I'm Very Lucky

Some recent English teaching encounters:

When asked to think about her body and write a short paragraph about her thoughts, Isabelle wrote, "I'm very lucky about my body because he is composed of all the main members." I wasn't sure what to do with it.

When asked what he thought about traveling by train, Pierre-Emmanuel responded, "I think traveling by train is romantic. You can look out and see the paysage and you can meet lovely ladies."

When introducing herself at the beginning of a class, one of my students announced that she intended to be a 'public writer.' I was curious. What exactly is a public writer? She explained that this vocation originated in the middle ages in France when people could not write for themselves. Enter the public writer, who would correspond on legal matters, or write an account of a wedding or family history for other people. So, she intends to take this line of work up for modern French folks. A fascinating idea.

I had two veiled sisters in my class, evidently young Muslim women. There was another woman sitting across from them, facing them. She was 'French' - in the classic, original sense (as she would put it, I am sure). Each student introduced herself and good old Marie-France had her way with the veils.
'Where are you from?' she interrogated.
'France,' came calmly.
'Yes, but where are you from actually?' she repeated.
'France.'
'Yes, but you are not originally from France...' insisting.
'Oh, well our parents are from Pakistan.'
'Ah, well then why do you not speak English better?' accusingly.
'Well, we have always lived in France. We always speak French.'
'Do your parents speak French?' she demanded.
'Of course. They live here also.'
'Huh,' haughtily.

There is so much underneath that conversation. Obviously. But when I have conversations about immigration in France with the 'French' (in the 'proper' sense of the term), the discussion is always framed in 'ours' and 'us' and 'them' and 'theirs.' 'When they come to our country, they must integrate into our ways and culture.' This is similar to many other places; similar statements can be heard in the US regarding immigration from the southern border, to be sure. However, the French have an interesting twist on this. If someone is 'French' - they are not an immigrant, nor have they been an immigrant ancestrally. This produces real feelings of ownership. I think most Americans (except maybe Native ones) think of themselves as immigrants on some level. Anyway, the two cultures are significantly influenced by this factor.

And as a random, delightful tid bit, the ultimate insult Xavier throws out there is calling someone a 'shampooingneuse pour les chiens': this is the one who washes the dog's hair before it is styled.

Entre Guillemets

While teaching English today, we had a discussion of places we would like to go. One of my students, Bruno, a taxi driver, who, for some curious reason, wants to learn English (and no, I assure you, it is not to accommodate his clients in the back seat) said that he would like to go to Yellowstone. Bruno is this sort-of inarticulate fellow in French, and so you can imagine how he sounds in English, and the other students seem to chafe against him. They sit next to him and seemed to be rubbed the wrong way continually throughout the class. They roll their eyes in their not-so-subtle French manner and act as if he is a burden to bear.

I quite like him, despite the fact that he only comes to 'tea time' (an hour where we serve tea and speak English freely with the students) for the biscuits and cookies. Maybe I like him because of that. He is so unpretentious. Sometimes after he has had enough of English for one day, he just gets up and says simply, “ça suffit” (that’s enough) and leaves. He said to me today, 'You like to display words with your eyes. That is good for us.' I took it as a nice compliment, although I’m pretty sure he was making fun of me and my wide-eyed nodding when a student says something correctly.

Bruno elaborated about why he would like to go to Yellowstone. First of all – to see the ‘bee-zon’ (bison). Second, for the ‘gee-zair’ (geysers). It took a full explanation from him using his hands to demonstrate an exploding geyser before I understood what exactly he was saying, even though the word for geyser is the same in English and French.

All in all, I think we can agree – two great reasons to go to Yellowstone.

I also had a good laugh with the other teachers when we were talking about using quotation marks in speech. Americans, of course, use a hand gesture with the first two fingers of each hand imitating quotation marks, while saying what is actually in the quotation marks in their speech - the Brits do the same. However, the Brits do not use the term quotation marks. They call those things "inverted commas."

And the French top everyone. They actually say the words 'entre guillemets' (between quotation marks) in the sentence just before the quotation-marked word.* For example, “J'étais vraiment entre guillemets pas contente” (“I was seriously between quotation marks not happy”).

*Xavier clarified that this way of speaking in French should be noted as a “personal assistant's way of speaking (in the 80’s).”