Missing the mark

One of the toughest things about being abroad and not speaking the language is the daily humiliation you suffer as you struggle to make conversation and go about your business. It’s extremely frustrating to want to say something and not be able to articulate your thoughts without sounding like a moderately intelligent 4 year old. Sure, I know enough to get by. I can talk about the weather for hours! But when it comes to anything moderately complex, speaking can be clumsy and awkward, like me trying to dance. 

In French, like Spanish and Italian and probably a bunch of other languages, you have a formal and informal “you” subject. It’s always better to err on the side of being too formal, so I always address Sophie in the formal “vous.” But when it comes to Chloé or any younger people, like fellow classmates, I bounce back and forth between the formal “vous” and informal “tu” about 20 times per minute, which is really awkward because verbs are conjugated differently depending on the subject.

Then other times I really miss the mark by choosing the wrong language. The other day in class someone asked me a question and I responded with “Si! Oh, I mean yes…no, oui!” Then yesterday Chloé came home and popped her head in my room and asked how I was (in French) and I responded “Hey! Good, how about you? Oh! Oops, Ça va!” (in English). 

But the absolute worst is when you use the wrong word altogether. I'm not talking a close synonym. I mean when you want to say "a cat" and you say "to get run over in the crosswalk by a bus."

This was my after dinner conversation tonight, translated from French to English:

Me: “Thank you for dinner, Sophie. If you leave the dishes in the sink, I will wash them tomorrow morning because I don’t have school.”

So far, so good

Sophie: “Oh, thank you! We’ll see” (this probably means she’ll wash them anyway).

Me: “Good night! Oh, by the way I went to the grocery store today and got some things for myself for lunch. I put them all in the fridge in the top right corner”

Here’s where it gets interesting…

 Sophie: “Ok, great. They are all together, so we will know they are yours.”

Me: “Oh yes. They’re all together, except I also understood a chicken cordon bleu. It’s in the freezer now.

Sophie: *puzzled* “Oh….ok. Good night”

********

I came back to my room and was thinking to myself how impressive that exchange was. I’m becoming a natural! Just as I was really starting to feel proud, I realized I had used the word “comprendre-to understand” instead of “acheter-to buy.” No wonder she looked confused….

Someone "understanding a chicken"