Lost in Translation

Part of my job here in France (Yes, I do have a job!  Gotta pay for all that cheese and wine somehow...) is to teach college-age kids who are specializing (majoring) in English.  Most of these students will go on to teach English, live in an English-speaking country for a year or two, or do some other kind of job that requires them to be fluent.  Most of them have studied in the U.K. for some amount of time.   They are accustomed to being that person, within any group of French people, who can speak English the best.

But when I first walked into the classroom, they wouldn’t say a word.  Why were all these supposedly top-notch English speakers suddenly mute when I stood in front of them, speaking the language they had all freely chosen to study? 

And then I saw myself the way they saw me:  Here I was, only one to two years older than them, fresh from America, speaking perfect English with more ease than they could ever hope for. 

I can relate to this sense of defeat.   I have felt the same way in French Lit classes with native speakers.  (Native French speakers just love to enroll in college French classes for the easy A)  For all the time I have spent, reading French books, watching French movies, traveling to France, etc., I still cannot articulate my thoughts like these elusive French people can.

Back in America (oh, how I miss that faraway land…)  Whenever I was out with friends and we met a French person – say at a bar at one in the morning – my friends always thrust me toward the Frenchman saying “Ann Marshall speaks French! Talk to her!” 

I hate this. 

I always feel like this native French speaker is going to uncover me as a fraud.  They are going to see that my French is not flawless like theirs and that I can’t really speak French like them.  They are going to know right away that I sometimes forget the most basic vocab words, and use the wrong gender or verb tense from time to time. 

As an English speaker living in France, I now understand that those fears were insane.  I fully understand that a French person cannot speak English as well as me, (why would I ever expect them to?  They are French…)  but I always appreciate the effort.  They say things like “Yesterday he is going to the park.”  Or “What age do you have?”  But I know what they mean.  I know they are learning, and I appreciate the courage it takes to approach a native speaker and potentially butcher their language.   

I wanted to explain to my class that I knew where they were coming from.  That the tables would be turned if I was sitting in a French class taught by any one of them. 

So I told them a story from when I was in France two years ago.  I was staying with a French family who had two daughters – Laura who is my age, and Julia, who is about my sister Susan’s age.

Before I arrived at their house I had an allergic reaction to the preservatives in the airplane food.  (Why did I ever eat that crap anyways?  Must have been the free wine they serve on AirFrance flights…)  I was really weak  and green in the face when I first met my chic French hostesses.

I wanted to explain that I did not usually look like a sickly Raggedy-Ann doll, so I said “Je suis très malade au cause des préservatifs qui étaient dans la nourriture de l’avion.” 

Now before I translate this lovely little phrase, let me just explain something here.  In my lazy American French, when I don’t know the word for something (like preservative),  I usually just say the English word with a French accent.  Bizarrely enough, I would say this actually works about 75% of the time.

What I thought I was saying to Laura and Julia was : “I’m really sick because of all the preservatives that were in the airplane food.” 

Unfortunately for me, the French word for preservative is actually conservateur.  This was part of the 25% where my cheat-tactic doesn’t work. 

So what I actually said, to these two French girls I had just met, was:  “I’m sick because I’m allergic to the condoms that were in the airplane food.”

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, préservatif means condom. 

So Laura, Julia, and their friend Guillaume (who was also present for my moment of humiliation) burst into a fit of laughter.  Between gasps and giggles they said,  “I’m pretty sure you didn’t mean to say that.” 

I explained that I had meant to say that I was sick because of “the things they put in food to keep it fresh for longer.”

“Oh!  Conservateurs!” They said.  Voilà.

This story succeeded in helping my new students relax.  Now, some of them won’t shut up…

(By the way – I am still really good friends with Laura and Julia.  I’m pretty sure the whole me-eating-condoms-in-airplane-food-thing is a bond that can’t be broken.  They both came here from Paris this past weekend to help me celebrate my 23^rd birthday!!  Needless to say, this story was told several times throughout the night to both friends and random strangers…)