Speeches in 2 languages - etiquette

Rex Manning

Hi folks,

I have to do a speech at a friend;s wedding in france in a couple of months and the crowd will be 50:50 irish and french.

i did french for the junior cert so happy enough to bash out a bit of french (will find someone to help me write it though), and i'll keep it nice and short - few words to say thanks for the hospitality, and a story about the happy couple. I have enough time to learn it off by heart but will probably read most of it.

I'm guessing the correct thing to do is do the french bit first and then the english. the main question is should there be a toast after each speech or should it be just the one toast at the end of both speeches?

Thanks (or merci!), and any other suggestions are welcome!

Rex

Corkbah

no reason why you couldnt toast at the end of each speech ...but I would suggest you saying at the end of the french speech that you ask guests to wait to raise their glasses until you have said a few words to those who only have english !....kind of making a joke of it to entertain those that are french speaking only.

an alternative would be saying each line in each language - but that would make the speech very drawn out !

Gatica

my OH gave the speech in a couple of languages. He wrote out a simple few phrases he wanted translated, then practiced reading them phonetically and read them out one after the other (not phrase by phrase but the whole speech) to thank the foreign guests and family.
It worked out well. Expect the Irish speaking though to ask for a speach as gaeilge!

Rex Manning

Thanks for the replies!

Gatica, that's sort of what i had in mind - can you remember what order your OH did the speeches in? was it the hosts language first?

thanks again!

biko

I think the main portion of the speech should be in French with English as a short version of the French.

It will be polite to the French hosts (you are in France after all) and even throw some Irish in at the end, i.e. "Go n-éirí an bóthar leat. Go raibh an chóir ghaoithe i gcónaí leat. Go dtaitní an ghrian go bog bláth ar do chlár éadain, go gcuire an bháisteach go bog mín ar do ghoirt. Agus go gcasfar le chéile sinn
arís, go gcoinní Dia i mbosa a láimhe thú."
Cheesy but nice imo.

Just one toast at the end will be fine.

belcampprisoner

Tiocfaidh ár lá

CaraMay

I would say to keep then very very short. Bad enough one set of speeches without the same thing repeated again. Short and sweet.

Gatica

agreed, keep it short.
Well, our wedding was in Ireland and some of our guests had come here from abroad. He started in English, said something short like welcoming everyone and thanking them for travelling to share this day with us, "would like to say a few words to our guests who have come from afar to be here today" and then launched into a few words of thanks in the language of some of the guests. Then there were a few shouts for "as gaeilge". Unfortunately his Irish isn't great and he didn't think to learn anything in Irish, LOL. So I think it went along the lines, "welcome, caca milis" and another random few words. It was funny...
Then the rest of the speech in english about how we met, and how delighted he was to be marrying today. That's it 15 mins max.

belcampprisoner

your French will not be good enough,you could throw in a few words like

J'ai dormi avec la jeune mariée

grarf

our wedding was half German (my side), half Irish (his side), in Ireland - my dad was a bit worried about the speech, or so I thought anyway, so I told him, look, don't worry, few words... blah.
What he ended up doing was an amazing speech in both English AND German - section in German, same section translated into English, and so on. it was SO beautiful, I couldn't believe it. really, really special.
My husband added a short 'thanks so much for coming all the way to Ireland for our special day, we are so happy we can celebrate together' in German at the end of his speech, which was very well received.
So yeah, I'd say keep it short and sweet, but do make the effort

edited to add:
I was at a wedding in Spain last year (Irish-Spanish couple), where the best man (Irish, with NO Spanish) did his speech in English, and the bride's sister played interpreter and repeated what he'd said in Spanish. 't was nice.

Rex Manning

Thanks for all the advice, I'll give the french a shot but keep short so i can cut down on scope for mistakes! Will lead off with the french version seeing we'll be in france.

Thanks again everyone, I'll report back on how it went!

Rex

Rex Manning

Hi guys, thought I'd post an update after last weekend's wedding.

Turned out they had a translator so didn't need to bust out the francais in the end. I'd do a bit of talking in english and then the translator translated. Did stick in a couple of words of basic french.

Top tip for dual language weddings though is to avoid jokes if they're going to be translated. no matter how funny or basic they are, it'll be lost in translation and you'll look like a bit of a tool. If you have to speak in a foreign language, keep it bland and just say nice things about the bride. no-one really cares too much about the speeches and won't remember them unless they're offensive.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions!

Rex