Minding Your Language
Saturday 4 th October:
A long, long, long lunch yesterday, and with it came further evidence of at least one truism I have proved conclusively as a result of messing around in France for more than twenty years: A foreign language is not absorbed by some sort of process of osmosis just by living in that country.
In fact, I do not think it would be going too far to say that there is often a law of inverse ratio at play when Brits go to live abroad anywhere that English is not the lingua franca. In short, I know of people who have lived in France for forty years and yet speak less French than when they arrived.
My personal theory is that it is not about the problem of teaching old dogs new tricks or some people being unable to grasp the basic tenets of speaking another language. Rather, I think it is all down to how much you want to learn a foreign tongue. The long-term expats who cant or refuse to learn French are prime examples. I think that their failure to pick up at least a passing knowledge of the language their neighbours speak is more to do with a mental block rather than an inability to get to grips with French. It is as if speaking only English is part of their Britishness and even their individual identities, and it would damage that shell of individuality somehow to realize what the lady at the checkout in their local supermarket is saying about the weather when they do their weekly shop safely within their force field bubble of ununderstanding.
But I am hardly one to talk, given that my command and control of the French language after two decades of using it regularly is put firmly in place and perspective by an English friend’s son, who is nine and been attending the local school for less than a year. Already, he can rattle away like a native, and -most importantly- his accent is so good that French people he meets think he is one of their own.
That’s my point really, and what nearly spoiled my otherwise wonderful relais lunch yesterday. Don’t laugh, but the restaurant is within the grounds of a now ( thankfully) redundant nuclear power station. Although the site is virtually deserted, at least a hundred office, building trade and farm workers descend on the place every day on the stroke of noon. It is that good, almost exclusively used by French people and certainly lived up to the recommendation we were given. But what upset me was how, when the waitress arrived and I said no more than two words – or you could say even no more than one( ‘Bon jour’), she responded in flawless English.
When we first went to live in Normandy in 1990, nobody in our nearest town- up to and including the bank manager- spoke a word of English. Or at least they pretended not to, and that also includes, wait for it, the bar owner who also taught English at the local primary school. We never knew whether this lack of usage of the Queen’s English by the good people of Bricquebec was all about a point of principal, or embarrassment at how they might sound when using our tongue. Nowadays, the reverse is true, or at least it is in every part of Brittany we visit. No sooner have you opened your mouth than the person you are addressing is responding in English. I suppose this should please us to see so many Bretons practicing their command of our language or being polite by speaking in our tongue, but, however perversely, I find it extremely irritating. Because, of course, it means that I, who have been cultivating a decent French accent for more than twenty years, betray my nationality so easily when I speak. A typical example is when dropping in to an unfamiliar bar for a coffee break. I will slouch up to the bar trying to look very Breton, and ask or rather grunt for two coffees. Without exception, the man or woman behind the bar will ask, in English of a varying degree of fluidity, if we want big or small ones. Often, they will go on to explain the difference. This is particularly galling, because, as you may know, real French people only ever ask for coffee when they want a small, black expresso. That is the norm, and they will specify if they want a milky or weak one or otherwise. So even though I am using local code, all my responders have indicated that they not only know that I am not Breton or French, but also that I am British. Or as they would have it, English.
This lead me to the inevitable conclusion that not only do I merely have to open my mouth to reveal my origins, but that, to all French people I must sound the equivalent of Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau, asking to see the minkey’s leesunce.. or the French-mangling British spy pretending to be a local policeman in ‘Allo Allo who would always enter with that immortal line: ‘I was just pissing by…’.
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An interesting encounter in the car park at Super U this morning. About the only time when we are sure to be thought of as French is when we are in or around our car, which is a locally registered (29) Renault runaround of the sort much favoured by retired farmers or other older and staider Bretons. Curiously, when we swapped our British-registered Volvo for a French make of car that would indicate we are locals we thought we would receive better treatment from Breton road users. In fact, the reverse proved true, but that is another story.
This morning a British-reg car pulled up alongside us, and we were treated to that wonderfully singular and ingratiating smile which all decent francophile Britons in France reserve for the natives, and which roughly translates as: ‘Thank you so much for letting us be in your wonderful country and we promise to be no bother while we are here or try and change your culture or increase the price of property for young people too much.’
When I explained that we were British and living here more or less permanently, the smile disappeared and the couple gloomily explained they had a holiday home nearby, and were stocking up on goodies before the much resented trip back to Middlesborough and work. They could not wait, they said, to be our age and be able to retire to Brittany and live here all the time. I was about to point out that it was not all fun reaching retirement age, what with all the extra aches and pains and non-functioning bits, when I realized that they were, actually quite right. We at least have found that all the drawbacks of ageing are more than compensated for by being able to spend the autumn- and hopefully the winter- of our lives right here in the adopted country of our hearts…