1) There are muscles in your mouth you’ve never used before

I’ve never thought much about language, at least not beyond trying to figure out what to say next. Even then I don’t really think things through. If you never had much of an interest in linguistics (like myself) it can come as a surprise when you start to learn about the basics of how spoken language works.

Here at Trois Pistole one of the French Teachers is a linguist and, incidentally, an anglophone. This gives him a lot of insight. As an English Speaker he has first-hand experience with the kind of mistakes we are likely to make while learning French. Then, as a linguist, he has a good idea of why exactly we make those mistakes. Luckily for us, he also hosts a phonetics clinic once a week to teach us the little details of pronunciation. Last week he focused on how French vowels work. The image I’ve included below is meant to represent where French vowel sounds come from in our mouths.

Giving French vowels a linguistic context is all well and good, but what do you do when you realize that some of those sounds just don’t exist in English?

Well, you do what you would do with any muscle that is weak: you exercise it.

Oh yay. More exercise. Just what I always wanted.

2)Speaking in your mother tongue is like a drug

Practicing a new language is exhausting. Every time you speak you are thinking about the way to shape your mouth to make the right sound. You also think about how to formulate proper sentence structure in another language. In the case of French, you also have to consider if a word is masculine or feminine and if your verbs are conjugated correctly. Don’t get me wrong, I signed up for this and I am incredibly happy to be here, but I constantly catch myself longing for my mother tongue.

Speaking English is like a drug.

Expressing yourself in French requires using the vocabulary of a two-year-old. Any idea you could communicate quickly in English turns into an hour long speech in French. Unfortunately, we all agreed to not speak in English while we are here.

3) What it feels like to be paranoid

The director of the school recently called all the students to an assembly. There he explained to us that many of the local residents had called the school to complain of students speaking in English while socializing in public spaces. He reminded us of the contract we all signed at the beginning of the program, which specified that we would speak French at all times.

Most of the time, I think everyone actually does work hard to honour this. Unfortunately, English can still slip out now and then. In those moments you start looking over your shoulder, paranoid that you are going to be sent home for a slip-up. I mean, potentially anyone could report you to the school.

4)Humans are great at finding ways to communicate

With the other students it’s very easy to fall into Franglish. You know, that mesh of French and English words that everyone understands but doesn’t actually make sense in either language? It’s different with your host family, however, because the school very intentionally billets you out to homes where the host speaks little to no English. So when it comes to communication, sometimes you need to get a little creative.

* You may remember from my last two posts that I am attempting to translate my posts into French for my 5 week stay in Quebec. I’ve included my translation below. Please feel free to let me know if you find any glaring errors.

En Français

4 Les Chose que Vous Apprenez par accident en Immersion Française