sam and the city

It seems the shoe's on the other foot now

Good day faithful readers. I've never proclaimed to be terribly good when it comes to speaking French, the only language that I speak with any sort of skill other than English. In fact, I generally proclaim long and loud that "je suis terrible"! I do however wish to improve, so I read my French text books, I watch French movies and generally do whatever I can to expose myself to the language. Unfortunately, despite that fact that France itself is less than an hour away, you still have to go out of your way if you want to be able to practice.

For this reason I was pleasantly surprised the other day when two young guys wandered into the world famous Blue Anchor. The first words that they said were "we are French". Now, having done a little bit of traveling in foreign countries I am well aware that when you state you nationality what you are really saying is "please excuse me for my incredibly poor grasp of your language", so I prepared myself. Actually their English was quite good, however on the odd occasion that they gave me blank looks I was happy that I was usually able to translate what I was saying into French.

Yesterday morning though I really did have to put my skills to the test. For a start it was only 7:30 in the morning, and my brain has trouble understanding English at that time of the day! It was a wonder therefore that it didn't just go into a meltdown when I picked up the phone and was immediately hit by a barrage of French. Thankfully I was awake enough to pick up that the woman on the other end of the phone was wanting to make a reservation and wanted to know if I spoke French.

I think that this must have been the luckiest woman in the world. Personally I think that it is very poor that the vast majority of people in continental Europe (and most non-English countries for that matter) are fluently in at least two languages, while those of us who come from English speaking countries rarely even make an attempt to speak the native language when we travel, but rather expect everyone else to know ours. Sadly however this is the case, so if you don't speak much English then a random village pub on the outskirts of London is probably not the first place you want to call when looking for accommodation.

It was a bit of a chore, but we eventually made our way through the booking process and I extracted all the necessary information. I have to say, despite that fact that it was hard work, it was good to be forced to speak in French (I usually wimp out if I know the other person speaks English) and I was very happy with myself afterwards.

Prior to these two experiences I'd never really come across French people in England or Australia who hadn't spoken good English. Now that I have though I think that I'm beginning to understand why whenever I go France everyone speaks to me in English even when I speak to them in French. It's not because they can't bear the fact that you're mutilating their language (although with me that may be part of it), it's just that they're trying to be helpful and enjoy practicing.

posted by sam @ 10:16 am