How to Not Speak French in France
Following another frequently occurring, and occasionally detrimental urge I have for disrupting my completely comfortable, stress-free life in its entirety, I decided to leave everything I know and move to Aix-en-Provence, France with the objective of becoming fluent in French, ideally, in a year.
I now realise I did not fully understand the enormity of the word ‘fluent’ and what it entails. The notion of the ‘okay’ level of French I possess (by my own, misinformed evaluation) has been hurled through a hedge backwards, smashed, rebuilt, beaten and bruised and mashed like a particularly disappointing peach.
It must be noted that I am English, and I already speak the most widely spoken language in the world. However, I had always been hugely impressed by my bilingual friends. Conversely, more so by my Anglophonic friends who were fortunate enough to have polyglot parentage and grew up with dual languages from birth, than those who were forced to learn English in later life due to a less fortunate diasporic necessity.
Additionally, I recognise that my journey is a privileged and leisurely one, and (because I don’t plan on living/working in France forever), unlike others my long-term opportunities are not hugely dependent on the successful attainment of fluency.
So, with this in mind, armed with a Babbel subscription, a vague idea of what the passé composé is (some kind of confiture?) and my schoolgirl French, I arrived in the trés bourgeoise town of Aix, home of Paul Cezanne and his Saint Victoire, calissons (a kind of melon flavoured, sugared almond amalgamation), many, many fountains and Aix’s answer to the Champs Elysees; the Cours Meribeau.
Fast forward two months and my Babbel subscription has been replaced by endless messy lists of verb conjugations, I have cheated my way through with the clever avoidance of tense usage, and my ambition of fluency has dulled sadly to ‘as long as my French improves this year, I’ll be happy’.
Oh.
I can make myself understood, more so every day, and every time I do I give myself a figurative pat on the back, but I am still very obviously English and my conversations are limited to what I like to do at the weekend, observatory statements about my surroundings (‘This café is big!’ or ‘This hot chocolate is very sweet’- met by bemused agreement) and asking if I can see the wine menu, s’il vous plait.
Some days, my road to second language acquisition seems like an especially gruelling exercise in self-flagellation. Some days, I avoid going into shops because there are too many people already inside who could witness my imminent linguistic fuck up and of course if anyone takes note, the gates of hell would open and I’d have to stay inside forever lest my faux pas is circulated around town and I am duly laughed back to L’Angleterre.
Having said that, other times I swing into the gym, casually renew my membership (en Francais) nod Bonsoir (I go in the evening) to mes amis and have a conversation about the weather (‘Il fait chaud, aujourd’hui!’), and the issue of homelessness (‘c’est trés mauvais’), then strut towards the treadmill, my smugness oozing out of me like a delicious fondue.
The frustrating element of this tumultuous journey of parlance, and something I have definitely learned, is that the road to bilingualism is NOT linear. One day, one can breeze around living la vie, where every conversation you have is positive and successful and a small victory. Other days, your boyfriend looks on, perplexed, as you splutter out if you can ‘have a caffay larttay please mister?’.
Language misdemeanours aside, there is also something amiss about my contrived cultural assimilation. Famously, the French possess a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’. The irony is this: despite my new muted navy coat, oversized muted tone scarf, hair coiffed to look like it has not been coiffed, I actually try SO hard to appear sophisticated and French it might just possibly somewhat detract a little from the ‘je ne sais quoi’ concept itself.
Oh well, the ends justify the means, and my beret only requires two hours and 137 bobby pins to ensure longevity of the casually jaunted angle at which it sits, effortlessly la mode.
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