Tongue-Tied

Accent

My French teacher, back in the early seventies was Madame Farrugia - a Parisienne, married to an Italian who had lived much of her life in the middle east, including a couple of years in Egypt where, I believe, she was a language tutor to the children of King Farouk before he was sent packing by Nasser. She spoke French, Italian, Arabic and heavily accented English among others. She was a fine teacher and her greatest gift to me was a very correct Parisian accent.

Unlike many newly arrived English people my accent is not bad at all. The downside is that a reasonably decent accent is all I do have. Grammar is flakey and vocab is not half as extensive as that of most three year olds attending nursery school. I used to think that my vocab was OK. As a teenager visiting Paris, I liked to hang with the cool dudes and pick up street slang and bits from pop songs. A foreign teenager speaking with a localish accent and using all the latest argot might be considered cute. However, a middle aged foreigner barely grazing the right side of fifty and using the same old patter can only be viewed as sad, Sad, SAD!

We were staying in a chambre d'hote some years ago. The first thing one of the other guests said, on hearing me speak was something along the lines of: "Hm. Un autre Anglais avec un 'Ouaaai' Francais." Any disquiet I may have had was compounded a week later by our hostess. She placed a hand gently on my arm and whispered in French and very kindly: "Excuse me for pointing this out, Rob, but your slang is just so......so...... seventies."

That day I determined that I would clean up my language and act my age. I want to speak clean, clear, adult French with the same facility I speak English. Its good to know street language but I don't have to use it. And while my accent is good, its good to tone it down a bit on occasions when it gets me into trouble and people assume I know more than I do.

The telephone is my bête noire. I used to answer it with "Allo" and confirm who I was only to be deluged by a torrent of French from someone trying to sell me something I didn't want or something I wanted very much but couldn't afford.  Trouble was I often couldn't determine which was which. A Dutch friend whose been here ten years told me what she does. So now I pick up the phone with a beautifully modulated and very English "Hello". That does the trick. The callers tend to slow down or hang up.

I look forward to the time when my grammar and vocabulary catch up with my accent. And I long for the day when I can go back to "Allo" and then understand exactly what I've agreed to buy.