The Good Life France Magazine November 2014 | Page 41

British Expat Sue Sharp muses on the language challenges that present themselves in France.

If you speak to any ex-pat living outside their native country and ask them what’s the biggest challenge in their overseas life it a sure bet that the majority would say ‘language.’ From simple things like buying a postage stamp to the complexities of friendships (and sometimes-closer relationships), language skills, or rather the lack of them, loom large.

When I arrived in France from the UK, I was no exception. Schoolgirl French, not much used in thirty years, left me ill-prepared. My husband added further pressure. His job, he felt, was to renovate our cottage, build another cottage and then convert the stables into a workshop. My job was… well, everything else, including dealing with all the paperwork and bureaucracy that goes with emigrating to a new country. His view was that I could at least speak some French and he could speak none so I was the obvious choice for the job – unless I fancied fixing tiles on the roof?

My teenage memories of learning French at school gave me some vocabulary and structure to build on and I started French lessons straight away. But my frustration levels were sky-high. I loved language and literature; indeed I had made a successful career

out of my communication skills. Why had I put myself into a situation where those

skills and that passion were redundant? Learning was hard and slow and I worried that I had reduced myself to a life of baby talk and confused looks.

More than 10 years later I still get exasperated by not being completely fluent but it causes me much less distress. I am not a natural linguist and will never be mistaken for a French woman, but I have stuck with French lessons, yes, after 120 months’ worth, I am still going. I have battled through radio and television programmes, struggled with newspapers and magazines with a dictionary by my side, joined hobby groups where I was the only non-French speaker – and reached some kind of success.

Of course, I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way. I had to walk away from a conversation scarlet with embarrassment when I realised that I’d told a builder that I was a putain (prostitute), rather than a friend (copine) of a mutual acquaintance. I know, I know, the words aren’t very similar at all, except when you’re under pressure and get mixed up. I am known to several neighbourhood children as ‘the lady who speaks funny.’

But as well as being reduced to weariness by the difficulty of learning French, I’ve laughed too. One time I headed into our local town to the small, old-fashioned cook shop to

buy a zester. There is little or

no self-service there – I knew I was going to have to ask for what I wanted. ‘There’s no way it’s called a zester,’ I thought as I drove, so I rehearsed my request: ‘I would like a small tool that removes very small pieces of skin from a lemon,’ I decided. Once in the shop, I carefully enunciated my requirements. The owner listened with a quizzical but helpful look on her face, obviously deconstructing my convoluted sentence. ‘Erm…un…zester, peut-être…’ she asked and her voice trailed away as I started to giggle.

Obligingly, she laughed with me, I paid and escaped, having reinforced my reputation as a well-meaning madwoman.

I’ve taught the village kids to make scones at the weekly cookery club and I’ve been told approvingly at the local sous-prefecture that I was the only person that day to have ALL the correct documents for registering a car, DESPITE being English; at our neighbours’ daughter’s wedding, I translated several innuendo-laden jokes for other expats…

It certainly hasn’t been easy to learn French and I’m still very, very careful when using the words putain and copine but it can be done and if you’re stuggling, don’t give up, practice makes perfect!

Sue Sharp lives in Pas de Calais, northern France.

The “joy” of learning French