Quatres ans de francais dans l'ecole
Because I am awesome, yesterday I broke my driver's side mirror backing out of a space at my office's parking garage. I distinctly remember thinking "I'm pretty close to that pillar, so I'll have to be careful pulling out!" which is why the fact that I then promptly broke the mirror means I'm awesome.
So I took my car to the shop this morning and called a cab to take me to work. The cab driver was listening to French NPR. At least I'm assuming it was NPR - they talked about le minister du petrol and les gens avec des problemes evec ses maisons et leurs argent. I took four years of French in high school (nous aimons toujours, Madame Alnwick!) so I enjoyed listening and trying to understand.
The driver was quiet during the ride, and I debated saying thanks in French. I always have this internal debate when deciding whether or not to addres a stranger in their native language - will they be happy I did? Will it not matter? Will my pronunciation suck? One time my mom was at a Greek store during Orthodox Easter, and she said "Khristos Aneste!" (Chris is Risen) to the proprietor. Rather than giving the standard response, the guy narrowed his eyes at her and barked "You grik?" So you just never know how people will react.
But what the hell; when we reached my office I said "Merci beaucoup!" to the driver. He got all animated, and said, "Merci! Au revoir! Bonne journee!" So that was nice.
I took French in high school only because my sister was taking Spanish, and being a defensive snot I didn't want her correcting my speaking/writing/reading. (Our relationship has improved a lot since. Hopefully I'm also less of a snot.) Sometimes I'd wonder why I bothered, figuring that French was way less useful in the NoVa area than Spanish. Realizing now that large chunks of a rather large continent were colonized by les francaises, and that many of the people living on that large continent have fled genocide and poverty and ended up here, I feel better about my four years o' french. Even if it's just to say thanks to cab drivers.
So I took my car to the shop this morning and called a cab to take me to work. The cab driver was listening to French NPR. At least I'm assuming it was NPR - they talked about le minister du petrol and les gens avec des problemes evec ses maisons et leurs argent. I took four years of French in high school (nous aimons toujours, Madame Alnwick!) so I enjoyed listening and trying to understand.
The driver was quiet during the ride, and I debated saying thanks in French. I always have this internal debate when deciding whether or not to addres a stranger in their native language - will they be happy I did? Will it not matter? Will my pronunciation suck? One time my mom was at a Greek store during Orthodox Easter, and she said "Khristos Aneste!" (Chris is Risen) to the proprietor. Rather than giving the standard response, the guy narrowed his eyes at her and barked "You grik?" So you just never know how people will react.
But what the hell; when we reached my office I said "Merci beaucoup!" to the driver. He got all animated, and said, "Merci! Au revoir! Bonne journee!" So that was nice.
I took French in high school only because my sister was taking Spanish, and being a defensive snot I didn't want her correcting my speaking/writing/reading. (Our relationship has improved a lot since. Hopefully I'm also less of a snot.) Sometimes I'd wonder why I bothered, figuring that French was way less useful in the NoVa area than Spanish. Realizing now that large chunks of a rather large continent were colonized by les francaises, and that many of the people living on that large continent have fled genocide and poverty and ended up here, I feel better about my four years o' french. Even if it's just to say thanks to cab drivers.
posted by walkinhomefromthethriftstore at 1:07 PM
5 Comments:
i took French, too (though it was only one semester in junior college), but i didn't even have a sister in Spanish so i had less of a reason to bother.
don't even ask why i've started on pahrooski!
... and where can i get me some NPR en francais, anyway?
You've started on pahrooski cuz it's the language of obstinate...ness. Obstinacy? Obstinence?
I dunno where you get it, but it's out there!
Eeenteresting; I figured that since the rest of the fam spoke at least a lil spaniel that you were hewing your own path. Little did I wot that you were avoiding my undeniable attitude problems.
Hurrah for mo' bettah sibling relationships. Should we buy a house together?
Oh yes, let's do! We can split it down the middle... messy on one side, neat on the other, meet in the middle for mac'n'cheese!
Mm, cheeeese. And you've seen my place; "neat" is not the word.
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