Christian Science Monitor: “Every day, I arm myself with my French
dicitonary”
-October 10, 2002
Running out the door, I check to make sure I have my Metro pass, my coat
and, oh yes, my words.
This is because I am often required to construct French sentences using
vocabulary I don't normally store in the obsolete Rolodex that resides
inside my brain. For example, last week, I found it necessary to say,
"Sorry, but a pair of my wife's underpants has landed on your balcony."
As a relative newcomer to Paris, and many great leaps away from French
fluency, I usually pause before running headlong into the city to think:
Now, what do I need to say today? Is it "ripe avocados" or "oozing yellowish
pus"? "Analysis of customer profitability" or, perhaps, "Thank you, but
I think I'll keep that right toe after all"?
My wife and I recently purchased a piece of wall-to-wall carpeting for
our bedroom. We also got a swath of this heavy-duty soundproof mat. When
we'd dragged the huge rolls home with us (on the subway, since we don't
have a car; we are masters of the "Metro move") we realized we, or ideally
the rug shop, had miscalculated the dimensions of the room.
Already, the rug was breaking our budget, but we'd deemed the mat essential
since discovering how loud our neighbors could be. We'd need an additional
chunk of matting, but already felt we couldn't afford what we'd been given.
Did the shop owe us a few free square meters, since it was, I argued,
the salesman who'd punched the wrong figures into his calculator?
I was determined to find out, but knew my high school French wasn't up
to the task. Before I left the house that day to confront the rug shop
(and face the infamous smokescreen of French customer service), I sat
down with my verb book and a notepad to sketch out a grammatical plan
of attack. If the sales guy says this, I thought to myself, then I'll
say that.
The topper was the following sentence, which both dredged up painful memories
of Madame Dubois's French III class and sprained my cerebral cortex: "Had
we known the rug liner might have been so expensive we would not have
bought it. Um, Sir."
Armed with my sentence, and a whole phalanx of phrases and arrows and
imperfect tenses referring to the cut-throat world of floor coverings,
I stormed into the rug shop.
It's odd being surrounded by language you don't quite understand. Scariest
of all, after almost three years in Paris, I know enough French to at
least fake my way through conversations.
It's a dangerous game because, depending on the topic or tête-à-tête partner,
I can actually fool people, and myself, into thinking I'm getting it all.
Being a two-year old must be like this. A kid that age hears you speak,
certain words or phrases make sense, but the rest needs be inferred: "Blah
kitchen blah blah hit floor blah blah blah electrocution blah blah hands
naughty blah grapefruit."
The grapefruit is electrified? If I'm naughty, I'll be pummeled with grapefruit?
Everything's fine, but my hands will be tied, and I'll be forced to eat
the grapefruit off the kitchen floor? Some assembly required.
Of course, it's also like this for my Parisian acquaintances who must
endure my massacre of their language, their heads cocked to one side,
brows knit with sympathy.
When people ask what it's like living in Paris, I usually say, "Wonderful.
I love the challenge. Yep, I'm learning everyday."
What they're not hearing is the silent expatriate scream of a man who
simply wants to be able to say "Give me a break" without having to consult
his on-line Oxford dictionary.
"I love the language, the sound, and the freedom to be in ways two people
within myself," writes poet and teacher Jennifer Dick, a longtime Paris
resident. "Speaking pidgin-French like the least educated person in town
is a really humbling thing, to find yourself reduced to half-verbal grunts."
Easy for her to say.
As for me, I do feel my linguistic schizophrenia has its advantages. The
rug shop manager took pity on me.
After hearing my convoluted account, he handed over a few meters of black,
muffling mat, for free. Then said, "No problem. Now, please soundproof
yourself."
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