La belle langue française

Just in case you were getting the impression that it was all fun and games in Europe, let me assure you that I did indeed go French class for three hours a day. Matt, Newt and MA are shaking their heads right now because they went to German class in Berlin for 4 hours a day. But I had more homework, at least more than Matt and Newt, so I think it evens out (more on that later).

As it was, my Austrian and I tested into a group with 17 students, which was quite a few since it was advertised as a class no more than 10. This was the first problem. The second problem was that we didn't have a regular teacher the first week of class. We had four different teachers, which is impressive since we only met three times. Supposedly the university was having testing so all the teachers had irregular schedules. It was certainly a lesson in different French accents and pedagogical styles. Also, the first unit was safety vocabulary and how to report a crime to the police. How about that as an intro to France?

The students came from all over, but the English and German speakers dominated. Besides me, there were three other Americans: two undergrads on study abroad and an older woman from LA who is an elections observer. In many ways she seemed to be the epitome of SoCal (which word my Austrian delighted in the one time I said it, after which I was bound to use it, although I swear I don't say it that much in real life), but she does have a PhD in an humanities field and she and I have similar views on the recent passing of possible pederast with a suspect skin disease. There was also a teenager from Dublin. We had four Germans - two teenage girls from Munich, a middle-aged lawyer from Frankfurt, and a guy from Osnabrück. My Austrian took an immediate dislike to the last guy for being basically too "northern German," she said. I took perverse delight forcing this Prussian and my Austrian into talking to each other during the smoking breaks. They eventually formed an uneasy mutual tolerance of the other over the lack of punctuality in France.

But my home with the English and German speakers was not to last: they split the class and I was moved to the afternoon session. I now had class with the Hispanics, Eastern Europeans, and a lone Chinese woman. All of us did our best to learn French while perpetuating national stereotypes.



Above you see the Spaniard, Russian, and Chinese girl. The Spaniard and I were often paired up, even when we were still in the big class. It took me the first day to figure out he was speaking French and not Spanish because his accent was very thick. Then it took me the first week to figure out that when I heard "depend" he was actually saying "je pense". Once we got that resolved, communicating was easier. He is a sommelier from Madrid but is living in Strasbourg because of his girlfriend's job. He also likes Billy Ray Cyrus and Clint Eastwood - although he has his reservations about Eastwood, since he owns guns and a person who owns guns can't be a good person. The "toro" sign that the Chinese girl makes is appropriate, since one day he pulled up his shirt to show us his scar he got from a bull. Unfortunately, the only part of the story any of us understood was that its horn was centimeters away from puncturing his lung. I'm sure we lost the best part in translation.

After we moved to the small class, he usually worked with the Venezuelan (who is not pictured). The Venezuelan had done graduate work in the states and was an engineer with some oil company in Venezuela. He was on sabbatical and was determined to see as much of Europe as possible, so he always took Fridays off. In fact, my Austrian and I ran into him quite by accident in downtown Basel. He and the Spaniard like to joke about how a perfectly ordinary, decent Spanish word in Spain would mean something completely vulgar in Venezuela.

The Russian was a chemical engineer (is that code for nuclear scientist?) with a glorious accent that Boris and Natasha would be proud of. I thought it was a joke when he said his favorite color was red, but it turns out he was serious. One day we had to write hypothetical situations about historical events, like "If the dinosaurs hadn't died out, then I would ride one to school" (no joke, that was the example from the book). I was working with the Venezuelan and the Spaniard, who came up with "if America hadn't entered WWII, Hitler would own the world." I had to read this sentence, with which I had nothing to do, aloud to the class. The Russian was staring at me after I had said it, and I suddenly remembered that the Russians rather think they had something to do with the end of Hitler, so I added quickly "and the Russian too, of course!" Everyone laughed and told the Russian, "haha, Hitler would have owned Russia too." My the time I figured out what they thought I had meant, it was too late (and I had too little French) to correct the misunderstanding. So to him, undoubtedly, I was the ever arrogant American.

The Chinese girl was a presence. She over-enunciated her "r" having already learned English and about "Engrish." We had a unit on gender equality (where do they get these topics?) and she quite proudly and adamantly assured us that in Hong Kong men and women are treated completely equal when it comes to employment. Unless a man wants to be a house-husband, then he shames his family. From what I could tell of her life story, her hobby is looking for love in all the wrong places.



Above you have the Brazilian, Bulgarian, and me (looking very blond, I might add). The Brazilian was certainly the best speaker and best at listening comprehension. She was a pharmacist in Brazil, but as none of that sort of thing ever transfers, she was working as an au pair while she did her pharmacy certification in France. She had some strong opinions about women's roles, mothering, children, and how France was failing at that. When she found out I was married she wanted to know if I had children, and when no, why not. The easiest answer I could manage to give in French was that my husband didn't want any. About a week later we were doing a unit on life coaches (seriously, who writes these books?) and we had to pair up with one person pretending to have a problem and the other person pretending to be the life coach with the solution. She immediately latched onto me and told me she had figured out the solution to my problem: I needed to buy a dog. I could get my husband to start to take care of a another creature and it would be good practice for a baby. The dog would naturally awaken his paternal instinct. I'm also suppose to find friends with well-behaved children so he can see that they don't just scream all the time. (If sacrament meeting on Sunday is any indication, her second suggestion is not likely to happen in Madtown) I should report back to her in a year with my progress. There you go Matt, now you know the whole plan. The class thought it was hilarious, especially since they didn't actually believe I was married (eventually they did, but that brought on a round of "how old are you?!?").

The Bulgarian had the least advanced French of all of us, but the very best accent. She also picked up on the grammar quickly and was the most motivated out of all of us since she is suppose to start university this fall in Strasbourg. She was also on the Bulgarian gymnastic team at the Beijing Olympics. We were all a bit intimidated after we found that out, but she and I ended up bonding over the fact that she loved a certain young adult romance about vegetarian vampires. Who knew it was translated into Bulgarian?

Our teacher (also not pictured) was a blond Alsatian who had unlimited patience with our accents and ignorance of French verbs. Seriously, I think everything I did during my four weeks had to do with verb tenses and moods. Fortunately for me, the grammar is the easy part, since I was the only one to consistently do my homework. I even rewrote the lyrics to La Vie en Rose - I don't even write poetry in English, let alone German and certainly not French! And if I were to, I probably would not follow any rhyme or rhythm. But I did it, and although I'm certainly not winning any poetry prizes, it did endear me to the teacher since I was the only one who even attempted the assignment. That sort of made up for not understanding half of what she said. That and the fact that I didn't have a cellphone that I didn't have to answer in the middle of class.



Here we are at our "goodbye" dinner, since we had apparently bonded over the perplexing French verbs. One advantage of our very mixed group was that we had to speak French with each other. So if I learned to speak any French, it is the French you speak with other non-native speakers. But at least we were speaking in the target language. And even for an extra few hours at the Thai buffet the Chinese girl insisted we eat at (despite the Spaniard's objections). Don't worry, we're all facespace buddies now, so we can keep on butchering speaking French together indefinitely.