Friday 30 March 2012

Lingua Franca

We all know Brits are rubbish at languages; it's a national characteristic. People blame antiquated foreign-language teaching methods, laziness, lack of will, lack of necessity when all the world understands English, Empire, island isolationism, and probably a hundred other factors. You know what? I think it comes down to sheer embarrassment.
Fairly obviously, one of the major features of living in a foreign land is the need to get by in a foreign language. I long ago resigned myself to the fact that I came at it too late in life and will never become utterly fluent and relaxed in French. Still, by dint of hard work and necessity, I have become pretty competent. By far the biggest hurdle to overcome was my wish to avoid errors at any cost. This can easily lead to saying nothing rather than exposing one's ignorance.
“Into the face of the young man who sat on the terrace of the Hotel Magnifique at Cannes there had crept a look of furtive shame, the shifty hangdog look which announces that an Englishman is about to speak French.”
P.G. Wodehouse, Luck of the Bodkins 

I have a very dear friend who is Dutch. The Dutch, as we all know, speak every European language "effortlessly". When I first met this friend, we holidayed a lot together and I had plenty of opportunity to marvel at her facility in English (near perfect), German and French. She will happily engage strangers in long, complicated discussions on almost any subject. As my French has improved over the years, I have come to realise that hers is in fact not brilliant; nowadays she often relies upon me to do the understanding bits. Inspite of this, she is still the more chatty, partly because that is her nature, but mainly because she has no qualms about mistakes but ploughs on regardless.

Which brings me to my point: if someone says to me "Do you speak French?", I'll reply along the lines of "After a fashion" or "I get by", or "Not really, but I try". Whereas, the large numbers of French people who know about a dozen words of English seem utterly convinced that they do, indeed, speak English, and are all too ready to demonstrate this fact. This leads to many tortuous conversations where the other party insists upon struggling manfully to communicate with their dozen words, when it is patently clear that sticking to French would be far more productive.

Doctors seem particularly afflicted by this syndrome. When my son was very young, he had various minor complaints which led to numerous referrals to paediatricians and the like. So many times, I have sat across the desk from some medical specialist who, the second he hears my accent, lapses into a strangled pidgin English which makes little, if any, sense. I usually respond to this by merely continuing to speak French, in the hope they will get the hint, when really all I want to do is scream at them "For Goodness' sake, speak properly, man!"


Of course, it is lovely of them to make the effort, and I appreciate it, really I do, but ...

9 comments:

  1. I had passed 'O' level French years before and work had required an upgrading of my reading skills in French to a pretty high standard before life took me to France - but as for speaking it...!

    First, all my neighbours spoke patois....

    Then I was lucky in that the man running the town library introduced me to a lady who had been principal of a maternelle - a born teacher who had learned her English when her daughters were learning it at school.

    She was so encouraging...but her joke used to be
    'You, my dear, when you speak French, are a woman with no past and no future!'

    Thanks to her though I ploughed on regardless and achieved a reasonable standard, though to this day I'm blowed if I can tell you what the tenses are called, even though I know how to use them.

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    1. I had a very ancient and unused (and barely passed) A-level when I arrived. I found there were a lot of stray-ends of grammar knocking about in my head, but very little useful vocab, so I could construct a subjunctive, but I coudn't find a word for a dinner-plate.

      As for the patois: about 6 moths after setting up the business, I went to some out-of-the-way hamlet to look at house the owner wanted to sell. I was met by an ancient man who proceeded to talk at me without pause for about 10 minutes. I was only getting about one word in ten and not understanding the meaning at all. I was really getting fed up, because until then I had been feeling my progress with French was OK. Then he suddenly stopped and said "Oh, you don't understand me! Hang on a minute, I'll fetch my son, who speaks French".

      What a relief!

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  2. I find this very encouraging. As someone whose school girl French has always been fine to get us by on holidays, I panicked about managing when living in France. However, my approach has always been to just plough on, not worrying about grammatical niceties. Mark, my husband , is having lessons, and worries about getting really complex sentences absolutely right....so he says nothing, while I carry on, make mistakes, getting smiles and applause for trying, and....amazingly enough, making myself understood. I shall continue ! Love this post!

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    1. Do continue!!! It's the only way.

      Bon courage

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  3. When can only improve with practice!

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    1. That's the spirit!

      My hubby has 'phone phobia. I've adopted a tactic of leaving the room when it rings, and he always manages.

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  4. Hi,

    Shall I add Holt Immo to my Google map with English speaking estate agents in France ?

    http://www.affidata.co.uk/sh/property-for-sale/english-speaking-estate-agents-france

    Jos.

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  5. I think the embarrassment factor is huge for many British, as you say, and I still find myself falling into that trap as well as the one of not wanting to make mistakes. My grammar is actually pretty good as I learnt my French in the days when we still had to learn tenses and endings off by heart. I find recalling vocabulary and memorising new words much harder than the grammar, but I get by and no longer flinch when the phone rings. :-)

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    1. My grammar is still patchy and when I need to write things properly, it takes me an age, but speaking is easier - you can get away with murder by talking very fast!

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