I recently read a book called
Flirting with French by William Alexander. This book was all about how a 56
year old man set out, determined to learn how to speak French fluently. It
accurately highlights his ups and downs, though it’s unfortunately mostly
filled with downs.
I have to say that my experience
with learning a second language has been similar. In high school, the foreign
language I took was Latin. I didn’t do this out of passion for the language,
but because the Latin teacher seemed much nicer than the French teacher and I
heard the class would be filled with Greek and Roman mythology. I continued
with Latin for four years rather than quitting after the required two. This was
also not out of passion for language. My friends were in the class and my
teacher essentially guilted me into continuing.
But I had always
wanted to learn French. Ever since I had learned what French was, I knew
I would speak it one day. Had the French teacher at my high school not seemed
to be so terrifying, I would have been in French all four years. When I made it
to college, I knew I had to take French. I wasn’t content with just passing the
classes, I wanted to be fluent.
For whatever reason, I expected to
be a natural. I think it was because I was so in love with France and the idea
of the language, I thought Jesus would just come down and grant me with the
ability to speak French. Or I’d at least pick it up easily enough. Instead, I
struggled through every class and every exam. I had never learned how to speak or listen
in another language. Latin was purely reading and writing and always
accompanied by some sort of vocabulary aid. With a modern language, you have to
know what you’re doing if you want to communicate.
I could nail the French grammar like
nobody’s business. Reading it was a piece of cake and I could write it well
enough. Then for exams, I failed every listening portion. I crammed myself with
vocabulary for speaking exams and promptly forgot it all afterwards.
 |
| This was my face when asked to speak French. |
This is where I was when I went to
France. I didn’t understand anything that had slang in it. I couldn’t
understand a single French person who talked to me. But I thought it would be alright. In my mind, my semester abroad would be the time when everything clicked. I’d
come back to the U.S. speaking French like a native. I’d fly through every
French class my university back home had to offer. I’d have the vocabulary to
keep up with modern street French as well as official press conferences.
Well, as you can imagine, it didn’t
work out exactly like this.
To be continued…
