L' Année Française

Happy New Year - Bonne Année - Yoi otoshi o (良いお年を)

Learning is my self-love language.

At the close of my year of being ‘Deliberate,’ it seems impossible to resist tackling something significant. In 2024, I want to become a confident French speaker.

I’ve had many opportunities to speak French through travel and work, but it’s been sporadic with long absences. When I’m rusty, I resist jumping into the conversation. It’s a language I understand pretty well, but I’ve yet to fully embrace the suck of learning it and feeling uncomfortably unskilled as I speak or write it. The expert mind gets in the way.

I’ve always wanted to be bi-lingual — not merely functional but competent. My mom’s family grew up speaking French; my grandfather was born in Québec and struggled a bit in English. I studied French at various times, including from elementary to high school and several courses through l’Alliance Française. I even had a French/ English language exchange partner in my thirties. We spoke in each language for an hour and then swapped. It helped a lot.

During my visit to Montréal over the holidays, I learned my brother and his kids have been using Duolingo. My brother wants to brush up on his French, and the kids want to learn German, the language of their maternal grandparents. (My niece and nephew already speak French!)

I’ve now joined my brother’s Duolingo family plan to begin my quest. I’m also tackling Japanese (because I can). Learning French and Japanese simultaneously is not as tricky as learning two romance languages like Spanish or Italian. It’s about time and focus.

Why Japanese? Because I like the sound of it and I’ve always wanted to go to Japan. Being completely lost linguistically makes me hesitant to go. I’m also learning one of the three written Japanese languages (hiranga). Yes, there are three written languages!

I’m also dabbling in learning music through Duolingo. I’m shockingly terrible. I never imagined being so awkward with music, but apparently so! It makes Japanese look easy.

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Yeah…so I tend to go all in. And don’t tell me to do one at a time. I find learning or doing several things simultaneously helps me. It unlocks a part of myself that allows for more learning than less. I’ve demonstrated this several times in my life. Perhaps it’s about using more vulnerability, I don’t know. Once I embrace the learner mindset, there’s room for more. If that’s weird, I’m okay with it. If I’m unique, so be it.

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Driving home from Montréal, I listened to various French-language radio stations trying to understand what was being discussed. The further I got from Québec, the fewer the stations until I searched for the lone Radio-Canada station on the dial as I neared Toronto. I understood the news and discussions reasonably well as the hosts spoke slowly and precisely, using less slang. If I was asked to share the salient point, I wouldn’t be at a loss.

Everyone has an opinion of whether Québecois or Parisienne French is better. I prefer Canadian French, though I will learn a lot through Duolingo, which is Parisienne. I’ve spent a lifetime translating British and US to Canadian English idioms, accents and spellings in my head, so why should French differ?

I will listen to Radio Canada daily rather than the English-language CBC. I will look for a similar language partner service I found years ago. I will seek out French reading material — the news and short stories. (I shoulda thought of this before I left Québec). I will seek patient francophones with whom to converse.

In the theme of ‘Possibility,’ by the end of 2024, I will be:

• a confident speaker and reader of advanced French,

• conversant in beginner to intermediate Japanese

• and able to play a tune on a piano or read it on sheet music.

I acknowledge carrying some deliberate effort into my year of possibility.  I expect some of my future writing will be about this learning journey.

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Below is a benchmark recording of me reading an article in French about the recent teacher strike in Québec, with no editing. Followed by a few words in Japanese.

It’s a starting point. I have difficulty making sense of what I reading and speaking with any kind of ‘flow’. Wrapping my mouth around the sounds is challenging. If you listen, thank you for your courage! Hahaha.

Below are a few words in Japanese.

“Hello, I’m Linda and I’m a cool student.”