An Ex Pat Life
(Also published on Women's Thoughts @ women'sthoughts.co.uk)Speaking in Tongues.
Joanna Simm
It’s hardly a new idea, moving to live in another country, as thanks, in part, to a steady diet in recent years of lifestyle programmes like ‘A Place in the Sun’, and ‘No Going Back’, rather a lot of Brits have upped sticks and left good old Blighty for a new life in another land. Most of us have headed off for sunnier climes, to some degree or another, and indeed, seeking better weather is an oft cited reason for the move. There’s more than just the weather to it all, though, and in spite of the sunshine, things can be a little more complicated than we all bargained for when packing up those suitcases and dreaming of long, hot days by a pool.
It depends where you go, of course, but a big consideration in popular European destinations like France, Spain, Italy and Portugal is the language. When I moved to France in 2004, I was convinced that, although my French amounted at that point to no more than a smattering of unconnected words, I would be ‘getting by’ in a matter of ‘months’, and pretty competent within a year. HA! If only. For a start, phrases such as ‘the pen of my aunt’, ‘the cat is black’ and ‘where is the toilet’ actually only get you so far when you are living in a country full of French speakers. OK, so ‘Where is the toilet’ can be useful, but it has its limitations as a conversational gambit. We found ourselves being pretty much silent for a year, in public at least, pointing at items we wished to buy, and offering blank looks when spoken to unexpectedly. The strong southern accent here didn’t help much either. In the Languedoc, where we live, French is NOTHING like the rather tidy and elegant language we were taught in school. We learnt to say ‘van’ for ‘vin’, and ‘pan’ for ‘pain’ (respectively wine and bread), but down here the sounds are ‘veng’ and peng’. I once spent around fifteen minutes in a bakery trying to buy a ‘pain au chocolat’, attempting every possible tongue twist on the words to make my desire for a flaky chocolate pastry understood. I got there eventually, after hearing another customer arrive and ask for exactly what I wanted, shamelessly copying, whereupon the woman in the shop gave me a look as if to say, ‘Well, if that’s what you wanted why the hell didn’t you ask for it in the first place?’
Our two youngest children, who made the move with us at the ages of 12 and 13, spent a horrible first year in school, condemned to sit, day after day, from 8 ‘til 5 listening to a torrent of what was to them, complete gobbledegook. My husband, never a linguist even in his Mother Tongue (Geordie!), found his own way to cope. I remember one evening, soon after our arrival, when he had met a chap in a shop who had, inexplicably, followed him home to have a beer. My husband had no recollection of inviting this man, who was a little odd, but as he said, who knows what he might have said in an attempt at chatting with a vocabulary limited to about six words? Keen to be sociable, he offered the man a beer, which he drank with relish, immediately requesting another. Unable to express a need to get on with life, my husband found himself dispensing (and, I must admit, also drinking) two crates of beer, while discussing the ways of the world, as men do in these liquid fuelled situations. It wasn’t, however, quite that easy.
Our new French friend spoke at the rate of a million words a minute, while my husband gamely replied with his six favourite (and only) French words. There was, though, a limit to how many times he could introduce the word ‘bois’ (wood), ‘toilettes’ (self evident!), ‘bière (beer), ‘chien’ (dog), ‘chat’ (cat) and ‘Bonjour’ into a conversation which appeared to be about motorbikes. The conversation faltered, unsurprisingly. As more and more beer vanished, though, the form of the discourse altered completely. My husband reverted to English (or as near to it as a Geordie can get!) while our new friend continued with high speed French, but they began to replace words with noises, producing the effect of a story told to the accompaniment of a Fisher Price child’s toy farmyard. From my bedroom window (to where I had retreated, wisely, I felt) it made a very amusing pantomime, going something like this:‘So, I was riding the bike at 100 miles an hour…brrrrmmmmm…brrrrmmmm…whing! Whing! .when I crashed…BANG!.BANG! BOOM!’ ‘Oui! C’est comme ça pour moi aussi! Boom Boom Boom! Et voila! Mais, il y a un vache dans le champ, qui a dit’ Mooooo, Moooo…’
You get the idea?
Slowly, the words disappeared altogether, leaving a pantomime of bizarre noises. It seemed to keep them both happy, although I doubt that either of them, had a clue what they had been discussing after.
Six years on, and I am happy to say that both children (children? At 18 and 19 that is probably not quite right!) are fluent French speakers, now returned to University in England. Rob and I, however, haven’t quite reached that state of grace. We are now able to converse with friends (who speak slowly and listen sympathetically for out strange pronunciation!), cope in familiar situations and just about make sense of our post (though not always!) but can still be utterly bemused by much of what is going on around us. Sad to admit, most of the other ex pats seem to have similar difficulties. What is it about we Brits (and in particular, the English) that makes it so hard for us to learn another tongue?
I can only leave you with the old joke:
‘What do you call a person who can speak two languages? Bi-lingual.
Three languages? Tri lingual.
More languages? Multi Lingual.
And what do you call a person who can only speak one language?
English.
Our French friends seem to find this one deeply amusing, I can’t think why!
..
Joanna Simm
It’s hardly a new idea, moving to live in another country, as thanks, in part, to a steady diet in recent years of lifestyle programmes like ‘A Place in the Sun’, and ‘No Going Back’, rather a lot of Brits have upped sticks and left good old Blighty for a new life in another land. Most of us have headed off for sunnier climes, to some degree or another, and indeed, seeking better weather is an oft cited reason for the move. There’s more than just the weather to it all, though, and in spite of the sunshine, things can be a little more complicated than we all bargained for when packing up those suitcases and dreaming of long, hot days by a pool.
It depends where you go, of course, but a big consideration in popular European destinations like France, Spain, Italy and Portugal is the language. When I moved to France in 2004, I was convinced that, although my French amounted at that point to no more than a smattering of unconnected words, I would be ‘getting by’ in a matter of ‘months’, and pretty competent within a year. HA! If only. For a start, phrases such as ‘the pen of my aunt’, ‘the cat is black’ and ‘where is the toilet’ actually only get you so far when you are living in a country full of French speakers. OK, so ‘Where is the toilet’ can be useful, but it has its limitations as a conversational gambit. We found ourselves being pretty much silent for a year, in public at least, pointing at items we wished to buy, and offering blank looks when spoken to unexpectedly. The strong southern accent here didn’t help much either. In the Languedoc, where we live, French is NOTHING like the rather tidy and elegant language we were taught in school. We learnt to say ‘van’ for ‘vin’, and ‘pan’ for ‘pain’ (respectively wine and bread), but down here the sounds are ‘veng’ and peng’. I once spent around fifteen minutes in a bakery trying to buy a ‘pain au chocolat’, attempting every possible tongue twist on the words to make my desire for a flaky chocolate pastry understood. I got there eventually, after hearing another customer arrive and ask for exactly what I wanted, shamelessly copying, whereupon the woman in the shop gave me a look as if to say, ‘Well, if that’s what you wanted why the hell didn’t you ask for it in the first place?’
Our two youngest children, who made the move with us at the ages of 12 and 13, spent a horrible first year in school, condemned to sit, day after day, from 8 ‘til 5 listening to a torrent of what was to them, complete gobbledegook. My husband, never a linguist even in his Mother Tongue (Geordie!), found his own way to cope. I remember one evening, soon after our arrival, when he had met a chap in a shop who had, inexplicably, followed him home to have a beer. My husband had no recollection of inviting this man, who was a little odd, but as he said, who knows what he might have said in an attempt at chatting with a vocabulary limited to about six words? Keen to be sociable, he offered the man a beer, which he drank with relish, immediately requesting another. Unable to express a need to get on with life, my husband found himself dispensing (and, I must admit, also drinking) two crates of beer, while discussing the ways of the world, as men do in these liquid fuelled situations. It wasn’t, however, quite that easy.
Our new French friend spoke at the rate of a million words a minute, while my husband gamely replied with his six favourite (and only) French words. There was, though, a limit to how many times he could introduce the word ‘bois’ (wood), ‘toilettes’ (self evident!), ‘bière (beer), ‘chien’ (dog), ‘chat’ (cat) and ‘Bonjour’ into a conversation which appeared to be about motorbikes. The conversation faltered, unsurprisingly. As more and more beer vanished, though, the form of the discourse altered completely. My husband reverted to English (or as near to it as a Geordie can get!) while our new friend continued with high speed French, but they began to replace words with noises, producing the effect of a story told to the accompaniment of a Fisher Price child’s toy farmyard. From my bedroom window (to where I had retreated, wisely, I felt) it made a very amusing pantomime, going something like this:‘So, I was riding the bike at 100 miles an hour…brrrrmmmmm…brrrrmmmm…whing! Whing! .when I crashed…BANG!.BANG! BOOM!’ ‘Oui! C’est comme ça pour moi aussi! Boom Boom Boom! Et voila! Mais, il y a un vache dans le champ, qui a dit’ Mooooo, Moooo…’
You get the idea?
Slowly, the words disappeared altogether, leaving a pantomime of bizarre noises. It seemed to keep them both happy, although I doubt that either of them, had a clue what they had been discussing after.
Six years on, and I am happy to say that both children (children? At 18 and 19 that is probably not quite right!) are fluent French speakers, now returned to University in England. Rob and I, however, haven’t quite reached that state of grace. We are now able to converse with friends (who speak slowly and listen sympathetically for out strange pronunciation!), cope in familiar situations and just about make sense of our post (though not always!) but can still be utterly bemused by much of what is going on around us. Sad to admit, most of the other ex pats seem to have similar difficulties. What is it about we Brits (and in particular, the English) that makes it so hard for us to learn another tongue?
I can only leave you with the old joke:
‘What do you call a person who can speak two languages? Bi-lingual.
Three languages? Tri lingual.
More languages? Multi Lingual.
And what do you call a person who can only speak one language?
English.
Our French friends seem to find this one deeply amusing, I can’t think why!
..
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