By mariacort3s
"… Désolée, vous pouvez répéter?" I say the first time I do not understand what someone has said to me in French, the second time I give them a confused look to let them know I still haven't gotten it, and the third time I just laugh and let it go and I am left to wonder for the rest of my life what the heck that conversation was about.
While there are times that I feel my French is really improving, there are other times were I wanna pull my hair off my head especially when I forget for the 50th time what chair and to sit is in French.
This experience with language has taught me the amount of effort I have to put in to really learn. Not all, but many French words are similar to their English or Spanish counterpart so like rubber in French is caoutchouc and in spanish its caucho so its really useful knowing both languages because I can say the word in English or Spanish with a French accent and 60% of the time it will work. In person it's also easy to communicate because with body language and pointing my fingers at things, I can send my message across. Sometimes when people call me, I pray for two seconds before answering in hopes we are able to understand each other simply through our voices.
When I speak in English with someone after a while, it feels amazing because I can just speak freely knowing I can conjugate instantly and actually get my message across. When something in English comes on TV, I listen so well as if I had never heard the language before. Getting to speak English or hearing it, is like coming home after a long day. It's a relief.
This experience with French has shown me how my parents must feel sometimes in the USA. I used to get angry at my dad for always changing the language on HBO movies to Spanish because I felt this impeded him from learning English better but my experience here is that with TV if its in a language that you are not going to fully get, there's only so much you will get out from just watching images and not understanding the words. Of course TV does help to enforce your hearing skills but it is difficult and requires a huge amount of effort on your own part to be willing to listen, enjoy the movie, but also be mindful about the language. This is my apology letter to my parents for sometimes forcing English on them and getting annoyed at times when they wanted me to speak to customer service if they did not have the Spanish option. I have never given them the credit for learning the language at their age and for putting themselves out there. Thank you.
One time in D.C, an uber driver from Senegal told me that even if you speak the language bad, just speak it, at least you are trying. Language is beautiful and lets you communicate with so many people. As awesome as I feel when I talk in English with someone here, I know that’s how a French Cameroonian feels when I make the effort and speak to them. Today, my host mom's son in law came and spoke to me in Spanish in a full conversation, it felt like home.
Language is communication and comfort.