French Language: Lost, in Translation

I swear, it feels like the only days I don’t have an awkward social interaction are the days that I stay at home.

“Je ne comprends pas.”

Thanks for reading Keith’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

“I don’t understand.”

Crap. I’m sure I said that right. Didn’t I?

It used to bother me more, but now it’s only when someone is being a jerk about it. Which doesn’t happen much, but more in France than almost anywhere else I have been. Now I just say it again.

“Um, hello? Stamps? Thanks?”

I am trying to get things, not to impress the locals with my mastery of the language.

Hello! Where is the ____? Thanks.

Hello! Sandwich! Thanks.

Hello! Espresso! Thanks.

Always say hello (bonjour) to everybody in France all the time. It’s weird if you don’t. Unless it’s a big city, then it’s weird if you do.

Is this normal? It might be.

Nantes is a smaller city, but still, I try to imagine the same situation if I were at home in New York. How would a waiter or a bartender respond if I started asking language questions?

“Hey, I’d like a beer. Hey - did I say that right? ‘I-would-like-a-beer’? Like that or ‘Iwouldlikeabeer’?

The usual questions are more about sides, like “do fries come with that?” and not grammar.

“Guy, I have like 15 tables here. Beer? What kinda beer?”

Any hesitation and they’re gone. It happens in France too.

Most people are actually incredibly cool. But still, I get corrected a lot.

I was an ESL teacher for about 20 years. I’ve got a master’s in linguistics and education. I know stuff. It really doesn’t help to correct people when they’re talking.

Well, it might help a little, but not if you’re being a dick.

If you have to correct, do it after someone has finished saying what they have to say.

I’m still not sure if it’s France or just some weird people in France

A French friend told me recently, “we are very strict when it comes to our language. We like to correct everything. Our parents and teachers are constantly correcting us. Even among adults, if someone uses the wrong tense or an inappropriate word, there’s a good chance someone else will correct them.”

Sounds nice, but it hasn’t happened to me here except for a few really weird moments. Most people are helpful and patient, even if a bit confused as I try snowplow my way through the language.

That said, I went into a newspaper stand one day to buy a magazine. They still do a lot of publications here and I saw this one in the window. When I entered the store and looked around,I couldn’t easily see it, so I said to the woman behind the counter:

“Je voudrais ce magazine .”

"I would like this magazine," I said, pointing to the picture of the magazine in the window.

"You want to say ‘j’aimerais’, not ‘je voudrais’," she kindly corrected. “Zhem-eray.”

Um. What?

" ‘J’aimerais’, not ‘je voudrais’," she repeated in a long, exaggerated pronunciation of the words to exaggerate their pronunciation. “ZHem-mer-ray.”

When you put these two into a translator app, they both come back saying the same thing: “I would like…” I guess one sounds weird.

Uh. Okay. Thanks. Um - magazine?

“J’aimerais.” She repeated it. “Zhem-eray.”

Really?

Uh. The magazine? This one? Pointing again. Why the French lesson?

“J’aimerais.” She rolled through the syllables, exaggerating them. “Zhem-errr-rayh!”

There were other people in the store now.

"J’aimerais," she said it again, as if I should say it too. I echoed her and hated the world in this moment.

“J’aimerais…” I repeated. I pointed at the magazine. I sounded pretty sad. I guess I didn’t say it well.

She wrote the word down on a piece of paper, repeating it yet again. Ugh. You’re an asshole lady, but fuck you: I am leaving with that magazine.

Meanwhile, a line had formed behind me and nobody said anything. They waited. Like this was normal. Or maybe it was normal for this store. Or maybe they just didn’t want to walk to another one or maybe they truly believed in teaching everyone the correct way to speak in French. Who knows?

The woman behind the counter had repeated herself 5 times. Maybe she was feeling some kind of success after whatever years of emotional damage in her education made her think this was the right way to teach anybody anything.

"I would like," I said again (in French), “the magazine here” (in French, pointing). “Do you have it” (in French, big shrug) and then “How much?” I said with a kind of rubbing-fingers-together money gesture. Then I gestured at her, pointing with both of my hands, as if to say, will you give this to me now or not?

All of this had taken 2 long minutes by now, like 2 minutes under water. There were 4 other people in the store, saying nothing.

If anyone thought I was being rude just them, I felt like I was just warming up.

But my performance passed. She pulled a copy of the magazine from behind the counter and rang me up.

I walked out and I’ve never been back. In fact, I’m pretty sure I never even read the magazine.

Thanks for reading Keith’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.