B2-Becoming Bilingual

 

The easiest way to be bi or multi-lingual is to have two or more languages spoken to you when you're a todler.

When I moved to the French-speaking part of Switzerland that boat had sailed in and out of many ports, none of which helped in language acquisition.

Working for an Anglo-speaking company with the instruction to work with Anglo-speaking clients didn't help. The next best way was to have a Francophone boyfriend. This does not work for someone happily in a relationship. I combined the boyfriend with courses., watched a lot of French TV and tried to read.

Some people have a gift for languages speaking anywhere from 4-7. I am not one of those people.

I developed two sets of words--read and spoken. People laughed when I said Tant Pis like it is spelled. It means too bad. How it is pronounced is tempee...said like Tempe, Arizona.

That reinforced the idea that to use a new language one has to make a fool of one's self.

I've perservered and now speak French to function level socially and when I need to deal with businesses. I can watch TV or movies and understand but it is better with subtitles...However, even watching English TV or movies, I like subtitles. Part of it is age, part accent.

One Scottish film I watched in a French theater I needed the titles. Leaving the theater, a woman with a French accent said she had a terrible time understanding after saying she thought she spoke English well. I told her it was my mother tongue and I could only understand about 40%. I hope she felt better.

I'm still amused by the differences in French and English. Take a discussion I had today with a Francophone friend.

Grandson, the son of a son is a petit fils (peeteet fies) in French. The grand becomes little. However if he's big than he would be a grand petit fils. However, an Irish person might use grand to mean great. Isn't it grand?