Letter from France 3

 

written in the Spring of 1989

 

Folks,

 

Little by little, I am being assimilated into the French culture. I begin to pick up bits and phrases of the language. A big breakthrough came about a week ago when I could finally hear the spaces between the words. Still can't understand what is being said, but now I know when one word stops and another begins. Another promising sign is that I am starting to lose the distinction between 'to make' and 'to do.' In that decidedly fractured European way, I have a hard time figuring out whether one goes to the market to make some shopping or to do some shopping.

 

This language thing is great; although at times, I feel as if I am trapped in a Berlitz Course From 'ell with no escape. I study French by watching television. There are six stations here and we kind of get five of them. Cartoons seem to be a high priority with all the stations, and they are not just limited to Saturday mornings. I fear that my French accent will end up sounding exactly like Scooby Doo.

 

Verbs are the hard part. So far, I have limited myself to just getting some basic verbs down in the present tense and not getting fancy with passé composé or plus-que-parfait du subjonctif. I realized (Oh, that glorious past tense; so easy in English.) the limitation of this when I tried to make reservations for a boat ride along the Seine to watch the Eiffel Tower celebration in June. Since I don't know the future tense, I can only make reservations in the present.

 

Moi: I would like to make some reservations for dinner and the cruise.
L'Autre: Oui, Monsieur. And when would you like them?
Moi: Uh, I guess right now.
L'Autre: Oh, pardon Monsieur, but that boat is just leaving the dock.

 

Another problem that comes up is this American sense of manners and etiquette I continue to use. I don't mind when people get in front of me in line at the post office and market (Apparently, my sense of comfortable distance behind someone in line is so much greater than the French that they don't even recognize me as being in the same line.) The real difficulty is the simple stuff like just asking a question. "Demander" in French just seems a bit much. All I really want to know is the time, I'm not really "demanding" it be called out to me. Likewise, it takes a lot to say "I'm sorry." "Je suis désolé" sounds too extreme, how often am I desolate about not knowing where someone else is?

 

There are about half a dozen different rooms at the school to work out on different skills. My favorite is the 'salle de musculation,' or what I used to think of as a weight room. While I juggle, others around me are busy musculating away, and we have a match.

 

Have been here just about two months. I have already had a week's vacation and will have a five-day break in early May. Have to love French holidays. So far, though, I haven't been successful in convincing the school that I should get both French and American national holidays off. Oh, well, "La vie est difficile, et après on est mort." Life is hard, and then you die.

 

take care, Todd

 

copyright 1989 by Todd Strong

 

 

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