On Speaking French

A fellow expat states the obvious.

British expats in France should at least speak half-decent French if they want to be happy

Well, yes, that is obvious…

Life in rural France is full of mysteries.

Indeed.

Even now, six years on, I am not entirely confident at what o’clock, or dimness of dusk, bon jour somehow becomes bon soir. I still have my doubts about which cheek to kiss first in greeting, and whether I should be sowing or planting during the new moon.

I am bemused that the birthplace of Renoir and Gauguin should be capable of producing such thin and dribbly paint, often with a monocouche label attached, as if one coat should suffice. Which, if you are applying it to Rice Krispies, it probably will. But the weirdest mystery of all is the French language. How is it that, no matter how long your average Brit lives in the French countryside, he fails to pick up the lingo as easily as if it were swine flu in a hospital?

Indeed again. I started learning French at the ripe old age of nine. I gave up when I was about thirteen. I didn’t pick it up again until I was in my twenties and have struggled with it on and off ever since. Now, as a French resident, I have the one thing that was missing on previous occasions – native French speakers on whom I can practice. Okay, so the outcomes are somewhat unpredictable at times, but hearing the language – and as my tutor points out (repeatedly) – hearing the pronunciation, is the best way of improving my own skills. She tells me that with application, I could be good at this. But, I have to say, it is still hard work and I wished that I had continued it when at school.

No one is going to mistake me for Baudelaire, admittedly. But I have stopped worrying about my accent, ever since I made the bewildering discovery that, to the French, a marked English accent can be beguiling and – I didn’t believe this either, when I first heard it – even sexy. 

I hadn’t heard this until my tutor told me. Apparently, it’s true. The French regard the English accent in the same way as we regard the French one. Boosted my ego no end…

And so we Brits abroad will lazily club together into a sad little clique. We will employ cowboy builders from home rather than skilled local artisans, so that at least we can understand them when they rip us off. And we will talk among ourselves, trying to cheer ourselves up by bitching about how our country has gone to the dogs. Because of all the immigrants. 

Mrs L and I made a point of getting to know our neighbours who are all French – and speaking to them in French even if it was painful. Then we met another expat who just happens to be a language tutor. She spends most of her time teaching English to the French (and having arguments heated discussions with them about such things as whether crème anglaise should be eaten hot or cold – hot, naturally). Now she is teaching us French. But, in general, we have not fallen into the trap of mixing with a clique of English people and we do try to get local artisans when we need them. The problem – as regaled at some length by Peter Mayle in his Provence books – is getting them to do the work. If British builders operate in a different time zone, French ones are in a different space time continuum. A neighbour told us that you tell the artisan what you need and he will give you half a dozen reasons why you don’t. The mystery is how they make a living…

I don’t know about you, but I cannot imagine living in a place where I felt always on the margins, barred by my inability to communicate from making the slightest contribution to local life. 

Yeah, I’d go along with that – and I do feel frustrated at my lack of fluency. That doesn’t stop us engaging with local events and chatting with the neighbours. It may be slow, but we will get there. Integration is the key.