Je comprend un peu seulement
I typically have no regrets. Je ne regret rien. I mean that. I make decisions, reap whatever those decisions can reward, and then make new decisions. With one exception: I regret not functioning in Canada’s second official language. No better time to lament this than on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, Fête nationale du Québec, celebrated on June 24 by French-Canadians.
In the 70s, I attended Brookside Public School buried deep in the country in southwestern Ontario. Canada’s Official Languages Act was passed in 1969 reflecting the country’s dual colonization centuries earlier.* Although there were some people who lived around me who spoke Dutch and many who spoke primarily the low German dialect of the Amish people, I say with a good degree of confidence everyone else was unilingual - there were certainly nearly no native speakers of French in Huron County. Nonetheless, the good people on the Huron County Board of Education embraced the new direction of the feds and decided students would begin French in grade 3 and continue until the end of grade 8.
Madam T came to each classroom once per week to drill us on verb conjugations, “Je suis, tu es, il est, etc,” and teach us “Bonhomme, Bonhomme” and other catchy quebecois ditties. She wasn’t the sweetest teacher: she once threw a book in the general direction of a pupil and she certainly threw tantrums regularly. Harsh and instructive words alike were in English. I was good at memorisation, appreciated learning the logic of grammar, and had a loud clear singing voice, so I kept her happy and did well in French. (My French proficiency offset my abysmal performance in phys ed, which she also taught.)
At my tender age, I had no idea how absurdly this language business was being taught. I didn’t realize we’d be better off learning how to share ideas with each other, just as we did in English and just as French-speaking children did. Madam T never asked us to speak en français other than the rote sentences explaining the weather or reciting the date, which we all shouted fearfully in unison on command. I’m sure she delivered the curriculum the way she’d been instructed. But if it were today, we’d describe it as an “epic fail.” (or échec épique — thank you google translate)
I headed to a new school in grade 9, FE Madill in Wingham. French class was not mandatory and I’m not sure why I continued on with it - probably just inertia. There was a full-time French teacher with a French surname but seemingly no obvious connection to Quebec or France. I was joined in my new French class by a number of students from other elementary schools, Madill having a much bigger catchment area. The students had no greater understanding of French than I did. We spent the first 30 minutes of each class chanting verb conjugations — new tenses! — just as we had in previous years. His schtick - again, all in English - was to make jokes about people’s name like “Marilyn/Marilyout - in or out, doesn’t matter, it’s not my name” or “Hey Chandelier, get up and swing,” a line he’d perfected on one of my older sisters and pulled out again for me. He typically knocked off teaching early and let us listen to the Beatles White Album — his favourite track was Revolution 9 — and read Paris Matchmagazine. While we did that, he poked himself to test his blood sugar, while we concluded French was useless, when the teacher had so little concern any of us would master it.
After three years of enjoying drug addled pop music and glossy mags but getting no further in fluency, I dropped French from my schedule. I resumed in 3rd year university where I started again at the beginning, not feeling l could reliably count on the nine years of French tutelage I’d had to date. French 101 at Mac was a breeze and the next year, only slightly more challenging. We still steered well clear of anything resembling communication.
Fifteen years passed before I dipped my toes dans l’eau again. I took an overseas internship at the European Commission in Brussels during law school. I had many motivations for my term abroad, not least of which was I hadn’t ever lived outside Canada. It seemed like a good chance to remedy that. And a side-bonus, French is one of the official languages of the EU, and of course, of Belgium. I was in a legal unit with lawyers from five countries, all of whom were fluent in the two most commonly used languages of the EU - English, French - but also many others. As one of two native speakers of English, I was there to edit ‘frequently asked questions’ about a particular contract, all written in English. My hopes to advance my French were dashed not because I didn’t have the opportunity but because my confidence held me back. As a volunteer, I felt entitled to bunk off work early for a French class where during the class I had conversations - stilted, awkward, orchestrated by the teacher - in French but at the breaks and after class, all social interaction with my classmates was in English. They were all so eager to practise their language with me, the only native speaker of English in the class. The only thing more important than learning French to them, newcomers to Brussels, was to perfect their English. Because Belgium is made up of French and Flemish speakers, the lingua franca is English and therefore if you’re going to learn only one language, that’s the one to have.
It’s très difficile to put yourself out there in another language. Most of the time, I’m too worried about the embarrassment of screwing up someone else’s language, something I’m so proud of in English. The day I left Brussels I conducted an entire exchange at the post office in French and have never felt more accomplished.
Brussels was 18 years ago now. You can read about the fun I had there in a series I wrote at the time and that I posted on my blog starting here. But I came home with still-excellent English skills and a copy of French language learning software I have never used.
Living with Jack was an eye-opener in adult language acquisition. He’d arrived in Canada from Poland at age 35 with nearly no English vocabulary but the necessary chutzpah to master the language. By the time he died 33 years later, he often critiqued others’ English. He was a stickler in Polish and the grammar snob in me beamed when he first mocked someone (to me) who misused ‘whom.’ We often talked about how lucky we are as native English speakers — just as I found in my Brussels French lessons, we can go the world-round relying on everyone wanting to improve the smattering of it they know. It produces such linguistic arrogance in us! I’ve been to France a couple of times and of course to Quebec and I bumble around ordering coffee and getting onto the right train. But it’s awkward and I feel dumb. And inadequate.
Oh I know it’s never too late for anything - my dad taught me that. I could start to learn Swahili. Or Turkish. Or Finnish. Or perfect my French. But I probably won’t. And I’ll die with that one regret.
Bonne Fête Nationale!
* Those reading this outside Canada may not realize the two language groups largely live separately - French speakers primarily in Quebec and New Brunswick and English speakers everywhere else. Please forgive me for speaking in general terms here - I know there are pockets elsewhere where French is also common.
