Most of us go abroad from time to time and it gives us the opportunity to use our “Bakery-level French”, our “Restaurant-level Spanish”, our “Oh-bollocks-I’m-lost-level Italian” or our knowledge of the script of the film “Deliverance” so as to get us through the average day in the States.
Now, I’m not being immodest but there’s a whole World of difference between buying a baguette and explaining, over the phone, in a foreign language, precisely what it is about the behaviour of your cable telly decoder that leads you to think that it’s all cocked up and, furthermore, “when are you telecoms shitpots ever going to provide anything resembling an acceptable level of service?”. You get the picture, I’m sure, but that’s just one tiny facet of the home front. Then, of course, there’s the work-related stuff.
It’s a common and totally understandable misconception that, in addition to my needing to get by and survive in the French language in the domestic and social arenas, my difficulties must be multiplied by ten each time I walk into the office. Whilst it’s certainly difficult from time to time, at the pure and simple level of my needing to understand what’s being said around me, it’s usually actually substantially easier inside the office than outside it.
The explanation for this is bog-basic. It’s more about numbers than words. More precisely, it’s about numbers of words. What I do in France, as far as work is concerned, is certainly still loosely related to what I did for the same company for 3 years in the UK. What we all do for the company, you might say our “raison d’être”, here in France, in the UK and in 15 countries besides is, largely, the same thing. We all try to use marketing, technology and the effective presentation of a good range of products so as to entice our current and potential customers to buy from us instead of from someone else or, of course, not buying at all.
That appreciated, I’m sure you can see that there’s only so much vocabulary associated with this raison d’être. Don’t get the idea that I’m saying that what we have to do is, in any way, simple. It’s anything but. It’s monstrously complicated to do what we do. Tens of thousands of products per season in many countries, millions of orders in many languages, all that different legislation from one country to the next, all those trends and seasonal nuances to be observed and, of course, oodles of subjectivity amongst thousands of people. It’s amazing that we achieve anything at all but, I assure you, we do. Of course, that’s a bit of waffle about how complex the business is but we’re not here to talk about that on this occasion. We’re interested in the language and the fact is that, despite this outrageous complexity of process, when I’m in the office, there’s a merciful “ring-fence” around the vocabulary associated with this mega-intricate business. Ok, it’s a pretty big fence but, as each week and month goes by, more of the required office vocabulary is added to my repertoire and, slowly but surely, it’s becoming increasingly rare that some terminology apposite to the job is completely lost on me. We’re only ever going to be talking about a limited number of things – lots of things, yes, but a limited number all the same.
Once outside the office, in a bar, in a shop, on a date, walking through town or when the phone rings, there’s effectively no limit at all as to the subject matter that could be involved in a conversation. As you’ll appreciate, this can be substantially more difficult than any office-bound conversation. In a bar, someone could attempt to talk to me about a subject which isn’t well-known to me, using nouns, verbs, adjectives and all the other kinds of words which I might never hear in a whole year of office days. Then, of course, there are names. Names come in all flavours here and it’s easily possible to hear a bunch of syllables in the middle of a phrase, to begin trying to decipher them as a part of the message, only to realise later that those mysterious syllables were, in fact, a person.
If you didn’t already know, then this set of blogs has probably alerted you to the fact that I’m someone who can talk….and talk…..and talk! I have to admit that I’m gradually edging towards being just as verbose in French as I am in English! My French is anything but perfect but, because I’m keen to improve, I’ll continue to do just that and, as painful as this process might be for those around me, the more I talk, the better I’ll be. As I now come perilously close to Thursday, which will mark one full year over here, I think I’m very aware of what it’ll take for me to become truly fluent in French and that is, quite simply, one more complete year. I need to stay diligent. As much as I enjoy writing this gibberish in English, it has to remain the exception. For the most part, the rest of my existence has to continue to be conducted in French.
My French colleagues are fantastic when it comes to their tolerance of my dodgy French and, for the most part, they’ve found exactly the desired “level of correction”. It would be pretty tedious, for them and me alike, were they to pull me up on every little error I might make but, of course, it wouldn’t help me to learn were they never to correct me at all. They know that, if I ask them to cast an eye over a particularly important mail I need to send, I don’t necessarily want or need them to tailor it into a French version of one of Stephen Fry’s shopping lists. I just need to get the message across in a fairly professional manner and, if I’ve made a really goofy blunder which will make us look daft, they realise that I would want to be pointed in the right direction. I never seriously complain at their corrections, even if I do have a few “mock” outbursts from time to time, during which I typically accuse them, tongue firmly in cheek, of being “racists, abusing an ethnic minority in the workplace”. As they’re all female, I occasionally have cause to accuse them, tongue still firmly in cheek, of being “sexists, abusing a gender minority in the workplace”. Often, I combine the two and state that I’m little more than a prisoner, an object of ridicule, a plaything! Having used the word “ridicule”, it’s only fair to add that it’s extremely rare for anyone, in the office or elsewhere, to laugh at me as a result of my French. For the most part, the old saying we have in the UK about “them” appreciating the effort we might make to communicate in French, is absolutely true. My French colleagues clearly fit that notion of ours and, on the odd occasion when someone really does crack up as a direct result of some outrageous manifestation of poxy French on my part, it really doesn’t bother me much at all. I just remember certain sequences of Monty Python, I realise that I probably sound completely bizarre and I laugh along with them, privately hoping that I can avoid the particular cock-up behind this laughter in future. As I’ve implied before, I’m happy to accept that it’s their country I’m living in. It’s their language I’m strangling and, if they find cause to laugh at me, to laugh at me is their prerogative and, amongst all of it, I like making people laugh. Ok, I prefer it when I intend to!
My boss gave me a back-handed compliment a few weeks back. I was spouting off about something I deemed quite serious in a meeting and, after I’d “blown my smoke”, instead of his having commented on the point I’d made, he turned to my colleagues and said, in French, of course, “Don’t you think it’s great how much Graham’s French has improved? His speaking so fluidly, with so few hesitations, really makes me think of Jane Birkin. Do you all think of Jane Birkin too when you hear Graham speak?” Well, whatever they thought, I didn’t know what to think at all. Couldn’t he have chosen a famous English man who speaks pretty good French to use as example? I thought about giving him a list of 10 famous French-speaking Englishmen from whom to choose in the future but, to our collective shame, I couldn’t even think of 2. (The only one I could think of was Eddie Izzard but, apart from the fact that he was born in the Middle East and not England, no bugger had ever heard of him anyway so, fuck it, Jane Birkin it is).
I find the phone by far the most difficult way of communicating in French. I haven’t quite pinned down what it is that’s missing from this means of contact which makes it so much more difficult to exchange on the phone than face to face. Is it the face itself that’s missing? Maybe it’s specifically the eyes. Could it be hand movements or just those other more subliminal body gestures? At this stage, I really don’t know but, whatever it is, even the phone problem is diminishing as I find myself increasingly prepared to pick up the phone at work whereas, in the early months, I’d walk for 10 minutes to the other end of the building and descend 4 storeys just to visit someone at their desk for the quick “yes/no” answer I needed rather than pick up the phone.
That said, there’s still a big difference between my “outgoing” phone competence and my “incoming”. That is to say, if I decide that I need to give someone a call, I can think about it, work out something of a script and then off I go, with, as I said, increasing confidence. On the other hand, I have one of those phones which displays the name of the person on the other end and, quite frequently, my phone will ring, I look at the name displayed and it’s a name I’ve never even heard of before. The subject could be anything (within the ring-fence) and the level of importance could be anywhere between “banal” and “shit trousers”. The person could be anyone from the nit-nurse to God’s French nephew. This situation still sharpens the senses and, if I choose to pick the damned thing up, I can take a minute to put it all in context and to relax into the conversation.
Having alluded to the positive and pleasant people I work amongst, there are always exceptions. Just as there are impatient, intolerant, indifferent or downright hostile people in all large workplaces, a few rare examples of such people are to be found not too far from my desk (although, in all honesty, not amongst my immediate circle of colleagues). There’s always some git who thinks that it’s a plus point to take no account whatsoever of a “special needs” colleague such as me. Someone who’ll find pleasure in an exhibition of deliberate and unnecessary impatience. I give these people no satisfaction. I just make fun of myself which, of course, gains sympathy from the real human beings around the table and, of course, helps the offender to look like even more of a twat than they seem to want to look without my help. Thankfully, they are rare.
I have to admit to a certain resentment which arises in me from time to time. It was worse when I first arrived in France than it is now but it still gets my chèvre. If I wander into a bar, restaurant, tabac or whatever and I ask for something in French and the guy or gal behind the counter replies to me in “their English”, it can wind me up a little. It always makes me think to myself “I know that you appreciate the effort of a Brit coming in and speaking to you in French so why do you insult the effort I make by replying to me in English?” I know I could be accused of being a bit touchy but, at least at the start, it made me think that my French must have been really terrible and that my diligence was wasted. I’ve mellowed a little over the year in this respect and my French has improved radically so I now have choices which I didn’t have in those early weeks and months. These days, one choice I have is to say to myself “my French is better than his English so what do I care?” or, of course, I can use that very fact to address the situation. On more than one of these occasions, now having a reasonable level of confidence and competence, I’ve been known to ask the perpetrator, in French, if he is English. It seems to throw them off balance and we recommence the discourse in the language of the land. I realise that there are shedloads of bods here who have gained a good level of English from school, films and music and it’s no crime that they might wish to show it off a bit and get some practice in but, frankly, there are more than enough passing Brummies and Cockneys around, here for a few rounds of golf and a strong lager and unable to string two French letters together, (so to speak). My eager French friends will get plenty of opportunities with those types of oafs and so they have no need to practice on me. (I wish these French waiters well in avoiding picking up any Brummy or Cockney pronunciations along the way – A Frenchman could be scarred for life by finding that he’s erroneously been taught that “you” is pronounced “yow”! (Sorry, Dave! ;o) ))
Mentioning films and music is actually an extremely relevant allusion. For a British child to see or hear much French without trying is far more difficult than first meets the eye. Without French lessons in school, (a sadly diminishing obligation in the system), a Brit kid is likely to hit 18 years of age having heard of Cock Oh Van, John Renault (sic), the Eyeful Tower and a Peugeot 205 GTI with “Wayne & Kylie” written across the top of the windscreen. On the other hand, a French kid is marinated in English from birth. Ask a French kid what music he likes and I guarantee that at least 3 of 5 of his chosen “artistes” will be well-known Americans or Brits, ask him for a list of his favourite films or actors and, as regards the films, the word “Le” is unlikely to feature except in the case of “Le Deer Hunter” etc (I chose that film as an example as it’s one of my favourites) and, as for the actors, it’s likely that “Brrrad Peet” or some such will feature ahead of “Gerard Depaaaarrrrrrdieu”. Walk down a city street, even the quaint ones over my shoulder and you’ll see signs over shops saying things like “Le Snack” or “Le Inside Out”. Curiously, The Benny Hill Show still gets played, on mainstream telly, at 7:30pm on an almost nightly basis here. Imagine the difference between a Brit child having to learn French and a French child having to learn English. There’s no contest. It’s a combination of this contrast in exposure and, of course, the levels of keenness on opposing sides of the channel which renders us, (by which I mean Britons), distinctly disadvantaged when it comes to the battle of the lingo. Newborn Brits have already lost to the newborn French. Those newborn Brits will never get the exposure to French that their cousins over here will get to English. Good thing? Bad thing? Yes….. to both. If I were to say that it’s bad that French kids will be force-fed English, just by virtue of their being alive, I would have to concede that it would be bad for English kids to see and hear, every day, examples of a language they might, one day, be proud to have mastered. So, of course, I can’t say that it’s bad. I just wish that there was a balance to the equation. As it is, practically everyone in France has been exposed to more English by the age of 6 than the average Brit gets exposed to French in a lifetime. It doesn’t end there. As a former student of Latin and, as someone who, as sad as it seems, simply loves words, language and the power they offer, it’s increasingly clear to me just how similar languages like French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese etc really are and it irks me to think of how extraordinary the mastery of many of these languages is viewed as being by us Brits. The simple fact is that, once you are very good in any one of these languages, you are already able to understand the nuts and bolts of any of the others. As you might know, I’m not very much into priests (so to speak…. again) but I well remember, a couple of decades ago, being in huge admiration of the old Pope for his mastery of so many languages. I still admire his skill there but I have a much better grasp of his achievements now than I did at the time when they were first lauded and, whilst still a spectacular achievement, I think I see more clearly through the smoke and mirrors now.
Ok. It’s test time. Not so much a test of you as a demonstration of the challenges and dangers of knowing “quite a bit” of a language but not being completely fluent. I’m going to leave you with a few sentences in English. However, I’m going to replace some key words or phrases with XXXXX so as to represent my situation when listening to French in a noisy environment or just on a Monday morning. I hear a sentence but, perhaps, from time to time, there’s a word or two that I don’t get and yet, sometimes, I have to act immediately upon what’s just been said to me, without my having had the chance to find out what the missing word or words were. They’re just daft, dreamt-up examples but I think you’ll get the picture and appreciate the situations in which I can find myself!
“Graham, it’s extremely important that the XXXXX gets corrected straight after this meeting”
“My weekend was XXXXX. I hope I XXXXX one like that again”
“Could you please XXXXX at the earliest opportunity, if not, your XXXXX will probably go down”
“My XXXXX is giving me XXXXX today. Is this something you’d like to be involved with?”
“I’ve managed to get a XXXXX stuck in my XXXXX. What are your commitments this afternoon, please?”
“If I don’t have a XXXXX soon, my XXXXX will probably lose one of its XXXXX”
“XXXXX is probably the XXXXX person you could possibly meet”
“If I pull my XXXXX outside, I could easily stick your XXXXX in and that would be good for both of us, yes?”
“Can I XXXXX your XXXXX so that my friends can see what I’ve been XXXXX about?”
See? Nothing to it!
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