My first class (and my only Monday class) went very well. I understood almost everything that the professor and my peers said. Here is where I should divulge that class is in English. Monday's session consisted of four people: three students and the professor. It's a graduate level class so I'm not surprised by the head count, but what was interesting is that only one of the four of us has French as our first language. You'd probably expect it to be the professor, but it was actually one of the three students: a French woman who had been living in Switzerland for several years before moving to Québec with her family (see, I'm a good listener...in English). Both the professor and the other student speak Farsi natively, English as a Second Language, and French as a second-Second Language (or "third language" depending on whether or not you're viewing it linguistically). So this means that, for 3/4 of the class, English ranks more highly on our list of language familiarity/fluency than French. This fact, coupled with the fact that our textbooks are in English (as, I'm told, are most Graduate-level textbooks), lead to the class being given in English.
My other three classes are all on Thursday. I should point out (as it's not always the case in the US) that all of my classes meet once a week for three hours. So on Thursdays I have nine hours of classes spread over a thirteen hour period. And, of course, all of these classes are in French (as I had expected all my courses would be). (Yes, I know I'm using too many parentheses in this post...sorry.)
My first Thursday class, Psycho et Neurolinguistique (how exhilarating), meets at 8:30 AM. The first thing I did wrong was that I sat about halfway back in the lecture hall; the professor has clearly never been coached in the art of [vocal] projection. With English I can probably get by with hearing every third word, but such is not the case for French. One of the biggest problems I've noticed is that if I cannot hear French speaker clearly, there is little hope that I will understand them. It quickly became obvious that I was missing something when the class of sixty or so [undergrad] students roared into laughter. I had missed whatever the joke was and my heart rate begin to rise. I didn't care if I missed his numerous jokes, but what else was I missing? Then, about ten minutes into class, my worst nightmare manifested: the professor gave us a group assignment. Merde.
So, I'm sitting there, quickly thinking through the consequences of retreating back to the States when the two girls seated in the row in front of me turned around to address me. We exchanged salutations and then the brainy one (clearly a leader and someone to befriend) begin looking for the obligatory fourth group member. She could only find pairs (no individuals) and discussed the possibility of the three of us splitting up. This terrified me. I just wanted to stay where I was. Fortunately she decided that it would probably be okay to have a group of five and invited a nearby pair to join us. (I should confess that I actually didn't understand her and am inferring what she said based on the fact that two more people joined us.) Then my four group-mates began to talk amongst themselves; no understanding a word, I just smiled and nodded hoping that none of them were enquiring as to whether or not someone had farted.
I got through the exercise okay, while understanding about every fourth sentence. Fortunately, being the sole Anglophone in the group gave an interesting result in one of our group activities so I wasn't completely useless to the group. (For those interested in said result: we had to memorize series of numbers. They were read in French and I had a MUCH more difficult time memorizing them than I had memorizing sets of letters that were shown to us; I faired far worse with the numbers than my peers. Clearly I know my numbers, but my brain was much slower to process them than it would have been with English numbers. For example, when the letters were shown to us, I thought of them in English and faired best in the group.)
I had been warned that it would be my peers and not my professors that would pose a comprehension problem and this has been proven to be true. The students speak much more quickly and use more slang than the professors. If I can hear the professors clearly, I can understand about 95% and am generally only limited by the size of my vocabulary. I could be in a sound-proof room with only one other student and I would still only get maybe 15-20% of what he or she said. I wish I was kidding. I expect it will improve with time and exposure. And out of desperateness. (Is that a word?)
My second class is a remedial French class that I'm required to take because I, along with everyone else who took it (literally), failed the French proficiency exam. I suppressed a laugh when the instructor said we will learn to write 400-700 word papers. That's about one-and-a-half to three pages, double-spaced I wrote fifteen-page papers (in French) in my undergrad; I'm not concerned. My biggest beef with this class was that the majority of the people in the class are eighteen and nineteen year-old, English speaking girls. They are exceedingly rude and immature. Here's where I remember that I'm here because I want to teach at the university level. Now I understand how you get labeled as a "mean" professor. I can't imagine that I will tolerate their antics, but I suppose I shouldn't get ahead of myself. Let's survive this part of the adventure of life before I worry about what comes next.
My third and final class is a phonetics course. I happen to really like phonetics so I'm looking forward to it. The only downside is that it's a course for students in a specific degree program and therefore everyone knows everyone except for me. I'm not in that program (they are all undergrads) and had to get special permission to take the course. Only one of my courses is Graduate level because they accepted me for the winter semester but apparently only really offer courses in the fall. Truly bizarre. It was an absolute struggle to find enough classes to get me to the government mandated full-time status.
If you're still reading, you're in luck. See, the title of this post is related to its actual intended subject. Unfortunately in setting up the story, I immediately got off track. In fact I almost just ended the post without actually getting to the point.
Here we go: Yesterday Chris and I were talking about something that my phonetics professor had discussed. He talked about the faults that English-speakers make when speaking French and vice-versa. Then this morning I was talking to my mom about the mother languages of the people in my Monday course. Above I also made reference to the exchange of salutations. Chris pointed out that I've started using words and terms closely matching their French counterparts in lieu of the terms I would generally use. It seems that I am picking up something in my French-speaking courses. Previously I would have never said "faults." I would have said "errors" or "mistakes," but the French word used in this case is "fautes." That translates as "faults" OR "mistakes," but seeing that it more closely resembles "faults," that is where my mind goes. The same can be said for "mother language." That's not in fact something that would be said in English. We might say "mother tongue" but, in my experience, we would generally say "native language" or "first language." The French equivalent is "langue maternelle" which translates directly as "mother language" OR "mother tongue." In fact, the French word "langue" means both "language" and "tongue" but it more closely resembles "language" so that is the association I make.
Bottom line: I'm not sure if my French is improving (though I'm sure it is), but my English is definitely changing. I have to be mindful* of that because saying "faults" is okay, but I don't believe that saying "mother language" is. I'm sure it would be understood, but it sounds awkward to me and is probably not Linguistically correct.
Puppies, kittens, bunnies, and sunshine. In editing this post I realize that it is quite negative at times. But I took a long time to write it so it is staying as is. :) I promise to be more positive as time (and my French) progresses. So, cheers! Here's to more talented tongues than mine and to the hope that I may one day match their greatness!
*I may or may not have watched all six Star Wars films in the last eight days. Apparently my vocabulary is very impressionable.
