, en désespoir de cause, le Quick du coin.
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Deborah
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What's a "frichti"?
BTW, love your new hairdo, Uriel.
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Pauline
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The shops have lunchbreak 12h - 14h and in my school there are two lunch breaks : 11h55 - 12h45 and 12h45 - 13h45. The people change this, but I have always all the time (2 hours). In the evening we eat at 18 - 20h : this depend of what day and what the people have to do.
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fab
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| Quote: | | Non, c'est vrai. Y a de très bonnes brasseries en revanche. Ou le petit libanais (souvent succulent) qui sert à toute heure. Ou encore un indien qui livre tôt. Ou bien un petit frichti à la maison. Ou, en désespoir de cause, le Quick du coin. |
Tu as raison, un petit libanais, c'est pas mal...
Quand au quick, c'est vraiment quand il n'y a plus aucun espoir...
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greg in noord-frankrijk
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| Deborah wrote: | | What's a "frichti"? |
It's a familiar word for repas. Ça vient de l'alsacien fristisck qui veut dire petit-déjeuner — comme Frühstück en allemand.
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Deborah
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Got it, thanks!
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greg in noord-frankrijk
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Tout le plaisir est pour moi Deborah.
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Deborah
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| greg in noord-frankrijk wrote: | | Tout le plaisir est pour moi Deborah. |
That sounds so much more refined than my "Got, it, thanks!"
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Fredrik
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Yes, hehe!
Although I have never studied French I can understand the very basics (at least in writing), and I am often sooo charmed when I decipher those small French phrases, because they are so basic yet so cute and often correspond directly to Norwegian phrases, probably because the Norwegian phrases were modelled on the French ones by honette damer og herrer in the 18th century.
tout le plaisir est pour moi = gleden er på min side = the pleasure is on my side
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Porthos
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| Fredrik wrote: | Yes, hehe!
Although I have never studied French I can understand the very basics (at least in writing), and I am often sooo charmed when I decipher those small French phrases, because they are so basic yet so cute and often correspond directly to Norwegian phrases, probably because the Norwegian phrases were modelled on the French ones by honette damer og herrer in the 18th century.
tout le plaisir est pour moi = gleden er på min side = the pleasure is on my side |
Many of you know that I've never taken a foreign language course, and I have never studied French, even on my own. Yet, from just being exposed to Greg's French on antimoon, while looking up words I didn't understand, I am now amazed at how much written French I can understand. I can follow whole conversations in French on this site now. I can't truly write back in French properly, but I can understand quite a bit of it now when written. Unfortunately, a lot of the words which I learned by being exposed to on antimoon, I have never heard orally. So, I don't know how to pronounce them in spoken form. Likewise, a lot of words which I do know in spoken form, I cannot write for I do not know how they are spelled, since French has a tricky orthography as you well know.
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greg in noord-frankrijk
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| André in Zuid-Afrika wrote: | | Benjamin wrote: | | Here, we tend to use 12-hour time in speaking. Like, I don't look at the clock now and think 'it is twenty-two o'clock'; I think 'it is ten o'clock'. However, we usually use 24-hour time in writing. You do sometimes see the am/pm used here, but I see it as a bit old-fashioned. |
Same here. I would for example invite people to come around at seven (not seven pm), but then they would know I mean seven in the evening (or I would say: Come over at seven on Saturday evening. When I write, I will usually use 19:00. This is how it's generally done in SA. |
Same for me except I may say dix-neuf heures instead of sept heures incidentally — especially when I want to sound formal to my guests.
| Porthos wrote: | | (...) I am now amazed at how much written French I can understand. I can follow whole conversations in French on this site now. I can't truly write back in French properly, but I can understand quite a bit of it now when written. |
C'est ce qu'on appelle la compréhension passive. Un phénomène analogue à la capillarité.
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Loic
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Porthos: Due to the huge number of false cognates that exist in French, I'd say that it is relatively easy to grasp the general meaning of a passage in French, but devilishly hard to understand the nuances. As my French master once said, the closer the word in French looks to its counterpart in English, the higher the danger of it being a 'false friend'.
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