TONGUE TIED IN PARIS
Looking out to the bustling Rue Oberkampf, I felt the familiar prickle of embarrassment heat up my cheeks. I shut my eyes and tried to force words out of my mouth. Anything would do, as long as it was quick, because the French waitress was beginning to look impatient.
Fresh off the plane, I had practiced my order, and rushed to the nearest café, keen to use what I had learned during my 10-week French course back in Sydney. In my head “Je voudrais un verre de vin blanc et une creme brulee s’il vous plait” (don’t judge) sounded perfect. As chic and as clear as the tapes I had been listening to. But sitting in the cafe, the fear of speaking the language to a native overcame me, and all I could do was stammer “uhhhh…” and “ummmm…” until the words “vin blanc” and “creme brulee” came out in mangled French, and the waitress had vaguely understood what I meant.
I spent the next day trying to avoid speaking at all,determined not to fall back on English, but too scared to try French. Not speaking is harder than you’d think, I had to point at things, ignore people, and generally act like an extremely rude tourist. The exact opposite of what I wanted to be. When I ignored an old homeless man begging me for change, I realized I would have to step up my game and start speaking. And if I was ever going to learn, I would have to throw myself in the deep end, challenge myself to speak French, and nothing but French.
Sitting down in another classic French cafe, mumbling through another menu, I pulled out my trusty notebook, and made a list of rules to save me from further embarrassment, and help me though the next four weeks. Here’s what I came up with:
1) If I don’t understand, I’ll just grin and nod. Sure, they might think I’m an idiot, but at least they’ll know I’m a nice idiot.
2) I will use hand gestures to make myself understood.
(Side-note: I learnt not to do this when explaining my job, as “movies”, followed by the action of pulling my hand towards my mouth as if I were holding a microphone; gave people the wrong idea about the line of work I am in)
3) When in doubt, just say yes. You never know where that might take you!
4) Embrace the fact that you only know how to speak verbs and in the present tense. Think of it as ‘living in the moment’ and ‘knowing exactly what you want’. ”I take a coffee!”; “I go to the park!” You are a woman in control of her life!
5) Try and add a new sentence to your repertoire every day. Ok, so the baker might not want to know that you are “totally into rap music”, but you learnt that phrase so you are damn well going to use it.
6) Take a guess at what they are saying, and plunge headfirst into an answer. They may be asking for a cigarette, but I will tell them the time. And they will like it.
7) If you make a mistake, say “J’ai un trou de memoire!” This translates to “I have a hole in my memory!” …And explains everything.
8) Add a question mark to the end of every sentence. That way, if you say something wrong you can pretend you didn’t really mean it.
9) Work in the fact that you’re from Australia as soon as you can. Everyone loves Australians! We have a cool accent, we own Cate Blanchett, we’re far enough away to be exotic, and we have scary animals which we can train to attack anyone who messes with us. Note to self: learn how to say “Did I tell you about my pet shark?”
Armed with my rules, I strode confidently into the center of Paris, and began to unleash my badly pronounced French on anyone who would listen. I didn’t care if it made sense; I just wanted to speak what I had learnt.
Over the next four weeks I told the lady at the grocery store, “I’m tired” (she didn’t care); the man at the laundromat, “welcome to the red carpet” (he was confused); and the guy who approached me in the park heard, “I love you” (that… was an accident).
Arriving back in Sydney, I was so proud of my grasp on the language, that I boasted to all my friends, “I’m totes French now!” …Until one of those friends correctly pointed out that by saying that sentence, it means that I’m not.
I pulled out my notebook to add one more rule:
10) From now on, only have friends who agree with everything I say.
That should fix things.
