Stories Collected While Living in France

French la Vie

Pardon My French

                     

French words and I, have had a relation turbulante, we weren't instant friends, we didn't hit it off- and certainment, we weren't musique for each others ears! How do you say complicated? Funny, many French words are the same in English, take for example: Compliqué, just the accent is différent. As my accent in French, is terrible, our relationship is often a bittersweet nécessité.

Learning to speak French was not easy for me. The R and U sounds are difficiles to prononcer. When my daughter was three she told my Mother, "You cannot speak French, because you do not have the lips for it." She said this while puffing her pouty lips towards my Mother.

Growing up in a bilingue household, does not apply the capacité bilingue. I grew up in family that spoke Portuguese, my parents spoke Portuguese to their parents and often to each other… I heard Portuguese constament, I knew a few words: Drawer- underwear- boobs- give the baby some milk- dry chicken- dry fart- Godmother- melon head- big butt…" As you can see I am not fluent.

If you want your children to be bilingue, you have to have more than the lips for it, it doesn't happen naturellement. There will be times you will eat words, drink words and cuss words, speaking two langues at home, and on the street, makes you stand out, makes people stare, it is not for the meek of heart. Répéter is a pastime.

Oh c'est horrible et fantastique!

My children are bilingual, without a hiccup, nor a slur, never do they mix their words…et moi?!

Sacha's English was very good when he came to Willows for the year. But now, oh now, he is fantastique, with a rich slang vocabulary to boot.

Do you speak a second language?

(Words that I have slanted are more or less the same in English, though pronounced and written differently.)

Comments

47 responses to “Pardon My French”

  1. Caty

    Languages are so interesting! and when you learn another one you start looking at yours in a different way and appreciate it more.
    Spanish is my mother tongue and now I speak English and French, I’m not trilingual though…far from it. The first word that comes to me in a conversation may sometimes be French, English, Spanish..whatever! I would say that some expressions are better said in a language or another..different language? different way of thinking and expressing yourself! SO rich and interesting!
    I’m interested also in languages that may disappear in time or not a lot of people speak, just as a way or preserve them (even if I will not have the occasion to practice them) as Tamazigh or Tibetan.
    Obrigada for your blog!
    xoxo

    Reply
  2. Amanda

    I am “functionally fluent” in French, and I’m learning Chinese and Italian!

    Reply
  3. Sue

    It sounds like you and French Husband have done a wonderful job with your kids. Contrary to the beliefs of some it really isn’t that easy! My kids are bilingual as well, but they definitely feel like English is their heart language.
    I speak Japanese as well, pretty fluently. I am very much an auditory learner, and have always loved imitating different accents in English, much to the amusement of my parents when I was growing up. I think that helped me a lot. I am often told that I don’t have much of an accent in Japanese. The bad thing about that is that I am horrible at translating, because I learned so much by ear, often in entire phrases at once.
    Reading and writing in Japanese is another story. Let’s just say that I give the guys at the city office a great deal of satisfaction when I go there to fill out forms. I think they are glad to see that I haven’t mastered the language completely, and they gladly help the illiterate foreigner! I can read recipes, though, which is about all I really need.

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  4. david

    Yes Corey, I speak English as a second language (I’m Frnech). I studied English at school but there’s something which is kind of strange as I feel like English is my first language. I often dream in English, even here in France. Once, while awakakening from a surgery, the surgeon told me that I spoke English all the time while being half-asleep…
    Both my duaghters speak English too. They are not bilingual though they are fluent but with a French accent. Being in high school for a semester as a sophomore has helped my daughter a great deal!
    I love your language, but speaking English for us is not about words only, it’s more about culture, about seeing the world with a different perspective.

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  5. Zosia

    Polish is my first language. I am fluent in English, but I speak with a Polish accent. I used to speak very good Russian too (it was mandatory at school when I was a kid and Poland was still a communist country), but since I haven’t used it for over 20 years I forgot almost everything. I can still understand a fair bit, I can read cyrillic alphabet, but when I try to say something more complicated than single words in Russian, the first words that come to mind are English :-).
    My daughter who was born in Canada speaks English and French as she went to a French Immersion school. She speaks Polish too but with an accent which is not necessarily Canadian though you know Polish is not her first language when she speaks Polish. However, her Polish has been improving significantly since we’ve moved back to Poland.

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  6. Zumi6771

    As a Malaysian, Malay language is my mother tougue. English is my second language as we learn it in school. Graduated from a college in Japan so I do speak & write fluently in Japanese. For me learning a certain language is easier if we are in the actual environment rather than from books. Talking to local or watching local drama is my method of learning.

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  7. Marie-Noëlle

    I love languages… and linguistics, semiotics, etymology, … etc …
    I speak English. By far less fluently than I used to though. Lack of practice !
    I can think and dream in English alike David. The most difficult job for me is TRANSLATING. The best example I can think about right now is “tongue in cheek” …!
    I agree with Caty, some expressions are better or more efficient in one language than the other.
    I learned Spanish at school too and I can still say a few words and a couple of sentences … before my mind gets flooded with their English version … I just can’t help it !
    I also like dead languages such as Latin.
    I find it interesting to see how some words or expressions have travelled the world …
    Alike David again, I think that learning a language – any language – is not only a matter of “language”. It is also a matter of culture, of civilization … etc…

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  8. Elaine L.

    I understand Spanish very well, but I have a terrible accent when I speak it and this is from someone who grew up hearing Spanish. Although my parents only spoke to us in English. In the 50’s our parents didn’t consider that it was good to be bilingual. My mother said that we were Americans and she didn’t think we need to speak Spanish. She didn’t learn English until she entered school.
    I do not have an ear for languages. My daughter, on the other hand, has an excellent ear and picks them up very easily. She speaks some French and Japanese. She will try to help me pronounce a word and by my ear it sounds the same, but it never is.
    ~elaine~

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  9. christine

    My father is German, my mother English, i’m married to a French man, my children speak French, English and Spanish and my eldest daughter will go to university to learn Chinese. Meals at our place are not quiet moments !! Who worries what you speak so long as you can communicate.They say that it keeps Alzheimers disease at bay, the need to juggle several languages……

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  10. Paulita

    Amazing that you raised bilingual children. I think it helps to speak one language at home while you are in place that speaks another language. I got decent at French when I had an extended stay, but it has mostly faded. I tried to use French phrases with my kids when they were little. One of Tucker’s first words was “Voila” as he closed a door. Two of the kids have a capacity for languages, the other does not.

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  11. Sam

    LOL, I have been told English speakers have lazy mouths, it’s probably true. I am sure you played more of a role in Sacha and Chelsea’s bilingualism than you are willing to let on.
    I speak a little, here and there, my accent is also horrible.

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  12. jackie

    I took beginner French about 10,000 times, finally I am in beginner 2…it is soooo difficult to learn another language when you “immerse” yourself only 2 hours per week. But I soldier on…I listen to tapes in the car, in my workspace, anyplace I can. I used to be mystified by people who said they “understand a language, but cannot speak it.” How in the world can you understand a language and not be able to speak it? Well now I know, I understand more than I can speak in French. By the time I translate something (in my head,) think of a response and then formulate said response (again in my head) and then try to say it in French, several (way too many) seconds-maybe even a minute or two-have passed…and the conversation has left me in the dust.

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  13. Gracie

    I had this english teacher some years back (I had to improve my english for work, so my boss sent me to this private school for one year to learn commercial english) we had our daughters of the same age, and we got along pretty well. She’s american from Texas and her husband is italian. Little Sarah (4 years old when I first met her)was amazing, in the same speech she used to switch from one language to the other, wheter she was talking to her mother or her father, she was really like a light switch!

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  14. Shelley@thiswhiteshed.blogspot.com

    Alas, no second language here – and – we Canadians are told we have quite the twang when we visit other countries. It’s a gift, eh? How envy the quiet allure of French words.

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  15. Marlis

    Ahh the complexities of language.. I grew up with a German mother, my father is ukrainian but only speak American well, I lived in France and mom made me go to American schools.. so by the age of 6 I was speaking three languages. However, reading in English, well that is muy complicated, so that took me a while to learn.. you know there are 7 different pronunciations for ‘ough’?
    I have one child that speaks American – French and one that speaks American – German and the husband speaks Texan.. My favorite trick on airplanes (whilst I was still traveling for a living) was to read a book in German or French and then answer the flight attendant in English.. or broken English if I really didn’t ant to engage in a conversation with my seat partner!
    A bientot!

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  16. Marilyn

    Sacha is very fortunate to have been given this past year to improve his English. I always wished I could have had an experience like that so I could be bilingual. I do so wish more children in the US were encouraged to really know more than one language.

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  17. Bev

    Falo portugues. My daughter is also bilingual since she was born in Brazil. My son used to be bilingual but lost it when we moved back to the States. My husband is completely bilingual but then he was raised in Brazil.

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  18. Nancy from Mass

    I grew up in a VERY french household. my parents spoke french often and my mother would speak half french/half english in every sentence. My father spoke such fluent french that during WWII, he was sent in to live and work with the french resistance. I can read french, spell most words correctly in french, and understand bien, however, like Jackie commented above, by the time I figure out how to say a sentence in french, it’s painfully long and the conversation is long over by then.
    I also listen to french language tapes, listen to french radio online and am currently going through the BBC free online language course. but, oh, putting those sentences together is tres difficile!

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  19. Penny

    I grew up in a bilingual home. My father was a first generation Greek, my mother’s roots went much deeper (and, we are discovering, deeper yet, to colonial times, but, spoke only English). My Greek Grandmother lived with us. She could communicate in English, but, spoke mostly Greek. My sister and I went to a Greek language school, after public school in our suburb of Chicago, several days of the week. My Greek/Italian cousins lived first in the same house and then next door with the oldest boy being the same age as me. We were the best of friends. They never learned Greek. Do I use it? no. Did living in a bilingual home make my life richer? yes. Did it make things interesting. Oh yes! Have I forgotten most of what I learned. Sadly, yes.
    Ah, but, I have retained the food and flavors of the table and the green thumb in the garden. So, not all was lost.
    What a delightful post, Corey, and evidenced by your usual long list of comments. Your children are all the richer for their languages and their parents.

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  20. Lemon Verbena Lady

    I’m married to a Peruvian and I can walk out of a room at a moment’s notice when the bad words in Spanish start to fly! Sometimes I understand a lot and sometimes not! A cousin of my husband who was an English tutor told me I had to start speaking Spanish and when I tried she said, please stick to English! That was 23 years ago! Not knowing what is being said is sometimes a good thing! Love your blog.

    Reply
  21. Kelly

    As an American in Holland, living with a Dutchman, Ik hou hou hou van dit bericht! (I love love love this post!) …my Dutch stinks and my accent is even worse.
    Enjoy your musings, as always. Those lucky kids of yours have it sooooo good!

    Reply
  22. Kathie B

    Corey, as you know I could probably write a book (or at least a very long essay) on the topic of multilingualism. I didn’t start studying Portuguese till 11 years ago, and the later in life one starts another language, the more difficult it becomes. MORAL: Begin as early as possible — and if you’ve been thinking about starting, don’t postpone it!
    Having begun so late in life, my spoken Portuguese tends to be halting at best, and my written Portuguese lacks the sure-footedness that comes from near-native proficiency (that’s the professional term-of-art). Even worse, because my university has a Center for Latin American Studies, it teaches the Brazilian “sotaque” (accent/dialect), so I’ve had to learn the European one on my own. On my first trip to the Azores, folks there were able to understand my Portuguese just fine because they all watch the Brazilian “novelas” (soap operas) on TV — but I had a really hard time understanding their European accent, with so many of its unaccented final vowels dropped (meaning the words went whizzing past my ears even faster than I was accustomed to in Brazilian!).
    Most amazing of all was when my much-older first cousin and our aunt informed me that my father and his siblings, as well as my grandparents, all spoke some Portuguese — because by the time I came along the family had stopped speaking the language entirely, as part of their campaign to keep me from finding out I was half-Portuguese (obviously, they ultimately failed). My cousin said he never learned any Portuguese as a child (despite living with our grandparents for several years), because they only spoke it around him if they were discussing something they didn’t want him to understand, like gossiping about people, or family finances, or his birthday gift, or…
    Because my Portuguese will always be inferior to my native English, at some point I realized I could make an asset out of my liability — namely, that my English is better than that of nearly all native-speakers of Portuguese — which is how I got into translating Portuguese into English. I’ve already collaborated on a novel, two books of poetry and a brief history (three published in the US, the other in Portugal), and am now collaborating on another novel, the first draft of which I hope to complete this summer. Honesty compels my to reveal that the labor itself feels a lot like doing homework all day (LOL!).
    I also learned a little French on my own about 20 years ago (in preparation for a trip to Montréal), although whenever I try to speak French I find I quickly lapse into Portuguese since they’re fairly similar, both being Romance languages (and having lots of soft consonants and nasalized vowels). I did a little better with my French while we were in France last month, because I was hearing it all around me in public. But I’d need a really long stay (as well as a grammar review from a textbook) in order to improve my skills. A really long stay in France, hmmmmmmmmm… (a gal can dream, can’t she?).

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  23. bleu

    I was married to a Danish man, but don’t speak Danish. Our son is bilingual.

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  24. Amy Kortuem

    I love this post! I studied German high school through college and lived in Germany when I was 16 as an exchange student. I loved the flow of having SO MANY words available to me – if there wasn’t one in one language there was surely one in the other to fit! My fluency has gone downhill in the…ahem…several…years since I lived in Germany, but I still talk to myself in my head in a mixture of the two languages.
    I’ve been studying French on and off for a couple of years and those gorgeous words are slipping in when necessary, too. (Though do the French have a term for “dry fart?” I laughed so hard at that!!!)

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  25. Jeannie

    I speak fluent Snohomish. Much to the dismay of my husband. This is a small town in Washington, north of Seattle. I even have a license plate holder proclaiming my fluency. Double negatives, unclear anticedents, colloquialisms abound. Pouring down rain is one of my favorites. My husband argues that rain always comes “down” and it always “pours” in Seattle.:)

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  26. Cousin Chris

    Corey,
    Brushing up on my “Northern California Azorean Slang” as we speak. The festa is a week from Sunday and I’m at the front gate.I was fortunate to grow up with my “Avo” Souza(grandfather) who lived with us. And our “Ava” Amaro (grandmother) lived a 1/4 mile away. I listened to the conversations and picked up a lot. As your dad said many times “Chris, you absolutely destroy the Portuguese language”. Hey, I try!
    Cousin Chris

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  27. kim

    I lived in Germany for two years and boy can I relate to your post! My German got better but I never achieved fluency. I really suck at languages. Luckily I married a lovely British man and I didn’t have to learn another language when I moved to the UK.

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  28. Rhonda P.

    Please – I wish – took 2 years of German, I ask why?
    Love the French language – know enough to get by and forgot every single word while in France. DUH – excitement = brain dead?

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  29. M

    My children are bilingual. I am trilingual, meaning I sometimes start talking in the wrong language, at the most inopportune moment. I once traveled in Italy with my brother and stopped at a gas station. He hopped out of the car to fill the tank and I called after him “Watch out that they don’t shortchange you!” – in Italian! Well, my brother looked at me as if I were crazy and the pump attendant started laughing heartily. 😉

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  30. momof5

    In my home growing up “Pardon my french” was an idiom. It was said by my mother who was not a native french speaker when she was swearing (in french). My father’s first language was French. I took French in college but don’t speak French and lived in Germany for a year where my children became fluent in a year and my son told me my German was an “embarrassment” to him. I work with young kids birth to three and the current research out there seems to be if you want bilingual kids each parent should only speak their first language to their children. Less confusion that way and mixing of the languages.

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  31. Karen@PasGrand-Chose

    Corey, you’ve given your children a wonderful gift of fluent bilingualism as well as a deep understanding of two very different cultures.
    As for me, falo portugues tambem, like Kathie B and Bev, thanks to spending a large chunk of my childhood in Lisbon. I also have school French and study it in my spare time now that I’m living close by to France!

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  32. Karen C

    Our neighbours were German and I was always fascinated by their bilingual ability and their childrens mixed conversations. I was forever asking them to teach me.
    At one point the eldest son refused to acknowledge any German conversation whatsoever in favour of English, which I understand is sometimes common for children of migrant parents.
    However, I would babysit their two sons and strangely the eldest one would then submit to speaking German – but ONLY to the younger brother and ONLY if I was unable to settle him – and ONLY when the parents were well and truly out of earshot!
    Then it was back to English.

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  33. gloria p

    I was very fluent in Portuguese as a young child and still understand much of it but have not really heard or spoken it in many, many years. Knowing it did help me to learn other languages (French, Spanish, Italian and Latin) but I have found that any language gets lost quickly if you don’t use it often. When we travel I still try to learn as many phrases as possible before we leave, but not much of it sticks when we get back home. I have found that making the effort counts for a lot.

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  34. Kathie B

    P.S. Corey, you make another important point re Sacha having acquired “a rich slang vocabulary” during his Willows year.
    Among the hardest things to learn in another language are slang and a significant body of popular culture references — which is one reason I like to collaborate on translations with a native Portuguese-speaker whenever possible (preferably one from the Azores, if it’s an Azorean author’s writing). It can be something as simple as a line from the lyrics to a famous Portuguese song that I don’t know, or a line in a poem or other writings that I’ve never read, while slang frequently involves a meaning that has little or nothing to do with the word or phrase’s literal meaning 🙁
    Just think about all the pop culture references in the US that we use without a second thought, not just from literature and song lyrics but also lines or plots from old TV shows and movies… In fact, didn’t you mention that it was only recently that you saw some episodes of the sit-com (situation comedy) “Friends” for the first time? That show alone has contributed a lot of pop culture references.

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  35. Jillayne

    I love this post Corey!
    Growing up in a bilingual country, it is surprising how much French you pick up without realizing it. It was also a subject at school from Grade 5 to 12 as well, so I can certainly get by, but it was surprising what tripped me up…
    I was looking for linen fabric and so asked for “fabrique” or “materiel”, only to get vague looks – it was as we drove down a main street in a larger city that I saw the sign “Tissue” with bolts of fabric under it. Tissue is a word for something in English – it’s something for blowing your nose!
    And in the marche, it was as if all the boxes were on the shelves backwards – French was facing out. I automatically would turn them around looking for the English side (which is how everything is packaged here – in both French and English), only to find more French!
    Halfway through the trip I was thinking in French as much as in English and was speaking a gibberish that combined both – my husband gave me the funniest look when I asked the waiter “Qu’est-ce que le poisson of the day?” All I can say is that it made perfect sense to me.
    We have been home a week now and I still have to think about what I’m saying – cafe grand creme is non-existent here, and the money still doesn’t look quite right.
    I love how adaptable we humans are, and how quickly we can make something so foreign our new normal.

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  36. RebeccaNYC

    I speak French, sort of. The problem is, as a singer, I sing in French all the time, so my pronunciation is fairly accurate. When I get to France and start speaking, people always assume I SPEAK it. Then I get totally lost and embarrassed. My friends in France tell me I am the only person they know whose French has gotten WORSE the more time I spend there. gotta work on that!

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  37. Cherise

    I lived in Thailand for a few years and when I first arrived, found myself speaking Spanish to the Thais. When I came back to San Antonio, found myself in a taco stand with Spanish-speaking staff, asking for a taco in Thai…..and note I speak neither language with anything close to fluency. English is my native language and though I have a smattering of Thai, Spanish, German, and have learned a bit of Swahili, I’m still monolingual for the most part.
    My husband is Swiss, first language French. He speaks only French to our kids, who understand it very well. My almost 5 yr old, however, refuses to speak it. She says “In San Antonio we speak English…and Spanish.” because many of her friends are bilingual English/Spanish but not French. She’ll be starting a Spanish immersion program soon, but the husband will continue to speak to her (and the baby) only in French. Our hope is that our kids will be at least trilingual.
    As for me, I’ve been trying, very unsuccessfully, to learn French. Though I never gained fluency in the other languages, living in the place which spoke them helped, and I caught onto accents really well. French, however, I just can’t pronounce properly. I think your daughter was right about the lips.

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  38. mary blanchard

    I cannot but my daughter is fluent in French and English…My husband was Acadian French but alas I am English and unfortunately never spoke French as everyone in the community spoke English to me.
    ….Hats off to you Corey foe learning the language…I think it is awesome :o)

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  39. Diane

    I realize the need to speak some other language if I am ever to be recognized as an international woman of mystery. Thank you for mentioning it, I’m pretty sure I will need to say ‘dry fart’ in multiple languages. I better get started on that before setting out on my next trip, be it France or wherever it may be.

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  40. Alison Murray Whittington

    Amy, I was an exchange student in Germany at 16, too, and I’ve also lost a lot of fluency, but still find myself slipping in German words when I can’t find the English one! I’m studying Spanish intensely now, and find that it’s actually bringing my German back some, which I imagine has to do with brain’s language storage.
    Where in Germany did you live?

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  41. Alison Murray Whittington

    I have loved reading everyone’s comments. I would very much like for our 1-year-old to be multilingual. My husband speaks Spanish fairly well (and I am studying Spanish intensely), and I once spoke German very well, but English is our native language, and it is hard to remember to speak the other languages around our son. I fear he will end up with just a smattering of words.
    I do my best to study and listen to Spanish around him though, so that even if he doesn’t actually learn to speak it, the groundwork and sounds will be in his brain, so someday that may help him pick it up.

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  42. Jane Ann

    What fun today’s post is! I love languages and would really like to be bilingual. English is my first and at one time was pretty good in German. This only acquired after many years in school. I’ve always had a good ear for accents and used to be able to imitate many. French has a language has always seemed very difficult to me. I wish I would have studied that in school instead of German, which was fairly easy for me. My daughter and were blessed with a trip to France last year. Oh how we studied! We got several of the individualized programs and studied our heads off. We were feeling quite proud of our accomplishments until we arrived in France. No one could understand us! There usual response when we spoke was, “English?” Oh well, I think we both suffer from the lip problem, plus the added brain complication. Corey, you have given your children a true gift! Our home is American English through and through, with Swedish and French only spoken by great grandparents. We have to learn it on our own.

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  43. joanne nixon

    i grew up in detroit, michigan. we lived with my grandmother who spoke only polish…my parents spoke a combination of polish/english since they were both american born and were schooled in english. i went to a catholic school where the first year also included some elementary polish. when i went to high school i learned latin and french since we were so close to canada….in college, i took italian….as a young mother, my son became deaf at age 5 so languages took a rest.
    when i moved to arizona, i took a year of spanish and a year of american sign language….i am proficient in none of these languages…but i know a smattering of all….
    my deaf son laughs at my signing…most of the time, he asks me (in english) what the heck i am trying to say to him in sign….sigh…
    he graduated with highest honors from university and now is studying german….he also can read spanish…he will also study french as part of his masters program…..
    my husband and children speak english only…..
    you could say that our family is a mish mash of craziness…lol but it is such fun!

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  44. susanna

    I think it’s great and a gift when parents teach their children a second language, whether it’s part of their family history or an entirely new culture. I’m glad that Sasha had a great time in California and that he was able to polish up his English – and learn American slang along the way! Way to go, Sasha! And Chelsea’s conclusion as to why your mother couldn’t speak French has me grinning.

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  45. Jacqueline

    I just love reading your posts. Traveling to China, seeing your son graduate from an american high school, and your daughter doing her internship. And don’t even mention French Husband, and your new phone, camera, what ever it is. I’ve been without internet access for a week and couldn’t wait to get back to see what you were up to.
    I teach French and Spanish in a high school, it is really hard to teach teenagers another language. Singing seems to help. I show them every French movie (that’s appropriate) that I can get my hands on. I wish I had someone to speak French with, I’m the only French teacher with 2 Spanish teachers. I really want to try Italian. Glad to get back to see what you all are up to.

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  46. juliette

    Do I speak a second language?
    I would say thanks to You my dear, sweet, lovely, tender, sexy, maternal and infinitely comprehensive Aunte.

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  47. Victoria Ramos

    My father was Portuguese and bilingual, his mom (my grandmother) couldn’t speak english hardly at all, being an immigrant from Madeira. My mom was not (Norwegian and Black foot Indian – but that’s another story).
    My grandmother had been a widow since my dad was 2 and when he returned from WWII he stayed and lived with her to take care of her. Even when my parents married and then finally had me. My mom finally wanted a home of her own so we moved a few miles away when I was about 2 years old. Later Portuguese was only spoken when my grandmother came over or when she would call on the phone.
    Grandma died when I was about 8. Dad died when I was 12. I wish he had spoken it more in the house as I am sure it would of helped me later to pick up other languages in school.
    But I have an odd understanding of Portuguese. When I go to Festas or gatherings I can usually understand what they are saying – but I can’t speak it.
    Which brings me to another question you asked last week about middle names…..mine is Louise after my grandmother Luisa. In fact, Dad loved his mom so much he wanted that to be my first name, but my mom said no. Later mom relented and my third sister is named Louise….and I think if my Dad his way, we all would have Louise in there somewhere….

    Reply

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