If You Could Speak Another Language...

Someone asked me today, "If you could speak another language what would it be?"

Sadly, instead of filling my head with dreams of languages that would prove useful in my professional and personal life, the question merely reminded me of the colossal failure I call "Rick trying to learn French."

Like most Canadian kids my failure to learn French began in elementary school. The first few years of French lessons centred on learning the names of various objects and perhaps the odd phrase. In my second year of French class I was selected to play the lead in a short play. I've forgotten the lines of my character, "Henri", but suspect they translated to, "My name is Henri, I am a boy of 8 years, may I please go to the bathroom, windows, pencil, notebook."

Through high school it was confirmed that "may I please go to the bathroom?" was indeed the most important phrase in the entire French language. Other phrases such as "I speak French" and "I do not speak French" would also be drilled into our heads, though I suspected at the time that I would not require both upon graduation. With some coaching, I was able to confidently state that "the bread was ON the table, the cat was IN the tree and the ball was UNDER the car." I fully expected that someday I would thank my lucky stars that I could converse with French people about tables, cats, balls and what may or may not be on, in and under them.

Alas, it was not to be.

Years later, my work brought me to New Brunswick, Canada's only bilingual province (if you thought Quebec was bilingual, I'll give you a few minutes to google "how many people speak English in Quebec?"). Thinking this was my best opportunity to learn the language, I came up with the great idea of listening to French learning tapes in my car. The lessons began with a series of words, spoken slowly, which I was to repeat. I had a flare for imitating the accent on the tape, my car filled with a perfect repetition of "anniversaire, fenetre, jour, bonjour, au revoir, salut, cher, formidable." As my confidence grew I heard myself saying "Claudette, Marie-Claire, Helene, Guy, Serge, Andre, Alain" to perfection and hoped I would soon encounter people named Claudette and Serge so I could wish them a good day and ask about their windows.

It wasn't long however until I got to the other side of the first tape where the French man now spoke much quicker said things like "blerp froo froo de dieu" and "slink hatatata de la schmule" and "roula hippidy heep heep a la zapadeedapdap."

As calmly as I could, I replied "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?"

Sometimes I would utter a helpful phrase I picked up along the way..."are you KIDDING??? WHAT DID YOU SAY????"

The man on the tape apparently didn't hear me and instead of slowing down, he sped up so I was able to totally miss much longer phrases in the same amount of time. The French language is apparently more than a series of objects with names and my prior schooling had not adequately prepared me for this.

Not quite ready to give up I wondered if talking to real French people and not cruel French people who lived on cassette tapes in my car might not be a better way to learn? I started slowly, learning how to order a medium coffee with milk at Tim Horton's. Apparently I fooled no one into believing I was French as their answer was ALWAYS in English! Perhaps these servers would be more impressed if I asked to go to the bathroom or told them the ball was UNDER the car?

It was hopeless.

Someday, when I'm in France, Burkina Faso, Burundi or Djibouti and can't use the world's 14th most popular language, I will feel great shame and disappointment.

And now you know why.