train musing

During my 6 hour train ride to Montreal this evening (8 if you count the trip from Grimsby to Toronto), not much popped in and out of my head except for this one intelligible snippet.
something that's been bugging me for months in fact, since working at Polyvalente Marie-Rivier in Drummondville, QC.

Talking one day with one of my former colleagues, who had just rented an apartment by the St Lawrence river, I said and I quote in English "Oh is that the apartment by the river?" and she said "The fleuve."

And I didn't answer, though I should have with the following response.
"Fleuve and rivière have the same meaning in English and there is only one word to describe both of them and it is river."

I'm sure other readers out there, who have been learning, learned a little or a lot of another language, know all about the intricacies, delicacies and missings from one language to another. That is why it's called lost in translation. There are such wonderful nuances in every language that cannot be translated to another fully. That's part of the joy of learning and being able to speak another language. Not just speak it as you would your own language, but to speak it as if you inhabit it.

Et voilà.