One thing I really love in the world in the French language. Actually, I am true francophile and love anything and everything gallic, but I'll limit myself to gushing about la langue today. I don't know when my passion for it began, but I've always had an interest in and affinity for language. As I didn't have the opportunity to learn a second language at school (my school offered Italian in years 7 and 8 but unfortunately nothing beyond that) and always regretted that, I began learning French as an adult a few years back, first at the CAE and later at the Alliance Francaise de Melbourne.
I began studying a little while after I started my PhD. I was a resident tutor at one of the university colleges at the time and the Dean of the college and I signed up for night classes together. We used to walk down into the city on a Tuesday evening and we'd practice our rudimentary attempts to get basic information out of each other - question and answer style. Where do you live? How old are you? Basic, introductory French.
Of course, my aim was to relocate to France where I would live out my life as a chic Parisian. I know this makes me sound like an ungrateful Australian, but I've always wished I was from somewhere other than here. Most of my fantasies in life revolve around me not only being taller, but being European and multilingual, too. French, Danish, English, Finnish - I've wished myself a variety of nationalities over the years, and I daresay would have settled for any of them at any given point! It's not just that I think it would be great to have an EU passport so I could travel and work freely wherever my heart desired (although I am envious of anyone who has access to same), but I'm truly fascinated by the experience of the other - what it feels like to call a different place home, and particularly what it is like to grow up multilingual, as most Europeans are.
You see, I desperately wish I was much better at speaking French (or any foreign language) than I am. I really believe in the cognitive benefits of language learning and I have this desperate curiosity to know what it is like to think, and really express yourself, in another language. However, though I've been interested in learning French for many years, I don't always stick with the courses, and great swathes of time elapses between me enrolling in one, and then the next. Partly this is simply because the effort to go to the absolute other side of town for class of an evening is something of a drag. But partly it's because I'm so stupidly easily frustrated by how long it takes to progress. Though I'm probably about intermediate level in my reading, writing and speaking, my listening skills, for example, are still really poor, and it's hard to develop those when you are not immersed in the language. Two hours a week, and a little bit of homework in between, doesn't really seem to get me very far.
Last year, however, I was really fortunate to spend two weeks in Nice studying French by immersion. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me and though it was very hard, by the end of the fortnight I really felt like I was just starting to improve. I was able to understand much of what was said in class, and I successfully negotiated our entire stay by speaking French, to which the locals in Nice and its surrounds were very receptive. It was truly such a thrilling feeling. I can't quite think of anything else that's able to give me the real spark I experienced in realising I understood, and could be understood, using a language that I'd only fairly recently acquired. The two weeks in Nice were two of the best weeks of my life, but it also brought home to me how much I wanted to stay, and how the only chance I really had of ever becoming fluent was to live for an extended period of time in a French-speaking country, which I knew was unlikely to happen.
Curiously, I have not been back to class since then, and have probably lost much of the advantage I gained during that time. Why? Well, I don't know, but I suspect it has something to do with my silly brain saying to me 'what's the point in learning this if you will never be fluent; if you will never be perfect'. I'm well aware this is a really unhelpful way to think, and in fact prevents me from experiencing the enjoyment of learning along the way. I'm also aware of the irony that by attending even some classes I'd be much further along the way to becoming fluent than I am sitting at home just thinking about it!
So, what do I love about the French language? Let me count the things. Well, I'll count five things otherwise I'll be here all day. I love:
- that the French are so unashamedly pedantic about protecting the quality of their language. They don't take kindly to foreigners' attempts to butcher it, nor attempts to change or question it. They even have an advisory body whose aim is to act as the authority on the usages, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language - L'Académie française. I love that they take the protection of their language so seriously! I really love it!
- listening to people speak French, and hope to obtain some of their je ne sais quois by aspiring to speak like them. I am the sort of person who loves listening to people read me or tell me stories - I love the sounds of language, and I find the sounds of French very alluring. I could listen to French chanteurs (singers) for hours, and happily watch French movies even if I had no hope of following the story line. It makes my ears happy, and ears don't often get the chance to experience true happiness these days, don't you think?
- how the French have an exception to every rule. There are regular verbs and irregular verbs, and exceptions to regular verbs and irregular verbs. Although this means that there is a whole list of verbs you need to memorise by rote as they don't ascribe to the rules of other verb groups, I just love that French doesn't care how difficult or annoying it is to learn. I'm sure that new learners of English would say the same thing about the many nuances of our language, but as our first language, we don't notice or have an awareness of how we form language, we just do it. Learning French enables me to really question things about language structures, patterns of acquisition, and grammar. In fact, I've learned more about English grammar by studying French than I ever did by studying English my entire life.
- that the French make wonderfully quirky films that really resonate with me, and it's a real thrill to be able to watch them without being so reliant on the subtitles. It makes going to the French Film Festival infinitely more enjoyable and satisfying.
- that when I'm speaking it, or surrounded by people who are speaking it, I get to feel like I'm someone else for a while - I get to live my fantasy of being French, however misguided a fantasy it is!
Here is one of my favourite YouTube videos of all time. Tell me you don't want to have French-speaking babies too after watching this!
