Really, I'm Not French

We are back from Paris (we had a marvelous time--even better than I'd hoped), and I thought I’d share some of the things that happened while we were there.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that the last six months I’ve been working on French to try and revive my 25+ year old language capability. So, I was nervous, but good to go.

After we arrived in Paris at 6am, we left our luggage at our apartment (our official check-in was at 10am) and wandered the streets and markets. We found a patisserie and decided to buy a baguette, etc. In any case, the proprietress was obviously not in a mood to deal with tourists and I took too long explaining to Cal what the various pastry-like creations were.  She was impatient and rude. I was flustered.

So I made the decision that from then on, Cal could speak in English to everyone since they spoke English anyway. Then, we discovered unintended consequences.

We’d go to Metro information. Cal would ask for directions to the Metro headed toward Sevres-Babylone, Les Halles, St. Michel, etc. The person at the information booth would raise an eyebrow, literally turn a cold shoulder to Cal, and speak to me in rapid fire French. I would say, “Merci” or ask for clarification. As this happened over and over, I asked Calvin, “Why are they doing this?” Cal blinked and said, “Because you look just like them, so they assume you are Parisian.” I thought about it. Yeah, a lot of them did look like me. They had the same narrow build, same dark, straight hair, the same shadows under their eyes (which stubbornly resist makeup), and as Cal pointed out they dressed just like I did—in black with a scarf.

Then, Cal said, “You are now the official talker. I’m kind of tired of getting the you-loathsome-American,-why-are-you-foisting-yourself-on-us-and-not-allowing-your-wife-to-speak-to-us look.” I had to admit that was the look he was getting.

So I began talking. People were very nice and helpful. Though occasionally when I spoke I got the you-are-the-confirmation-of-my-beliefs-that-emigration-is-evil-as-it-turns-French-speakers-into-language-barbarians. I wanted to tell them it wasn’t my fault as my French ancestors left 400 years ago for the Netherlands.

Sometimes, people gave me an incredulous look and said, “You speek Ing-gleese?” Even when we were leaving France yesterday, an inspector looked at my American passport and spoke to me in machine gun French. I wasn’t sure whether she said, “So you have decided to leave your mother country? Or, has any terrorist given you a package to take on board the aircraft?” Since the answer and its implication were clearly important, I said, “Uh…” Finally, she switched to English and I was allowed to leave the country.

Yesterday, I streamed an episode of Grimm and a character was speaking French. I whispered to Cal, “His accent isn’t very good.” Yep, Paris rubbed off on me.

This was our first day when we went shopping.

The RER train on the way to Versailles.

Even Rusty French Has Its Uses

I don’t plan on writing a lot of posts on the preparations for our trip to Paris (for those who missed the amazing trip to Paris news, click here). But since my husband had this week off, we spent time planning our trip.

My obligation between now and when we leave is to “brush up” on French. My husband knows that when I graduated from college I was fluent in French—the university I graduated from required all English majors to be fluent in a foreign language. Fluency in French meant I had to take literature classes where the texts were all French, the lectures were in French, and we had to write our papers in French. And yes, I did that. However, I did those that twenty-five years ago. Since then, I’ve only used French to explain to my kids what RSVP stands for. (Okay, I did teach high school French twenty years ago—but that was mostly forcing passé composé into unwilling minds.)

After twenty-five years, I don’t really remember much. I can read something aloud and it sounds well enough, but I have no idea what it means. At least, that’s what I thought until Cal began researching restaurants. The other day, he pulled up a website to show to me. It had all the appropriate stars, the prices were reasonable, and the ambiance was fantastic. So I clicked on the menu and read it.

Then, I said to Cal, “Uh, when you looked at this earlier, did you use Google Translate on this page?”

He said, “No. Why?”

I answered, “I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure that this paragraph says that the specialty of the house is calf brain cooked in wine.”

We exchanged a glance and removed the restaurant from our “possibilities list.”

You know, my smattering of French may come in handy after all.

Be sure to check out the menu below. It's from 1870, and the dinner includes antelope, elephant, wolf, camel, bear, etc.  (Courtesy of  Wikimedia Commons) 

Virtues and Vices

My daughter is studying French at the university she attends. She’s taking it for fun since she needs some extra units. Since she studied in high school for three years, she’s also hoping that it will also be an easy A.

One of the things she likes about the class is her instructor’s focus on cultural differences. (Since we’ve lived in several different places, we’ve experienced many taboos the hard way—breaking them by accident.)

Her professor has talked about living in Paris, about her homesickness, which resulted in overeating, and about a Parisian friend’s response. When she saw this friend after her bout of homesickness, the friend said, “Tu es grosse. Ca va?” Which in English is “You’re fat. How are you?” Of course, Ariel’s American prof nearly burst into tears. Later, she realized her friend wasn’t trying to hurt her feelings. It was just frank. (France was peopled by the Franks.) It was honest. As the prof admitted, it wasn’t like she could hide her larger size. And it did motivate her to do something about it.

One of the cultural virtues of the South, in which they take great pride, is politeness. The other day I was very impressed by it. A little old lady had stopped her car in the middle of the road. None of the ten cars lined up behind her (through an intersection) could get around her. But through the multiple lights, no one honked. Finally, a woman got out of her car and walked to the old lady’s car to see what was up. (I was traveling in the other direction and could see that nothing was up—the woman was staring around herself—either an Alzheimer’s situation or something worse. I felt very pleased that no one was making the situation worse by selfish honking. Score one for politeness virtues.

However, sometimes virtues become vices. The same day I was driving home and a light turned red. Cars stopped and waited. The light turned green. The car in the front didn’t move. And it didn’t move. At first, I thought, “Oh, some poor person killed their car or has car problems.” Until I realized that the person was texting—this was pretty apparent because it could be seen through the window. And still no one honked their horn. Twelve cars waited and waited. I finally honked, and the person looked up, put their phone down, and the light turned red. ACK!

So I’m learning patience, not one of my virtues. But I’m still honking when someone rudely makes twelve cars wait until they finish texting.