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I used to speak French fluently. I minored in French in college and I even had a job where I was required to speak French on the telephone for about eight months. I was required to provide customer service, answer all sorts of questions about laundry detergents, vitamin supplements, and shampoos to those francophones up au Canada. When I first started there, I swore that my trainer was playing a trick on me, and that I was actually listening in on the Chinese line or something, ‘cause that Quebecois accent was très weird. I think I ended up picking it up, eh, and would have probably sounded like a Canadian if I was to speak with a Parisian.
Anyway, it’s been a long, long time since I have spoken French. I don’t know if I would even call myself a francophone anymore. Just today my daughter asked me how to say some random word in French, and I had absolutely aucune idée. I had to pass two language exams as part of my PhD coursework. I took the French test right away, and passed it with out any problem. But that was in 2005. I have spoken/read/studied almost zero French since then.
I really wish I was still fluent, that I could still speak coherently. There is something kind of reassuring about being able to communicate in a language other than your own. I tried pulling out La gloire de mon père (My Father’s Glory) by Marcel Pagnol the other day; I read that in my French 3 class in college. Unfortunately couldn’t get very far before I was a little lost with the vocabulary. It’s especially tough because French has these verb tenses that are only used in writing, so it gets kind of confusing when you go from conversation to literature. I used to be okay with stuff like that, but now it is très difficile.
I am wondering if I should take a French class or two to brush up. Maybe there is something I could do online…it’d be awesome for me if the French had won the Battle of Puebla (which is what Cinco de Mayo is all about), then maybe our neighbors to the south would speak French instead of Spanish. Then I could practice. C’est la vie.