In my experience, there is only one way to learn a language. You must immerse yourself in it as much as possible. Put yourself in situations where you must speak it. If possible, travel to the area where the language you want to learn is the first language of the people around you. Sink or swim, baby.
I took a semester or two of French in university 20 some-odd years ago, so I remember the basics. Now I want to continue my studies, but in Canadian French specifically. I’m finding it very difficult to find CDs or online lessons with audio that model the dialect spoken on this continent.
When I ask Sylvain to model a sentence or paragraph from one of my books, the differences in pronunciation of certain vowels and even some consonants surprise me. Where I would say boire (to drink), my Canadian tutors seem to be saying something closer to “bwair.” The vowels of this language, like those in Portuguese, are stretched and rolled through the mouth as if the speaker isn’t quite ready to let go of them. Canadian French is tangy, twangy, zesty and alive.
Comparing français joual to Parisian French is like comparing upper crust London English with the English spoken by my Aunt Billie, who comes from South Arkansas near the Louisiana border. I’m finding that I’m partial to the local version of this romance language.
Amazingly, finding a tutor was not easy. It finally occurred to me that the husband of my coworker and friend (Linda) might be interested in helping me. He is, and our first lesson two weeks ago went very well. When he walked through my door speaking only French, I knew we would get along fine.
Wanting to expose myself as much as possible and grant myself as many opportunities for practice as I could, I searched the internet for a francophone club in my area. I found one! Turns out they meet on the last Friday of every month at a restaurant right around the corner from my house. Right on.
Now all I had to do was get up the guts to venture out and see if they welcome gate crashers. Knowing I was much more likely to go through with it if one of my bilingual friends accompanied me the first time, I asked Gary (my friend’s husband) and my friend Katryn. She had a prior engagement, but he was willing. Yay!
Last night was it. We walked through the door and there they were taking up one end of the establishment, tables pushed around to accommodate their sub-groups, all chatting away in French. Gosh, I was so nervous. I told Gary I didn’t feel right crashing a francophone club meeting speaking English, yet wasn’t yet advanced enough to explain why I was there. So that was his job. I buy his dinner, he explains my situation: that I just want exposure to the spoken language. There’s no need to entertain me nor speak English for me. I just want to sit and stare rudely and soak it up.
We stood there like a couple of geeks for a minute or so before someone figured out we wanted to join them. That’s all it took. Before I had time to turn around, Francois was helping us move a table and Dan was explaining all the benefits of club membership, all for a mere quinze pièces per year.
Oh, my goodness, did I ever have fun. I learned a few new phrases and sentences, but mostly sat mouthing over and over the sounds I was hearing, trying to mimic the wide open, sexy diphthong of faire, for example.
What has frustrated me the most as someone with a background in linguistics is the daunting task of having to piece together the rules of this dialect. All dialects and indeed all languages have rules. If you study the evolution of English from Old English to Middle English to modern, then you know about the Great Vowel Shift. Understanding what happened to our vowels during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries goes a long way toward explaining why our spelling is so wonky. So if I were a time traveler who spoke only Old English and couldn’t understand what was being said around me in the 21st century, I could read about the vowel shift and make learning modern English a much easier and quicker task.
What I was needing was a legend so I didn’t have to keep asking Sylvain to pronounce everything for me just to see if it’s one of the vowels that does or does not undergo a change from the French I was taught by Mlle Cheatham (from a text book featuring pictures of the Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Élysée).
Guess what? I found my book. Yep. After a few nights searching Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Chapters/Indigo to no avail, I found my book just by Googling “Canadian French phonetics.” Bingo. Not only did I find the scholarly text called The Pronunciation of Canadian French, but the $100 book was available in PDF. The whole thing from table of contents to verso to index was free for the printing.
Now I am in seventh heaven. Now I don’t have to strain on the phone and try to figure out if I just detected a z sound in Sylvain’s dit. There is one. It’s right there in black and white in my new book. Dzit. I am not imagining it. Pretty amazing, eh? Not only the vowels but even some consonants are different here in Canada.
I’m geeked.
Sunday I plan to take my big new book and a yellow highlighter to the Princess cafe for a good hour of study over a pot of peppermint tisane.
Bon nuit Kelly…(I just figured out how to get WORD to translate from English to French for me! How cool is that? I only have a teeny memory of any pf my one year of 7th grade French.) Bravo for your clever ways of learning the lanuguage of you new Beau. Have fun!
Way to go Kelly! Keep at it. As a woman with a background in linguistics, I’m sure you know that it’s a long and windy, but infinitely rewarding road! In addition to the francophone club and your textbook, don’t be afraid to pick up some graded (or even children’s!) readers, and definitley don’t be shy about talking to yourself in (Canadian) French! Everyday conversations you have withyourself, in your head, just do them in French. “So, what should I make for dinner today…let’s see, I’ve got lettuce and a carrot and some kidney beans, and hey look there’s an egg!” It doesn’t matter what you’re talking about. Just increase the number of miinutes/hours you are thinking in French and all the rest of the work will become much easier. Best of luck with everything. We’re all rooting for you:-)
Way to go Kelly – you are so cool! ‘Tres Bien’ ( ihave no idea if that is right ,it’s been a while, about 20 years!!)
And thanks for the lessons in phonetics too, groovy. Well done
Steven and Elizabeth, thank you for the encouragement!
Steven, you are bang on in your advice. I have been trying to read the French side of all the signage on buses, the French side of all the product packages in my cupboard. Indeed, I talk to myself in French now everywhere I go. It amazes me how many people don’t understand the importance of switching your brain over to the other language.
When I was in Japan, I refused to speak English except when helping friends practice theirs or when being paid to do so. Otherwise, even on the rare occasion when I ran into a fellow Yank, I insisted on Japanese 24/7.
And you should hear her speak Japanese!!
You are amazing, Kelly!
Well done on trying to learn Canadian French. I speak french fairly fluently, but the Canadian accent has always proved a problem for me!