Last weekend, my wife and I went to London and Paris. It was my second trip overseas, and our first trip ever to a non-English speaking country where we didn’t have someone along who was a native speaker of the country we were going to.
I was excited about seeing museums and eating yummy food and checking out the architecture of these places of course… but mostly, I was excited about trying to speak to the locals in Paris, in French, as much as I could.
* * *
The first thing I notice when I get to Paris is, I’m not thinking in French. Of course I’m not thinking in French; I’ve got nothing but three months’ worth of free online classes with a computer voice as a teacher.
But I kind of feel like, if my French gets better and I go back some day, I might expect myself to start thinking entirely in French.
Some day.
* * *
We get to the hotel, and I’m nervous because I don’t actually know how to say I’d like to check in. So I say to the hotel clerk, in very, very quiet French, ‘I have a reservation?’ She asks if I speak English, and everything proceeds in English from there.
Which is fine. Yes, I have set myself the goal of trying to speak French. But this is not about me. This is about us. This is about communication, in whatever way is going to be the most efficient, and, if the situation demands it, whatever way is going to be completely error-free. In a restaurant, I could mispronounce the word for ‘chicken’ and get served scallops for dinner, and it wouldn’t be a big deal, for me, anyway. But when checking into a hotel, understanding exactly how things work is pretty important.
Any clerk or waiter or shopkeeper in Paris will certainly speak better English than I speak French. So English is the way to go here.
* * *
Our first meal goes spectacularly well — not a word of English is spoken between the waiters and us.
It probably helps that I’m pointing at the menu as I order.
What’s odd about the whole affair is that I’m understanding little of what the waiters are saying. It’s all context. If you’ve just sat down and the waiter asks a question, he’s probably asking for your order. French waiters generally don’t stop by and ask you how things are going or if you want anything else unless you flag them down first… so if you wave at a waiter after your meal has arrived, he’ll probably come over and say something like ‘what can I do for you?’ and you can ask for whatever it is you want without entirely understanding the question.
When I’m watching a subtitled film, I frequently just… don’t read the subtitles. With many movies you can get a good chunk of the characters’ meaning just from context, their body language, inflection, stuff like that.
Doing that while interacting with real-life people? That’s a really interesting experience.
* * *
After lunch, we go shopping. The first store we go into has a big, chatty American in it, who starts talking to us in English as soon as we walk in, and we respond in kind, so the shopkeeper knows immediately we’re English-speaking Americans. I’m a little relieved. I don’t know how to say ‘can I try this on?’, and while I can ask ‘how much does this cost?’ I wouldn’t understand the response as I don’t know French numbers.
After having been in London for a few days, and then Paris, I’m shocked at how flat the big American’s speech sounds. It’s almost like a monotone in comparison to French and British English.
* * *
* * *
Our second meal goes almost as well as the first. I make a point of not pointing at the menu when I order my crepe celtique and jus banane, and the waiter seems to understand me fine.
Thirsty later on, I can’t for the life of me pronounce the word for ‘water’, so Marie says it in English. And later on, Marie wants more tea, but we don’t know the word for ‘another’. So after calling over the water and some gesturing at the teacup, the waiter says, ‘another’?, and we nod and say ‘yes’ in French… and then the waiter tells us how to say ‘another one’ in French.
We’re surrounded by three other tables of English-speaking people, all of which are speaking to the waiter entirely in English.
I start to feel a little smug.
* * *
The next day, things do not go so well. Oh, they start well enough.
The waitress comes by to take our order, but I say, ‘a moment please’ because Marie and I are having trouble deciding.
The waitress comes back in a couple minutes and she asks if we’re ready to order now. I actually hear the French word for ‘choose’ this time and am totally thrilled. I order, having trouble pronouncing the name of my meal, and I ask for some fruity tea, and I’m feeling reasonably good about the whole thing —
— and then the waitress informs me, in English, that I’ve ordered a drink that isn’t on the menu. Oops. I’d misread the menu section describing what teas and juices were available. The entire meal proceeds in English from then on.
It’s at this point that I realize that this is all very exhausting, which I didn’t expect. It’s not just about how many words I knew when I got to Paris; I have to be alert and focused, or my recall and comprehension will be terrible. All this trying to find the right words and listen carefully to French speakers has me a bit fried, and it’s starting to show.
* * *
When dinner rolls around, Marie and I are completely drained. We’re staring bleary-eyed at a menu outside a brasserie when a very enthusiastic waiter comes out and asks us point blank what language we speak. We say we speak English, and not a word of French is spoken at our last meal — expect when Marie asks for the check in French, which earned us a thumbs-up from the waiter.
* * *
* * *
In many ways, I find language to be a bizarre thing. The sounds we make with our lungs and throats and teeth and tongues have no intrinsic meaning; they’re just sounds. Wind. Scratching. Popping. Musical tones.
Learning a new language and practicing speaking in real-world situations has been a little like starting with these arbitrary sounds and watching them, right before you, transform themselves from noise into something meaningful and beautiful.
It’s kind of magical. I consider myself very lucky to have had this experience, and I look forward to experiencing this more.