Loquacious Language

Since we’re living in a French country, it’s probably important to know or learn the language.  But we realized very quickly that it wasn’t going to be as easy as we thought.   In the last 7 years, I haven’t had much need to speak French, except with my cousin, Carole, on 3 or 4 separate occasions, so my French has become a little rusty. Actually, that’s not right either. It seems to have reverted to a more colloquial French, something I fought hard against when I was in highschool.  Mauri also seems to have picked up quite a bit of Northern Ontario “frança” and is trying to clean it up.  But the one with the biggest hurdle is Alex.  Poor kid! If we could start over, I would only speak French and Mauri would only speak Finnish to him; English would have happened, no matter what.  Now, he’s struggling to learn a language just so that he can communicate, even just basic things.  We purchased a copy of the Rosetta Stone language learner, so we’ll let you know how it works out.

It’s not just dark skies though when it comes to learning French and there is a little sunshine rolling in our way.  I’ve been reading a book called Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong by Jean Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow; indispensable for learning about France and it’s culture, I might say.  It mentions that the French language has only a fraction of the words that the English language has.  So, I figure since we’ve mastered the one, pretty well, then there’s no reason why we can’t the other.  It boils down to pronunciation, a lot of memorization and just getting out there and using it.

One thing I have noticed though, is how different French Canadian is to the French language here.  I used to try to explain the difference by saying that the French just seem to have a better vocabulary than in Canada, but that’s not it.  They are masters of rhetoric, the art of discourse.  Children learn this in school and are encouraged to use it daily. They may not have as many words as the English but they use the ones they have to the max.  I used to believe that there was two versions of the language we spoke, the “school”  French/English that we use when we are in a professional situation and the language that we use at home and amongst our friends but France has proven me wrong.  I’m not saying that slang words and colloquialisms haven’t crept into the language, just that the French use excellent  language whether they are at home, among friends, working in an office or debating with strangers. 

That said, French is not the only language spoken in France.  There are many regional languages like Breton, Occitan, and the Alsacien spoken here. This area has gone from French to German control and back many times(that’s another story)so it’s not surprising that they use a language that is somewhere between French and German, Alsacien.  While many children speak it at home, they learn German as a second language in schools.  So, I’ve decided that if I can master the French language in the next year, I will tackle German.

À la prochaine,

Julie