Cosmic Prose

Natasha Regehr

Category: Language

Seasoned Greetings: The Power of One

“Happy New Year.”

We say it every year, to pretty much everyone we see, because that’s the thing to say in January.  Do we mean it?

Well, of course, to some extent.  Who doesn’t have a generic sense of goodwill towards the world at large after several weeks of holiday indulgences? Who doesn’t support the idea of a year of happiness to replace the year of whatever-it-was that just concluded?

But really, much like with “How are you?” and other empty social conventions, we aren’t particularly interested in the type of year most people have just had, nor in the particularities of the year ahead of them.  We just want a seasonal alternative to “Hi!”

We may gaze fondly at our dearly beloveds at 11:59 on December 31 and offer them our affectionate good wishes.  We may encourage those closest to us to pursue their dreams with optimism.  But in general, we settle for a blanket “Happy New Year,” spread with equal (dis)interest over great populations of distant acquaintances, and consider our festive duty done.

In my family, this annual dissimulation of goodwill has traditionally taken the form of a “Family Letter” reminding others of our largely unchanging existence; and being a literary type, I am often the one tasked with trying to make our lives sound interesting.  My earnest attempts at creativity have included detailed profiles of each family member, illustrated by elaborate collages and laced with carefully-crafted witticisms.  The resulting epistle was typically sent to Everybody, with instructions to pass it on to Everybody Else.  It was posted on social media, and maybe on my blog.  Just to make sure that Every Possible Person had access to my self-absorbed ramblings. 

But this year I did something different.

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Do Not Enter

Three years ago I had a disastrous encounter with a maestro who shall not be named.  It would not be a stretch to say that there were elements of trauma to that evening.  Before you go any further, you should probably read the amusing, but heart-wrenching account of my first audition experience in Casablanca.

Now, three years later, I did the unthinkable thing, and repeated the experience.  Same never-ending round-about.  Same obscure church entrance.  Same ghastly maestro.  Same everything.  But not the same me. Continue reading

DELF Unpacked: Don’t Ever Lose Faith

Natasha here, reporting in on the aftermath of the infamous DELF B2.

I was worried.  Let’s find some better descriptors, now that I’m functioning in my mother tongue.  Words like chagrined, nausea-ridden, paralyzed.  I dreaded that exam.  My entire body was stiff with tension for eight solid weeks, from the moment I walked into my first class to the day after the inquisition.  My long-awaited summer in France turned out to be, in many ways, a summer of travail and trepidation.

And then, just like that, I passed.  Not just by the skin of my teeth.  Not just with a satisfactory margin of breathing room. Not quite with the flying colours I secretly dreamed of.  But almost.  Almost.

At one point, I re-coined the DELF acronym (“Diplome d’Etudes en Langue Française”) as “Dumb, Enigmatic Lists of Faults.”  I still kind of think that.  The test-makers are simply méchants, in my well-studied opinion.  They rub their hands in delight as they formulate one trick question after another, in a sinister attempt to separate the dumb from the dumber.  I know.  I met one of them.  And she was mean.

But do you know what it was that bumped my score down two points from the 80% I’d hoped for?  Continue reading

Venez!

A few weeks ago, I posted my very first French blog.  I am re-posting it today, with two critical changes:

  1. For those of you who asked for an English version of the original story, scroll down to the end to find a rather crude translation.
  2. For those of you who are curious to hear my weird Canadian-Moroccan-American-French accent, I have added an audio recording of the story as well.  It will make you laugh, even if it’s not supposed to.  Which it is.

Audio Version:

(with many thanks to my good friend in Vichy, for teaching me how to say “hockey” in French, and for letting me teach her a few Canadianisms as well)  

For those of you who didn’t read the original story and have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s where it all began…

Original Story:

This summer I got to do a little creative writing in my French class! We were asked to write a funny story that exaggerates the stereotypes that foreigners have of our home countries.  My Spanish, Mexican, Brazilian, Korean, American, and Basque classmates shared their stories, and then I offered up this little piece of Canadiana, inspired in part by our beloved Bob and Doug McKenzie.

Warning: This is my very first blog-worthy French composition.  There might be errors.  You might be offended.  Be gentle with me.

Venez! Venez! Venez au Canada! On vous accueille, comme on accueille tout le monde, tout le temps! Venez!

Dès que vous arriverez, on vous mènera à votre igloo, où vous dormirez en tout confort, en portant votre anorak et votre toque!

Le lendemain matin, vous prendrez votre déjeuner (au Canada, nos repas sont tous mélangées): un bonne portion de poutine avec une bonne portion de bière (Molson Canadian, bien sûr).  On vous donnera vos patins pour votre premier match de hockey.

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La magie des mots

Something has happened to my French, and it’s because I’ve made a friend.

She is a retired doctor.  She’s travelled the world.  She has a tiny little dog called Charmeur.  And she loves words.  Words thrill her, as they do me.  I read her paragraphs from books that stir me, and she recites poetry with all the animation of a master story-teller, and we delight together in this magical, magical space called language.

It’s a space that we inhabit together while seated at the Grand Casino Cafe, so named for its proximity to what used to be a casino, but is now something else.  It’s a space that we inhabit together over tea, coffee, kir, water, chocolate.  It’s a space we inhabit through the careful completion of grammar exercises, the meticulous correction of essays, and the endless parroting of phonetics.  It’s a space we inhabit from 12:15 – 1:45 every day, and it is changing me. Continue reading

Faux French, Riviera Style

Have you been wondering how I’ve been faring since I bade farewell to les vaches?

I am slowly adjusting to life on the French Riviera.

Slowly.

My drive here was uneventful, except for that time my GPS became my enemy and led me in circles for two hours in downtown Nice during the height of tourist season.  Navigation systems don’t do well with pedestrian-only streets.  That’s all I’ll say about that.

And now I am perched on a hill overlooking the uppity town of Villefranche-sur-mer, with its uppity yachts, BMWs, and fake hedges. Why anyone would need a fake hedge in this lotus land is beyond me, but there it is.  Why water a real hedge when you can buy a fake one?

No, to be honest, I’m missing the friendly, down-to-earth charm of my village in the Alps.  Well, okay, the cows were not so friendly.  But there was an endearing honesty to that place, a sense that life had substance, and that everything else was somehow false.

Not so with the French Riviera.  Everything here feels half-empty, like the soul of the place just drained out into the Mediterranean when the people all arrived. I’m sure at one time it was quaint and delightful and historically significant; but right now, it feels to me like a toy neighbourhood, constructed out of blocks and toothpicks and dotted with plastic accessories.  Doll houses, all, papered in Euros…

But I, too, am a falsehood, here on the French Riviera.

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Maybe!

I have been stressing out about French. Have you noticed? Likely not, because you think I’m still obsessing about the Royal Wedding.  Forget that.  I’m over it.

No, French is my ongoing obsession, more than ever now, as the stakes creep higher in equal proportion to my rising self-doubt.

What if I can’t do it? What if, no matter how much I study and how long I persist, I never pass beyond the blundering idiot phase of language learning? Oh, sure, I’m less of a blundering idiot than I was three years ago, when I couldn’t say, “I want to walk up the hill.” But the subjunctive has its own mode of blunder induction (did you catch that, French-speakers? Its own mode?).  The more I learn, the more I blunder.

Now, these rising stakes of which I speak so melodramatically.  What are they? Well, you know.  Employment. That about sums it up.  You see, I miss Canada. Continue reading

Voila!

I told a fib today. It was easy, because it was in French.

You see, I’ve been seeking a new artistic outlet that will allow me to get out into the community and interact with other people. By “new artistic outlet,” I mean something that fosters self-expression but that will take me away from my 9-5 life of intoning “do-re-mi-fa-sol” on repeat five days a week. By “community,” I mean “outside of my all-consuming place of work.” And by “other people,” I mean “nice strangers who speak French.” Because this is a linguistic undertaking as much as anything else. Continue reading

Lost for Words

This is how it feels to be a speaker of another language.

At first, you feel a little flabbergasted: “OMG! I’m actually in [insert country]! And they really do speak [insert language] here! Pretty much exclusively! It sounds so [exotic/romantic/guttural/alarming/melodic/robotic] ! I can’t believe I’m really here! Let’s play charades!”

Gradually, wonder gives way to mild curiosity. How do you say [insert unknown word]? You learn to say “hello” and “thank-you,” and the world begins to open up to you. You are a participant. And people think you’re cute. Like a pet. You can now do tricks.

But eventually, your tricks become old, and inconsequential. You can’t ask for directions with “hello” and “thank-you.” Your questions remain unasked, and therefore, unanswered. You are entirely reliant on the goodwill of benevolent translators, if you manage to find them. And then you try not to manifest yourself as the pathetic, clingy personage that you know you have become.

You feel tense. Stressed out. Apprehensive. Uneasy. It is unsettling to not know what is going on. You feel like you have no control over your environment. Decisions are made without you. Actions are undertaken without explanation, and you pour all your energy into trying to divine their purpose – only to find, more often than not, that there is no comprehensible purpose at all. Humans just act that way.

On top of all that, you feel illiterate, especially if the script you see around you is drastically different from your own. You know those signs say something important, but you can’t make it out. They tell you how to do something, or where to go, or what is forbidden. But any proficiency you once had with associating symbols and sounds is now eradicated. You are no longer a highly educated individual. You have devolved to preschool status.

Yes, preschool. Or perhaps infancy. You are reduced to making unintelligible sounds and gestures in order to acquire your basic needs. Perhaps some onlookers find this endearing. Others see you as a novelty; still others perceive you as a target. But most just find you a nuisance or a nonentity, and choose to overlook you.  

This is when you begin to feel invisible. People talk around you and through you; you are simply not there. Unlike anonymity, this is not a chosen invisibility. You are unseen, whether you wish to be or not.

Sometimes, this spirit-like existence feels a little surreal. You drift outside of yourself, and you observe the speakers as if they are part of some absurd social experiment. Do they really understand what they are saying? They must, because they respond to one another with what appears to be recognition. Really, it’s a wonder that any language “works” at all. What on earth are they communicating about, I wonder? Is it something that would interest me, if I knew? 

Which brings me to one of the lesser-known by-products of other-lingualism: boredom. It’s stressful and brain-consuming to try to untangle the intricacies of human interaction for any length of time, and eventually, your circuits overheat. You shut down. You tune out. And then the boredom begins. Because, you see, propriety requires that you continue to look like you’re listening, even when you aren’t. You cannot amuse yourself with other more engaging activities, or have an interesting conversation with some other human being who understands you. You are forced to retreat entirely into your own thoughts — which tend to be dominated by your feelings of invisibility, illiteracy, and unease. This is a dangerous descent.

If you are lucky enough to be studying the language that surrounds you, you have a slight advantage. You can assert your presence and perhaps generate a response from someone else. You can figure out what the signs are about, even if you can’t pin down their meaning. The language loses some of its mystique, and you find that if you listen hard enough, you can crack bits of its code. This can lead to moments of elation, but they are always tempered by the awareness of the vast expanse of the language that remains locked to you. Triumph and disillusionment walk hand-in-hand; there is always still so much to learn.

So even with the pleasant ripples of intellectual stimulation that come from mastering bits and pieces of the language, it still comes down to an overwhelming linguistic fatigue, followed by the inevitable gnawing boredom. Couple that with a naturally introverted demeanour, and a mild social anxiety that manifests itself even within your own language group, and you get a little slice of misery.

Remember this when the other-language-speakers among you come out of hiding. They are starving for the same human interactions that they observe around them everywhere they go; and they are trying; but they are tired. They are so tired. An unlearned language weighs more than you realize.

We who speak other languages have one suspicion, and that one suspicion gives us a speck of hope. We are people, and the speakers around us are people, and people of any linguistic shade are inclined to form relationships. We suspect that relationships may be possible, despite the barriers between us, and we yearn for them. We yearn to share our dormant sense of humour and our long-buried stories. We have stories, you know — each one of us. We have a past, with cataclysms and victories and mundanities that shaped us into the interesting people we are, behind our silence. We think that perhaps you have stories, too, and that some of them may run parallel to ours; that we could meet somewhere, in these stories, if we just knew how to get around the cultural divide. We want to know you. We want you to know us. But we are vulnerable, and we are tired, much too tired for words.

C’est l’amour…

What does it feel like to fall out of love? Could it be happening to me?

French is supposed to be the “language of love,” is it not? We had a sweet, sweet honeymoon phase, French and I. Every day we seemed to know each other twice as well as we did the day before. I was blissfully unaware of my relational faux pas, and everyone else just thought they were cute. Every little sentence was a triumph. Every lesson brought new possibilities. And the grammar… Oh, the grammar! What passion we shared, those participles and I. The verb tenses! The day I first learned passé composé, and could finally talk about things that had already happened… Stories started sprouting everywhere!

It’s true, French and I did take a little break at one point. I spent two months sequestered among Anglophones over the summer, but I never stopped longing for the langue de l’amour. I signed out workbooks from the library and continued the relationship in a one-sided, long-distance kind of way. When I returned to the Moroccan Promised Land of language acquisition, I was disappointed to find that both my teachers had deserted me (as if I didn’t already have an abandonment complex). “I miss you! I love you! I want you back!” I wailed into my sorry little unilingual void.

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