Weird Words

Coming to France, I had already studied the language for five years.  That being said, I still stumbled (and continue to stumble) all over myself when I trying to communicate in French.  And for my moments of linguistic discomfort, I have created a mantra that sounds something like “Je suis presque bilangue” (which – hopefully – means “I am almost bilingual”).  I love the way the word “presque” sounds and how it feels to pronounce it.  It’s going to be so sad when I can no longer use that word to describe my linguistic skills (a small price to pay for the ability to communicate fully in my favorite language in the world).
 
I sometimes feel conflicted about having come to a country where I do have a good basic knowledge of the language.  I know that being abroad without knowing the local language can, for some people, be an incredibly challenging and rewarding experience.  I sometimes feel like I am missing out. 
 
Botton discusses the “exoticism” in “the neighborliness of the u and i in Uitgang” when exiting the airport in Amsterdam, which is very similar to what I discovered in Bruges on a trip to Belgium last weekend (67).  Flemish has a similar exotic look to Dutch.  It was weirdly wonderful to be in a place where the street signs were practically unreadable (and definitely unpronounceable) simply due to the large number of similar letters strung together in unfamiliar combinations.  It made me want to learn more languages!  It also absolutely terrified me that anything could look so foreign!  I realized that I couldn’t remember a time when the French language looked as foreign to me as Flemish did.  It’s possibly that it never did because the way that French words are formed (letter-order wise) is not as far from English as are the words of Flemish.  (Yet there are still times when I look at or hear a French sentence and it seems to be some garbledy-gook as foreign as the word Uitgang seemed to Botton). 
 
Knowledge of the language is not the only thing it takes to get to know a country as Botton points out when discussing Flaubert’s trip to Egypt.  Flaubert had dreamt of the Middle East all of his life and upon reaching the country, “he simply replaced an absurdly idealized image with a more realistic but nevertheless still profoundly admiring one” (95).  He immersed himself in the culture (as well as the language) and even earned himself a new name given to him by the locals.  In a similar way, my love of Paris and of French continues to grow seemingly in spite of (and because of) all of the idealized images that we, as citizens of the world, have of France and Parisians.  One thing that has been incredibly important for me to realize is that real life goes on here.  Paris is not just a place for me to drop in on to admire from afar.  I’m learning the pace of the city.  I’m learning how to be French.  Of course this is very much colored by the fact that I am not French: I can’t hear the differences between all the French sounds, I eat food while running down the street to class, and I find it unlivable to be without an air conditioner in the summer.  But these are things that I am sure I could get used to should my linguistic desires continue to veer towards the francophone side of things.
 
Perhaps I don’t have a completely different name in France as I do in America, but the French twist on the pronunciation of  “Audrey” is so “exotic” that my name becomes somewhat wonderfully unrecognizable.  It seems that I’m beginning to “fe[el] an intense longing to spend the rest of my life [here]” (75).