Language update: I suck. If I knew any French swear words I’d say them, multiple times. Every time I think I’m making progress I get smacked in the forehead, hard and fast.
Pharmacy woman is killing me. It’s enough torture to see her even once after the whole vaginale debacle but now every single time I go in she happens to serve me. I ask for basic stuff in perfect French and, as usual, she rapid fires 10 questions just above a whisper. Then she gets all impatient with me. I suspect she’s actually from Manchester deliberately trying to drive me to the brink.
But the worst was a dinner party last weekend. There were eight of us in total, right fancy-like, 14 gorgeous names to remember, everyone talking at once in a large space with a distinct echo. Everyone was so gracious and très chic so I was a bit nervous enhanced by the fact that the mayor was actually serving the foe gras with red wine and onion confiture appetizer.
I sat there and smiled a lot and made several valiant attempts to interact like I normally would. Nothing. Crickets. Then finally I heard the mayor talking about a word I recognized. Phoque. He was talking about the seal hunt. Now here was something. This is a topic that Newfies know a lot about (we will NOT debating this here, we know about it, others don’t, end of story).
Whether I was impassioned by my heritage or simply a topic that I actually knew something about doesn’t really matter at this point. All I can say is that I got a bit riled up (not by French standards) ending with my referring to Bridget Bardot as a total idiot. Mmm, the queen of verbal restraint me.
It was a beautiful party but by the end I was all in and totally discouraged about the language. I felt totally defeated. All I could think was ‘what the hell am I doing here? I will never learn this mess well enough to secure a second invite anywhere’.
Intellectually I know all the right things to say to myself. These things take time. Assimilating to a new culture is one of the most difficult things to do. Blah, blah, blabbity blah. But I can’t stand being excluded from the witty banter. The worst is when everyone bursts into raucous laughter and I just sit there wondering what’s so funny. It’s like showing up for the shindig only to have some snooty hostess say you’re not on the list.
So nothing to do but keep at it. CDs, books, lessons, practice, perhaps a little divine intervention. Is it too much to ask the gods to rub a few spices on my foot and serve it to me on a silver platter?
Once I sat at a registration table for a political event in Hawaii, writing out name tags for attendees. It was a largely Japanese-American district. Beautiful Japanese names were being spoken at warp speed and I am not Japanese and my ears don’t hear that fast. I sucked. By the time Eric Jones came along I was undone. “Um let me see, that’s E… um…r…?” I feel your pain, Bobbi!
Bobbi, I moved from Canada to England where they speak, you know, English. I thought it would be a cake walk. So I sympathize, but you are doing all the right things. Bon courage, maid and phoque them if they can’t take a joke.
PS – I used to teach French in Placentia Bay and every year one of the boys would raise his hand and ask
“How’dja say seal in French, Miss?”
Feel you pain, I do. After a year and a half in France, I pride myself on speaking as well as most three year olds– although my two and half year old has better pronunciation than I do. What is the french equivalent of hang in there?!!!
It would be “courage!” :)
French is a difficult language to learn, and I’m French so I can tell. We have so many grammar rules, dos and don’ts, that even for a native it is nearly impossible to truly master the language.
So yup, courage!
All is not lost Bobbi. Your reference to dear ole Bridget was right on the mark. You have to stick with it girl, we are depending on you to defend our heritage as only you know how. As I say to my boys all the time “I don’t care what happened, I’m on your side”.
Well yes ,bilingual and bi-cultural, not one and the same , but not to worry ,even the french can not always agree , my wife has on several occasions watched as started a great debate amongst a group of french people on one their many cultural nuances.And what is the story on the phoque thing ? Is it that there are plenty of phoques to go around , and we are not to worry ?
I’d say you performed exactly as planned.
If these people weren’t trying to make a puttet show of you they never woulf have raised the seal subject in the first place.
Also someone should have been a little considerate and helped guide you through the conversations all evening.
At least they had their entertainment but at your expense.
when i was teaching french immersion in rural louisiana, i was going through the alphabet with my 1st graders and we were naming animals for each letter of the alphabet. we get to p, i say, “phoque” 24 first graders heard “f*ck” and promptly ooh’d aah’d and said they were telling the principal. oy. to this day i still wonder why pingouin never even popped into my head.
You are doing a great job! The fact that you are trying and putting yourself out there is the most important thing. Give yourself a break. It takes a LOT of work to become fluent in another language. Also- humor is the last thing you will learn in a language.
You at your worst, socially, is better than me at my very best, surrounded my English-speakers. And not only did you GO to the dinner party, which is more courage than I would have had, you engaged in the conversation. You defended your position. You ate some gorgeous fois gras and onion confit. Maybe the thing to do is take your conversations in nibbles instead of trying to sit down for a full meal.
Also, remember this. You are an educated woman. You’re tall and thin and beautiful and one of the most charming people I’ve ever ‘met’. There is no way on god’s green earth, European or otherwise, that your new friends could fail to be impressed by you. Smile and look mysterious, and if you feel your foot edging toward your mouth, fill it with truffles instead.
Oh you guys are the best! All so encouraging and kind. Glasseye, you will be kept on as chief flatterer…
XO
B
I felt the same way in England and they speak the same language but really, it’s all the same, when you get invited you ought to be made comfortable as well…
Disheartening, yes. An interesting side effect is bound to be humility, and empathy for all immigrants everywhere. And those who are hard of hearing. That sounds fairly pompous! But you do have my sympathy. It’s lonely to be the person left out of the conversation.
you talk pretty too one day
(in case you haven’t read it—even though i’m betting you have—david sedaris’s chapter on his French class in me talk pretty one day may be good mandatory reading for your right now, even if you have read it before.)
I feel sick to my stomach reading about this! So HARD! Learning a language apres a certain age is enough to do anyone in,…., Lord, have a martini!
I must say I’m in agreement with the other commenters who put some of the blame back on the people at the party who did not make an effort to include you. Good manners know no language barriers. There is always a way to be gracious and kind.
I wonder if your French teachers would object to teaching you some standard post-foot-in-mouth semi-apologies, such as, “I think I may have just insulted a French national treasure. Obviously I would never do this; it was just that I am still learning French. I’m sure Brigitte Bardot is a perfectly nice idiote.”