My name is Françoise Blanchard and this is the first post of my Debunking myths about the French, one cliché at a time series. As you can tell by that funny-looking letter in my name (it’s called a c cedilla by the way), I’m a foreigner. In fact, I come from France. And guess what? I speak English. Christine Lagarde, Emmanuel Macron, and all my English: proficient-French friends would be currently laughing if they ever read this, thinking, “Yeah, what’s the big deal?” But to this day, I remember the look of bewilderment of that one American tourist trying to get to the Sacré Coeur as I kindly explained to him that these stairs on his left would lead him right to the top of Montmartre.
—But, … you speak English?!
He was so stunned that I couldn’t help but smile. You see, contrary to a common belief, many of us do in fact speak “the language of Shakespeare.”
Here is how my parents accomplished this. (Funny how I have so little to do with this “exploit.”) I have some vague recollection of an LP playing songs and conversations (in English) that I had memorized without understanding a single word I was uttering. But apparently, that was good enough for my nanny as I recall her delighted face when I would answer the rhetorical question, “How are you?” by a flawless “Fine thank you.” For a while, I was perfectly happy with my being utterly clueless as to what these songs and funny-sounding utterances were about. Until the day I set foot in England. I was ten. And it was summer. My parents had evidently planned this all along. Back in those days, French students were not exposed to any foreign language during the first five years of their formal education. I had just finished primary school and in September, I was entering middle school.
After making sure I had memorized the songs and dialogues of my English textbook for kids, my mother packed my bags and sent me off to England with my English tutor, for a two-month summer camp of sorts, thinking I could probably use a little hands-on practice. All was going quite smoothly for a week or so (meaning I did not open my mouth once but quietly followed my tutor around everywhere, completely depending on her for instructions), until she told me she was leaving.
—What do you mean? I asked.
It turned out she was going back to France, leaving me behind, in this foreign land, with people I did not know, much less understood. NOOONNNNN!!! I screamed, and protested, and cried for hours (and probably broke her heart), but she left anyway. To this day, I can’t tell whether her leaving was also part of the plan or whether she figured we’d never achieve what we came here to do (i.e. learn English) if I kept following her around like a shadow instead of mingling with the other kids.
So there I was, by myself, in a big old British stone (and quite possibly haunted) house surrounded by kids who seemed to all know each other and were having such a great time together.
Somehow, I realized that the London-bridge-is-falling-down tune was not going to do much to improve my precarious situation. So I figured I should make the remainder of my stay as painless as possible, by playing the little mute mouse that hopefully no one would notice. I just wanted to be left alone. And go home, of course.
Unfortunately (or fortunately?) that only worked for a short while. A small curly-haired freckled boy noticed me. And not only did he notice me, he also took note of the fact that I could neither speak nor understand English. The secret I was trying to hide from everybody by keeping my mouth shut and mimicking the other children was out! And then, things turned ugly. That little kid did not credit my muteness to my foreign origin. On the contrary, he was prompt to jump to the conclusion that my inability to communicate was due to the fact that I was simply … stupid. “Stupid! Stupid!” he called out a few times. That’s when a light bulb went off in my brain. “Hey, that kid just called me stupid!” was my first thought. It was almost immediately followed by a second thought: “Hey, I can understand what he says!” Because you see, the word stupid in French is stupide.
I wasn’t that stupid after all. If I could understand one word, perhaps I could understand more. Filled with hope (and a little thirst for revenge), I set off on the first conscious quest of my life: to conquer this new language and prove that boy that no, I was not stupid at all.
Two years later, I met an American girl. And it was back to square one. I was twelve at the time, and I had been studying English at school for two years, getting the top grades in my class. But when she turned to me and asked “Wotsyonayme?”, my mind blanked. What language was that? English? Couldn’t be. I didn’t understand a word she had just said. So I asked if she could repeat her question. And she did. Five times. By the end, it sounded like that: “waaaat-iiizzz-yooooor-naaaayyyyme.” And I finally got it: she was asking for my name. So I gave it to her. Another question followed (I must applaud her for the perseverance she displayed). And once again, I had her repeat it many times. (Turned out she wanted to know how old I was.) That really puzzled me. Despite my knowledge of English, I couldn’t communicate properly with someone speaking it, albeit with an accent I had never encountered before.
By now, you are probably wondering why this story is relevant to your French experience. Well, if you think French people are being rude and ignoring you when you are ordering your meal, asking for directions, or trying to buy a subway pass, remember that they simply may not understand you. At all.
Photo by Zohre Nemati on Unsplash
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Did you tell that American tourist that you also speak Korean? Would have blown his mind..!
Well, I didn't speak Korean at the time! It was some 13 years ago :)