Conversations

Conversations. 

There are four stages of adjusting to a new language. After 2 weeks in France, I've now gone through each phase.

The first is excitement. You're in a new city, and the language is very foreign to you.  It's everywhere you look and listen. You notice some places have English subtitles. You devote a lot of energy to trying piecemeal a translation with the grammar and vocab you learned back in middle/high school.  The longer the metro ride, the more time you have to decipher ads (the huge picture helps too).  You're very attentive  at the dinner table and to the people ordering right in front of you at the patisserie (can you get away with saying  'Le meme chois'?....'the same thing, please') 
Frustration. You realize you understand genres of conversation. There's the where are you from, what do you do topic. There's the family topic (textbook chapter 4 on family).  You pickup when convos are about you ( you hear your name or feel the glance at you.  Or, better yet, you hear 'Le American'). You get frustrated because beyond seeing the sights and eating the food, you want to know the people, ask them about their story, their life, their culture. And all you can say is, hello, how are you, or maybe 'where do you work'.   
Acceptance. After a while, you loose energy. Or interest. Long dinner conversations( it gets long very quickly when you aren't being engaged) become kind of a game of 'where's Waldo'. You can tune in and out, and play the game of trying to guess what is being talked about. You get momentarily excited when a word you recognize is said... But then realize that's about it. Several expressions / words that have been common on this trip so far:
D'accord: is their way of saying 'ok'
Doucement: means slowly. In my case, Usually paired with 'parler' (to speak)
Alors: a way to say 'so' or 'then', mostly a transition to fill a pause
Attention! ( in a French accent): means 'Watch out!'.  This word use is most concentrated to car rides, which very much warrant a cautionary action. The crazy driving is another story itself. I have videos for that.
Other common verbs: manger, Parler, traviller, regarder.
The last and final phase is Enjoyment. This is what I have reached tonight. Which is a good thing, because tomorrow we're headed to Italy and another language.  

I like long dinner conversations. The stories,  the laughing, the learning from parents and others, the trip planning (or everyday life plans planning), and the brainstorming. Dinnertime is a good time. And it was tonight, too.

 Genevieve is Celine's aunt. She's about 70, has white hair that she carefully grooms everyday, and wears glasses.  I have to work at consciously reminding myself she's not her grandmother. But, you get the idea of who she is. On two occasions, she's made us dinner. Yes, it's very good, and I think a good representation of the traditional French dinner. Red wine to drink, fresh baguette, meat, cheese, some  vege dish for the main corse, and fruit for dessert, ended with a cup of herb tea. I am very thankful that she is so gracious towards me.  I'm a guest in her house spending several days and  having dinner and yet, before tonight,  I haven't been able to hold a real conversation with her.  You know people in the hospital who are in a coma, who you feed and take care of but can't communicate with them? This image flashes through my mind a couple of times. And yeah it's probably extreme, but there were some points when I felt pretty useless just chilling at the table observing the engaging conversation going on between the others. She's has washed my clothes ( my silk shirt by hand even) and has prepared my bed and cooked me breakfast and dinner. She's made a perfect stranger ( besides being Celine's friend) feel right at home.


The enjoyment comes when I realize I can watch the conversation. Instead of listening to what they are saying, I  look at how they are saying it.  Over the past two weeks, I've had the great fortune to be exposed to many different settings. Dinner conversations at home, a convo with warm loving grandparents, a restaurant visit with a seldom seen but fun loving cousin of Celine's, talking with a best friend while sleeping over at her house for the night, packing and planning prep with Celine's mom, navigating new streets in the smartcar, drinking and rooting for a country's soccer team(USA world cup final) in a pub... On and on and many more. And it dawns on me. Like de'javu. That I've had all these conversations myself, but in English.  It makes the language way less 'foreign' and distant. This realization is how Genevieve and I can hold a conversation tonight in two different languages. Weird, I know, but trust me (granted, we're not talking politics or rocket science). We can relate, and use the few common words we know in eachothers language to send messages. It feels like we are living and being at the same time. And that, is pretty darn cool.   It's what makes me go back downstairs to the company after freshening up in my room, or makes me want to hang out in the kitchen  after the dinnertable  has been cleared.  For instance, tonight, Genevieve's toaster had stopped working.  She, Celine, and I were all hanging out in the kitchen. G shows us animatedly how something went wrong and what  she tried to do to fix it. Celine fiddles with it a minute and then G calls her husband in the room. He tries something and wo-la! Fixed.  We all are excited and happy it's better and that it was such a simple fix.   I know countless times that has happened to me and my dad.    With Celine, Genevieve, her husband, and me, we're experiencing  life together and that shared time is so precious.   In some ways, when living life, we all say the same things, whatever language it may be spoken in. 

I now have an appreciation for learning a language in the country it's spoken. Live, experience life there, and you will catch on really quickly. 

Italy, are you ready for Celine and I? :)