Learning French

                I have reached a point in my life where I don’t usually have to do things that I find difficult. As a kid, I had to do all kinds of difficult things, things like hitting a ball with a bat, club, racquet, or paddle, for example. Or things like cleaning my room or being nice to my sister. In my regular Ohio life, however, I was used to being pretty good at most of the things I did on a daily basis. Not only that, I’ve always thought of myself as being pretty good linguistically. Languages were always easy for me at school. Perhaps that is why learning French has been such a humbling experience for me. I am not good at French. Really, I am not.

                Thanks to Latin, I understand the idea of conjugating verbs and the idea that nouns have gender. Thanks to Spanish (and English and Latin), the vocabulary of French is (mostly) not that difficult. What is difficult is pronunciation. I can’t quite figure out (and I know I am in good company here) why someone would bother putting an “ent” on the end of a word and then not pronouncing ANY OF THOSE LETTERS! And what is with the unpronounced “s” everywhere, and the fact that when a word begins with a vowel, you just stick the last letter of the previous word onto the front? And why does the word for “they have” sound exactly (to my untrained ears, of course), like the word for “they are”? And how do they make that “r” sound? I am not criticizing French or those who speak it. I understand that English has just as many issues. I pity those who have to – as adults – learn the difference between bare, bare, and bear, or remember how to spell or pronounce “who.” For me, however, this is no problem. I’ve been speaking English fluently for years.

                Then there is the fact that French, compared to English, is a very picky language. You don’t say, “I go to school;” you say, “I go to the school,” and you’d better know whether to use “a,” “au,” or “aux” for “to.” You go “en voiture” (by car) but “a velo” (by bike). Johanna is “ma fille,” but Drew is “mon fils” (here, you don’t say the “l”). To make it worse, Nancy is mon ami, even though she’s female.

                My French teacher’s name is Elodie, and she tells me that French people have the same problems with English. Why do we pronounce “h”? What’s the point of silent “e”? And where are all our articles? I told her English is a lazy language – we’ve flattened out the verb conjugations, gotten rid of articles, and scrapped gender for most nouns.

 I have come to a conclusion. People say that the French (and Franco-Suisse) don’t speak English because they are snooty and mean and like to see us Anglos squirm. Maybe that’s true in some cases, but I don’t think it’s the main reason. I think the main reason is that, if your mouth has been forming French sounds and your brain has been trained to French grammar, English is really hard. I think people just aren’t confident in their language skills. My evidence for this is that usually, when I make my pathetic attempts to communicate in the dominant language, people seem to realize that, as poor as they may think their English is, it’s way better than my French!

I will say, however, that I am very grateful for the opportunity to do something difficult. There is nothing wrong with an exercise in humility. Or mental exercise either, for that matter. I can feel my little brain cells doing their pushups and bicep curls when I crack my French book. After a 90-minute lesson, I can also hear them panting and begging for a water break. Even if I never make it to the place where the guy at Conforama doesn't say, "You can speak English if you want to," the experience is priceless.