The cherub has french homework to do. He has to write a short paragraph about his family.
Great.
In the past year the cherub has lost, through no fault of his own, one stepfather, one stepbrother, grandparents in law and, of course, his dad. This should be an interesting exercise....

He's getting me to check it over.
He has written {and I'm very kindly translating for you all here..}
"There are three people in my family. My mother, Ned and me. Ned is a dog. He is big but kind."

"OK that's a start toots, but "gentile" means kind, I think you mean Ned is a big softy..
Sighs. Well the teacher said it was OK.
"OK. My bad. .. What about your dad? You could add your dad just died last month."
Nah. If I wrote about cancer they'd know I'd been on Google translate.