“Everyone has a plan until they get hit.”
~Mike Tyson.
Studying French for 1.5 months and then arriving in France thinking I’m a badass knowing how to sling a few sentences together was a notion rudely trussed, cooked, carved up and served back to me on a giant silver platter called humility by a certain French checkout girl yesterday at Decathlon.
I’d already been to the Bordeaux Apple Store (which is awesome), Animal’s World for pet supplies (also awesome), Orange and Ikea and flattered by people taking my money into thinking that I’m doing OK. Standing at the back of the line at Decathlon at the end of the day a checkout girl hurls a handful of words at me and waits while the entire line turns around and stares at me. I completely froze and couldn’t utter a word of french. I leaned over and in squeaky english said “I don’t speak french” and wanted to die. She gesticulated wildly at the line next to me and I walked over there and she stopped gesticulating. I still have no idea what she said.
I started today screwing up my first verb “parlez” instead of “je parle” after I was sure I’d at least get that right. Learning French and actually speaking it is like going from boxerobics to Mike Tyson swinging at your head.
It is called boxersize. Try Russian.
Try first speaking Afrikaans and then when they are puzzled you and they will default to English. I find this works for me.
I traveled around France with just a phrasebook and did just fine. The problem you get is that some of the people like to score points against foreigners who are trying their best to speak French. It’s almost as if they despise you for some reason. I got on great with the older folks, but the kids just had such a chip on their shoulders it made me wonder what their problem was. BTW I picked up the accent well enough for them not to realize I was English, and they only found out when my buddy started chatting to me in English. Lolz eh?
I studied French all throughout high school and then when i was in my mid-twenties i moved to france for 2 years. when i first arrived i literally could not order water. .. and that was something i was sure i knew how to do. when you get there it sounds like a totally different language. also, i miss the decathalon… and baguettes and boiring du vin.
I lived in Montreal for a year some years ago, and my French was terrible. But I was getting along.
Then I went to the “Dep” (dépanneur) to buy some beer, and I don’t know what happened but after a couple of pleasantries, the gal behind the counter said in French: paper or plastic? I don’t know how she said it, or what was up with her accent, but I just didn’t get it and froze.
Of course she could already tell I was anglophone, so she just smirked and switched to English: “paper or plastic?” I could have died.
Now I’m in Paris until July and my French is still terrible. This is after learning French in junior high, high school, college, and passing a reading exam in grad school. Oh well!