French: My experiences of learning the language
Tuesday, 4th May 2010
Cactus Editor Sarah Gooding tells us how she has learnt French over the years, and how she tries to incorporate it into her daily life now...
Childhood memories are hazy at best but I do remember my first French class, aged 8. Perhaps it was the tantalising realisation that this was a language different to the one I had grown up with – not just that, but one that I, little 8-year-old me, could now learn – or maybe it was those first cartoon pictures of men wearing berets, and long baguettes that bore no resemblance to the bread in my lunch box, that filled me with wonder and curiosity. Whatever the case, I sat in that first lesson, captivated.
Primary school led to secondary school French, Tricolore books were read and cast aside, the odd day trip to Boulogne was thrown in (which, if I’m honest, did little to endear France to me…you just don’t get to speak much French in the company of 30 teenagers), GCSE French went without hitch, A Level too, and before I knew it I’d signed up to study Modern Languages at university, more through default than anything else. I just happened to like languages and be pretty good at them. There were plenty of people who said, “Oh, you’re so lucky, you must have a flair for languages”, and I won’t deny that I didn’t find them hard. But I did work hard, and I’m sure it was my passion for languages and other cultures that drove me to put more into them than I did other subjects.
What I will say, though, is no matter how many years you study a language, you are never really going to get into it until you visit a country where it’s spoken. There will be a natural upper limit on your capacity – especially in terms of speaking the language – that simply can’t be surpassed if you remain on home soil. You need to be truly immersed in the language and culture, surrounded by its sights, sounds and people, to make the kind of progress that I believe really counts.
And this was something I only realised when I went on my first ‘proper’ trip to France, this time as a 20-year-old student enrolled at Pau University, in south-west France, for three months. As is the case with most language degree courses in the UK, you spend your third year ‘out’ and, as I had three languages to fit into my year abroad, I could sadly only spend a few months studying each. Still, I only needed one day the other side of the Channel to realise that no matter how happy I was to read and write in French, I really didn’t know how to speak it – and speaking the language was what was going to get me through the next three months, not reading Jean-Paul Sartre.
So, over the course of a winter in the spectacular city of Pau, the snow-capped Pyrenees looking over me (and luring me in on the odd weekend – more about that later), I learnt how to really speak the language I had been studying for 12 years previous. There was nothing for it but to get out there, talk to people, let myself make mistakes, get involved in numerous activities…it was exhilarating. I defy anyone to say that they don’t get a thrill from speaking a language – that lovely frisson when you say something and realise that you’re being understood and, further down the line, a real sense of satisfaction when you can actually have a conversation. And, to me, that thrill is addictive – the more I learn, the more I want to learn. I want to hear the words roll off my tongue more fluently. I want to see people’s faces light up when they realise I can speak their language. I want more.
Forward-wind to the end of university and I’m not sure I want to enter the world of work but I do know I want to keep up my languages. I get a visa for Canada and work there for a year, speaking a little French in Quebec but not really enough. I do ski a little in the Rockies, though, having picked up the bug in the few small resorts I visited on weekend trips to the Pyrenees, and this is the impetus for my next move.
I go to work for three winters in the Alps, working in the French office for a UK-based ski company. In charge of all transport arrangements, I find myself rising at a horrific hour every Saturday to direct French bus drivers, deal with irate airport staff, organise taxis at busy train stations and, if lucky, grab a quick croissant when the coast is clear. If there was ever a way to practise French this was it – I just had to think on my feet, act confident even when I didn’t feel it, and get round how to say something even if I didn’t have the vocabulary. Yet I still got that familiar buzz from speaking the language, pure adrenaline fuelling me on. And for all the exhaustion and stress that Saturdays entailed, the rest of the week I was awarded with a fabulous view of the mountains from my apartment window and – most coveted of all – a season pass for the slopes. I don’t regret a second.
I’m now in my mid-30s and it’s been almost ten years since my days in the Alps. I’ve had less chance to speak French since being back in the UK, and I can see how frighteningly easy it is to lose your languages. I’m now a busy mum wondering how to incorporate languages into my dual life of work and home, and am constantly reminding myself that there are various ways to do this. I have piles of old French magazines from my days abroad that are easy to leaf through when I only have five minutes; I try to read the headlines of foreign press online; I receive French Word-a-Day into my Inbox each day; I can rent a DVD of my favourite French movies to watch once little one’s gone to bed (Betty Blue, Le Placard, Amelie, Le Grand Bleu and Delicatessen come to mind straight away); we can travel as a family to French-speaking countries (last year we rented a cottage in Normandy); I can listen to French radio whilst cooking dinner…and so on. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t manage to do all these things all the time, but even if I do a few each week I’ll be reminding my brain that inside there somewhere is a small box labelled ‘French’, and I don’t want to close it and throw away the key. Let’s keep that box open because one day, hopefully, I’ll need to get out all its contents again.
Tags: learning a language, french
Posted by Sarah Gooding under Anecdotes, Attitudes to Language Learning,
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Posted by Laura on 06/04 at 11:47 AM
Tricolore <3 We used them too.
Do you have a link for the French "word a day" email? [Or indeed, such an email in German or Italian?]