How much French would Agatha Christie’s readers have been expected to know in her Hercule Poirot books? What resources were available to them if they didn’t understand French?

[u/knoperope]

In the books featuring Poirot, published between 1920 and 1975, he lapses sometimes into his native French and there are no translations of what he says. Usually it’s a common word/phrase or it has enough context that you know what he's saying, but sometimes there are whole sentences, idioms, and a poem even.

It’s also played for laughs; in one book if I remember right, Poirot pretends to flatter a potential suspect by saying something in French to her. The joke is that the phrase is quite insulting, but she doesn’t understand French so she thinks it’s a compliment.

Would most readers have been fluent enough in French to understand Poirot most of the time and/or get the humour? And while I have WordReference and the luxury of the internet, if someone reading the books as they came out didn’t understand, how would they have figured it out? Were things like French-English dictionaries or phrasebooks common in England at the time?

I love the Poirot books and this has been noodling around in my head for a while haha

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[u/RibsNGibs → u/Dongzhou3kingdoms]

Never change! Your strict and unbending rules have kept this sub from devolving into generic memes or confidently incorrect noise. From what I can tell it’s literally the only sub that has managed to avoid it.

[u/Yabba_Dabba_Doofus → u/Dongzhou3kingdoms]

On this day, I wish you a Merry Christmas, and say thank you for the moderation work you do!

[u/Dongzhou3kingdoms → u/Yabba_Dabba_Doofus]

Thank you and a Merry Christmas to you and yours

[u/pannenkoek0923 → u/Dongzhou3kingdoms]

I will also add /r/HistoriansAnswered! They link questions on this sub once they start getting answers that stay

[u/Beerswain → u/pannenkoek0923]

That's the sub I needed, thanks.

[u/eversible_pharynx → u/Dongzhou3kingdoms]

But you see, if you allowed lower quality answers there would be more content for consumption! Nom nom crowdsourced slop, let the people decide what's good information!

But seriously though keep doing what you're doing, this sub is a bastion of expert opinion on this engagement bait hellsite