Tu parles Franç
ais?*"Do you speak French?"
As expected, I have received this question quite often during the first week of my internship. It's a deceptively simple question that makes me and my meh-ish French abilities scramble a bit for the appropriate answer. Some options that I've attempted over the last week:
1. Oui, je parle Franç
ais."Yes, I speak French." Technically, yes, I do speak French — certainly better than someone that downloaded a language learning app a week before coming (unless that someone is surnamed Holmes). But can you really claim to speak a language if your vocabulary is limited and you don't know how to use all the tenses? And "speaking" is distinct from "conversing." Whereas in Chinese I can understand more than I can speak, in French, I can speak less than I can write, which is less than I can read — but it is definitely more than what I can understand. Listening to fluent French is like watching Quicksilver or the Flash running across the screen — it's bewilderingly fast.
2. Euh, je parle un peu Franç
ais."Uh, I speak a little French." Also technically true, definitely more specific and probably more accurate. But I have found that saying that I only know "a little" French tends to put people off from trying to converse with me in French.
3. Oui, j'étudiais le Francais à l'école.
"Yes, I've studied French in school." This is the one I've taken to replying with, and so far, with regards to my rather limited sample size, this one seems to be the best reply. "Studied French" suggests more mastery than "know a little French," while still warning of a lack of anything near fluency.
Next week I will be journeying to Les Calanques de Cassis, and hopefully the article will be more colorful.
The Intern's Notebook of Food Experiences
- Brie cheese is sumptuous.
- Oranges from Spain are not so sumptuous (but maybe it's the season).
- Baguettes are excellent but go stale rather quickly.
- French eggs appear more yolk-y?
- Andouillettes are somewhere on the border of weirdly tasty and really nasty. Try once for the experience, and then never again.
*You probably see parlez-vous Franç
ais more often, but in France, everyone can use the informal "you" with les stagiares — interns. It does not, as I have been warned, mean that we interns can use the informal "you" back.
