J'apprends le français. Merci de votre patience.
When we first moved here, I was fairly optimistic about my ability to learn French. I had been working with a tutor for several weeks before our move, and I was finally getting to the point where I was comfortable with some basic interactions. I took a job in the Old Town in a shop where I had to assist customers in French. (They made me a nice button to wear that said, "J'apprends le français. Merci de votre patience.) I didn't mind fumbling a bit and would often begin interactions in French. But frequently I would meet people who were impatient, or sometimes completely annoyed, with my lack of fluency. Most people would just switch to English. Other times they would incredulously exclaim something like, "You live in Québec and you don't speak French?!" It was discouraging. And I am much too self-conscious to insist upon French when the person on the other end has already given up on me.
After a year and a half, I can actually say that living here has probably made my French worse, not better. I have longed for a way to fix this problem. Wouldn't it be great if one could simply get French injections? Like vaccines. Or maybe if you could get one of those voice box things that would automatically translate whatever you said into French? Or maybe something like this:
Sadly, no such products exist, so I decided to hire a tutor. And I also subscribed to this service. My biggest problem is that I just can't understand anyone. Although my French is broken and often grammatically incorrect, I know enough to explain myself in most situations. But knowing what to say doesn't do any good if you cannot understand what the other person is saying in the first place. The Québécois accent doesn't help.
The truth is, I think the lesson I really need to learn is one that no one else can teach me. It's that I'm human. Learning a new language is hard for me. And that's okay, because I am good at a lot of other things. I will probably never be fluent in French, but I keep trying, and really that's about all anyone can do in life. J'apprends le français. Merci de votre patience.
But really, French injections would be so cool!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
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1 comments:
Oh, man. I sympathize; this hits close to home.
For me, I think that getting over the injury to my confidence and pride has been the hardest thing. I mean, until very recently, Pete knew no French at all, but had no language anxiety or self-consciousness whatsoever: either he could communicate, or he couldn't. I, on the other hand, would be mired in this web of anxiety every time I had to open my mouth: what did they say? Did I conjugate that correctly? Dammit, I forgot that word...
So for me, the biggest help has been putting myself into a group of people also learning French. We're all there to learn, we all have accents, we all make hideous mistakes. Ergo, I don't feel as judged, and I'm less bothered when somebody asks me something in the street and I only understand half of it. That said, the old standby of reading / learning about Quebecisms and watching locally-produced TV has been the biggest help on that front.
That said, I think you should wear that button around all the time.
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