Multi-lingual for multi-lingual situations

At Charles de Gaulle as we waited in line for the buses to take us to the plane down the tarmac a woman complained loudly that she was so glad to be leaving. She came to Paris to see her grandkids, but with her long blond straight hair, white boots and sweater and beige corduroy slacks over hips that models would die for, she didn’t fit any stereotypical grandmother.

“Imagine,” she said, “When I came they promised me a bus driver that spoke English.” She didn’t say who “they” were or what bus but she talked about being left not knowing where she was. “No one speaks English here.”

I resisted telling her that when I start in French most Parisians come back in English to me. I have never decided that if people want to practice their English or they can’t stand my accent. Probably both along with the appreciation that a foreigner has made an attempt to speak their language. Long ago I learned that if you demand English you will guarantee that the person who is being spoken to will immediately forget every word of English they know. One friend, an American who lived in Paris, for years will even refuse to speak English when a rude Anglophone approaches her. She hides behind the language of her chosen city.

On the Northwest flight to the US there was only one of the attendants who spoke French and that wasn’t fluent. It has been a long time since I have flown an American airline, and on the others be it Lufthansa, Syrian, Air France or even BA the staff are multi-lingual moving back and forth between the linguistic needs of their passengers.

I was tempted to find the blond-haired grandmother and point out to her that the francophone passengers were in the same predicament she had been in. I didn’t. She might have said “good.”