Allo Marie, Baguette, Bon soir, Potato

Friday, December 02, 2005

I used to know how to speak French. Quite well actually. I took French all throughout highschool and was an active member in the French club. Yes, that's right, French club. Heck, I even won a medal for most enthusiastic member. It's proudly displayed at home in my room. I loved French class for many reasons. Monsieur was great and even when he pulled my desk out into the hall screaming "Tait-toi, Ferme la bouche, Rachelle" I know it was really out of love. Secondly, Nicki and I would yell fun French words from our dictionaries at each other across the room and see who could find the best new vocabulary word that day. But mostly, I loved the idea that I could speak another language. Sometimes I would even find myself thinking in French, it was great. Sadly, I haven't been in french class in 3 years now and I've lost almost all my ability to speak and comprehend the language. My mom took French too and all she remembers now is pomme de terre (potato). I want to remember more than that in a few years. Really all I want to do is speak another language fluently. French, Spanish, German, anything. Languages are fascinating. Sometimes friends on the bus speak in other languages to each other. Today I was on the bus and I could swear that they were talking about me in whatever language they were speaking. I pretended they were complimenting my excellent fashion sense, but they were kind of laughing, so maybe not. I wanted to pretend that I knew another language and start speaking it to spite them, but then I realized I was alone on the bus and talking to myself in another language might give them more to laugh at than by just keeping silent. I think that is definitely a perk of being able to speak another language. Being able to tell secrets to your friends without hurting anyone's feelings or sounding like a snob because it sounds like normal everyday conversation to the innocent bystander. Other fun things I could do with another language would be barter at a local market for the best deal, sing romantic foreign love songs, and get a great job as a translator or a secret agent. So today I added ‘learn to speak another language fluently’ to my list of life goals. And as for me and my French, maybe I can have a night of mandatory French-speaking so as to avoid only remembering how to say potato. . .

posted by Rachel Pede @ 9:25 PM   1 comments