Things that interest me
I have long been fascinated with Canada. I grew up less than two hours from the border in western NY, and we used to go to Niagara Falls (the Canadian side) every time family visited us when I was little. The thing that always interests me is that (English speaking) Canadians are very similar to Americans both linguistically and culturally (well, maybe except for hockey) yet it’s a completely separate country with their own cultural variations.
On Sunday was the Superbowl, the culmination of the NFL Playoffs. The Philadelphia Eagles defeated the New England Patriots to be crowned the 52nd Superbowl champions (and Philly nearly burned down after). I watched more out of a duty to American culture rather than a desire to see either team play. I ended up rooting for the Eagles, but that was more because I was cheering against the Patriots (Go Bills!).
Paris is 7 hours ahead of Minneapolis, so when the Superbowl began at a reasonable 5:30pm local time, it was already 12:30 AM in Paris. Since I don’t have a TV in my apartment, my roommate and I trekked to Galway Irish Pub near the Notre Dame cathedral. It’s one of the many Irish, British, or Canadian sports bars in Paris that stayed open for the duration of the Superbowl.
We arrived on the second to last metro of the night, and made our way upstairs to a table overlooking the River Seine. The bar was pretty narrow, maybe 30 to 40 feet in length. The first floor had the bar, with a glass paned room flanking the door. Several TVs lined the walls, all turned to the SkySports stream of the game, complete with British announcers and (sadly) no American TV Advertisements. My friend from Michigan had saved us two seats, and there were already 7 other American students there with us. Behind my seat in the other corner of the mahogany lined pub were a group of French diners, and behind my friend was a group of British patrons. Kiddy corner to us were a particularly obnoxious group of French people, 2 guys, and 2 girls.
At first, I thought they were American because one of the guys was wearing a shirt that said “Rush ’17”, and on the back the greek letters for some fraternity. It turns out they were French based on their accents. What was really weird for me was that they would be speaking in French, but then would throw in English phrases or pop culture references. They began singing Hotline Bling by Drake (“I know when that hotline bling…do do do do do), but the “do do do” part was not the correct melody. They would also use what I think were American mannerisms, like taking shots (I later noticed they were taking shots of water), and chanting at things that happen. When they showed Tom Brady’s baby, the French group started chanting “La Bébé,La Bébé, La Bébé” over and over again. They would also talk in somewhat broken English for stretches at a time.
At first, I thought they were actually mocking us. But the more and more I listened in, I realized that they might actually be genuinely trying to act American. For their part, they were the only French group on the second floor that actually stayed for the duration of the Superbowl (everyone else left around 2am). When I brought this up to our Intercultural Communications and Leadership teacher, he reinforced this point. It seemed like what I mistook for obnoxious behavior was actually an attempt at acting culturally U.S. American.
I think my discomfort was that the way they were acting was unnatural. It’s as if somewhat had told them how Americans acted (or they learned it from pop culture) but they had never actually talked to a U.S. American in the process. The converse for French people would be if an American walked out of the metro wearing stripes, a beret, and carrying an entire baguette in hand. When people adopt only some, but not all aspects of your culture, it starts to produce an uncanny valley effect.
If we attempt to learn anything about a culture (mannerisms, beliefs, language) divorced from people of that culture, we are probably destined to act the way those French people acted. Lesson of the day is to always try to interact with natives and constantly evaluate the validity of the stereotypes you hold. Maybe the French do enjoy wine and cheese, but before assuming so, we should try to talk to some actual French people to see 1) if it’s true, and 2) how they actually express that fact.
Update: Here is a video of my progress towards the end of my challenge.
Salut de Paris!
Today marks the 25th day of my “50 days of French” challenge. This halfway update will be split into three parts, what I’ve done so far, how I’ve used my French, and what I intend to do for the remainder of the challenge.
In my previous post outlining my challenge, I said I was going to focus on a few key thematic areas for my study, including transportation, shopping, food. I decided I was going to set milestones for completion (i.e., I can say I’ve learned “food” sufficiently when I can order a meal completely in French). When I said this, I thought that meant I would go through section by section and memorize the relevant words and phrases – but that didn’t happen, for two reasons.
One is that it was too compartmentalized, and it felt like a chore to memorize all these different phrases. If there’s anything I know about language learning, it’s that it has to be fun and interesting, otherwise it gets really boring. I quickly switched out of this because this method….
I will be studying abroad in Paris for six weeks of next semester. I leave for Paris on January 7th, and leave Paris on February 17th. From this point, I have approximately two months to learn as much French as possible, not unlike the two months I had for my Hebrew challenge.
I’m aiming for around the same level I aimed for in Hebrew, “tourist” level. Using the CEFR as a reference, this is somewhere around the A2 level, with some modifications to focus on the things that are most important for me to know in French. These include shopping (buying things), transportation (getting to things), and food (eating things) as well as the obvious emergency phrases (Where is the bathroom? Help me, I am in pain, and “My hovercraft is full of eels”).
I’m going to use the same methods I used for Hebrew: spaced repetition with Anki, mnemonics to remember words, and speaking as much and as early as possible. However, this time I want to be more rigorous about the content I intend to learn and about setting more definitive checkpoints.
Hello,
Tuesday marked the first day of classes at my university. With it, comes a new year of hopes, dreams, disappointments, and achievements. I am more than halfway done with college (this is my third year) and closer to ending college than starting it. In math terms, I am over 88% done with my educational career.
That sentence is scary, as I can no longer hide from the realities of the adult world in the ignorance of childhood. As much as I hope to leave the land of all nighters and stressful exams for the promised land of a fixed schedule and my own income, I know I will miss college tremendously not long after walking across that stage.
Given I still have two long years ahead of me, I am not yet out of the woods. But my fears of life after college are slightly dampened by my summer in Israel, which gave me a glimpse of the adult world, and how to survive it.
In the two weeks since I’ve last written, I’ve been learning Hebrew. At this point, I think the goals in my previous post are reasonable – I can achieve tourist level in the month I have left. However, I am doubtful that I can progress much beyond that, because of a lack of time.
I can ask simple questions (like what time is dinner?) and understand simple responses (7). I’m still at the point where any response I’m not expecting will throw me off, and I’ll have to ask them to speak slower, or revert to English. On Saturday night I went to a language meet-up hosted by Fluent TLV at the Abraham Hostel downtown. By the end of the night, I was able to have a 3 to 4 response exchange about where I’m from, how long I’m in Israel, and what I’m doing here.
Biking in the Golan Heights
I use whatever Hebrew words I know given the chance (I once asked for mushroom on a salad just because I was proud to have known the word for mushroom – pi-tri-yot). People on the program have also commented on my progress, saying I must be good at languages.
Shalom y’all.
When I was in middle school, I used to hide away in the mahogany lined study of my grandfather, reading blogs, forums, and books about learning languages. A particular influence was Benny Lewis of fluentin3months.com. He used to go to a new country for three months (the usual length of a tourist visa), fully immerse himself in the language (no English), and aim for fluency in the short time he had. He used language “hacks” such as mnemonics, memory palaces, and spaced repetition, as well as a relentless drive to use the language whenever he could.
Even when he fell short (like when he narrowly failed the German C1 exam), the level of achievement was mind-boggling for my 12 year old self. It inspired me to start learning Spanish outside of school, speaking to Spanish speakers every chance I got, and Skype-ing with people from other countries. I dreamed of all the languages I would learn and the dimly lit, smoky café back room I would visit on escapes from the gray, cold, western New York winters.
But just like everything else, I kind of got lazy and haven’t pursued that dream since.