The Myth of Immersion
When I planned my move to France, I partially imagined that I’d have French friends, and that we’d speak in French all the time: erudite conversations about new-wave cinema in late-night cafés and jokes about Sarkozy amidst Gauloise smoke. The reality so far has actually been more interesting, and introduced the dilemmas of being a “foreigner” in a strange land.
Thursday night tango at Place Saint-Anne, Montpellier
So far, all my friends in France speak English. Which is not to say we all speak English together often. But it is something we all have in common. My friends fall into three broad categories:
- British and American expats (they are unavoidable, and the ones I’ve met aren’t annoying)
- French citizens who are bilingual from birth (ie. they had an anglophone parent)
- French citizens who learnt English as a second language and may have spent time in anglophone countries
Conversations with all these people often take place in French, but sometimes we switch between English and French mid-stream, depending on the subject matter and whether we think one or the other language can express an idea (or tell a joke) better.
Context plays a role: for instance, it’s ridiculous to speak to my American or British friends in French, but if a francophone friend walks into the room, we’ll switch to French so we don’t seem like we’re rudely talking in a foreign language behind their back.
Abandoned shopfront, Montpellier
I’m coming to the conclusion that my relationships in this country will always pivot around the unavoidable fact that I am a foreigner, and an anglo-saxon to boot. Perhaps this is why my friends here all speak English – at some level they all relate to the challenge of sitting inside and outside a culture at the same time.
The nature of being a foreigner does not make friendships less genuine or more distant here. It’s just a question of becoming comfortable with your role as an intermediary between two languages and cultures. Given my accent and life experience, it’s impossible to be accepted as a French person, so it’s not worth trying. But in the end, I didn’t move to France to become French.
Maybe life in France is a bit like finding oneself in an ocean – swimming in French but breathing in English. Both languages are necessary to make progress and to stay afloat.
The mouth of the Hérault river at Grau d’Agde
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Yup. I found the exact same thing in Germany, which is why it took me so long to learn German. At least I had a bit of French before I came here, but I’m not kidding when I say the Germans made it impossible for me to learn German.
Happy birthday, incidentally!
It’s not too different here in China, except that the number of Chinese citizens bilingual in English (or any foreign language) and any Chinese language or dialect from birth is extremely small, and nobody needs to hear my accent or grammatical manglings- skin, hair, eyes and nose mark me out as a foreigner far quicker than language ever will.
I don’t know whether I swim in Chinese while breathing English or swim in English while breathing Chinese, but whichever it is, it’s spiced up with a bit of French reading, and both Chinese and English are utterly essential to my life- professionally, socially and maritally.
The differences are perhaps interesting, though: I’ve never yet met a French person who could not speak English (perhaps because I’ve never been to France), and it seems that perhaps from a purely linguistic point of view immersion is easier here, even in Beijing. Despite all the effort and money sunk into teaching people English, the overwhelming majority of Chinese absolutely do not speak the language. And all too often if I’m in a group of anglos and a Chinese person enters the room, the conversation does not shift to Chinese; my role shifts to translator.
Bonjour Richard,
Très intéressante discussion! I live in Montreal, the largest french speaking city in North America. Bilingualism (French-English) is more the norm than the exception here. Yet, I have people in my family who can barely say two words in english. Others went to school in Los Angeles to learn english by immersion, because, even though we have english schools in Montreal, it is just too easy to stick with your francophone friends.
So, to Chris’ point, I think if the language is essential for your business, or your training, or your marital life, your will definitely immerse! It all depends on your goal.
Just my two cents’ worth.
Merci J-F, j’ai vraiment envie de visiter Montréal un de ces jours: son image de ville bilingue et toute la patrimoine québecoise me fascine.
Effectivement, j’aurai besoin du français pour mon travail, mais toutefois il est hautement probable qu’on va m’embaucher pour un poste où on exige un très bon niveau d’anglais…