Knowing When to Let Go ... of Consonents

When I moved to the land of three official languages, I knew I'd have to learn one of them. Getting by on English works just fine for the most part and when it doesn't, charades will do. But come on, being around all these multi-lingual Europeans made my only excuse - I'm American - feel kind of pathetic. "It's not my fault that my native language happens to be the international tongue of choice!" my inner self protested. But my conscience was going to make me try to be better than that. I knew I'd be learning a language, whether my ego wanted to or not.

Let's see, the three choices:

Luxembourgish? Nah, it's mostly the oral language, not much focus on written or anything. Half the country is native Luxembourgish, and the rest of us are international, so I don't really feel intimidated or outnumbered enough to learn the official official language of Luxembourg. Noah's learning it in school, so I knew he could teach me a little here and there. Also, not particularly useful if I ever wanted to, say, get out of Luxembourg.

German? Sienna was going to be studying this right off the bat, and she'd have homework. Did I need to learn it in order to help her? Nah .... let her teach me instead of the other way around. Besides! We've got German radio to keep us up to speed! Die Besten Hits! (Die Besten Hits being German pop and/or rap as well as American hits you haven't heard since middle school and, if you're lucky, the latest Adele or Ellie Goulding song. I've got Deutschland Hit Radio LTL to thank for delivering some Phil Collins at some clutch moments during my drive time.)

French? "This is the obvious choice," said everyone I asked. But Freeeench? Uggghhhhh. I believe I'm one of the only women in the world who had yet to get swept up in its romantic grasp. Because the only thing I hear when French people speak is a plugged nose and a phlegmy throat. Cough it up already! And where are the RRRRRRRRRs???!!! I knew I'd be trudging uphill unenthusiastically through this goal of mine.

I started Rosetta Stone right when I got here. Adam purchased it during a big Christmas sale six months before we moved and we thought we'd get started right away. Hahahahha. Very funny. We did no such thing. But once we got somewhat settled in our new digs in Luxembourg and the kids were in school, I knew I didn't have a good excuse to put it off much longer. Plus, I needed help navigating road signs, paperwork and the grocery store.

I hated the studying immediately. I had a goal to do it for two hours three times a week. That diminished to 30 minutes three times a week. And then, at best, I was doing 30 minutes twice a week. When you know you might look like a fool with only English under your belt, but you'll get by? It's just not motivating enough. I needed to feel 100% ashamed during every human interaction in order to move me toward anything even resembling fluency. But Luxembourg is just not that way. They're too good with all the languages! They can speak to you in anything, maybe even pig latin. It's what they do.

Let me tell you what I couldn't stand about the French language:

The accents - They go every which way and show up when you least expect them. You've got two ee's at the end? Put an accent on it! Which one is anyone's guess. (Though I think it's usually the first.)
The hyphens - Whyyyyyy .... I'm still figuring it out.
The apostrophes - I get it, I just don't like it. Link two vowels? Drop one and add an apostrophe! It's fun! #not
The hyphen-apostrophe-pronunciation triple pown - Qu'est-que ce I'm looking at you!
The phlegmy Rs - Why can't you just be Italian and roll them instead? It's very satisfying for the mouth. You may as well put a muzzle on me. Give me Rs or give me a muzzle, I say!
The absence of the second half of every word - Where did it go? Seriously. There was an S and now there's not. There was a -ment and the T fell off. HELP ME.
The numbers - When you're counting to one hundred, you might as well stop at 50 because that's where their brains stopped. They just repeat the forties and sixties with different variations and you want to scream, "You could have just made up a new word for 99! It could be two syllables instead of five!"

I was about to add "the formality" to that list, but actually I love the formality. When I went into a Sephora in the Luxembourg City center during my first visit to the country and an employee said, "Bonjour Madame," I almost started blushing and fanning my face. When I read mail or a note from a teacher, I feel very respected. They tend to stumble all over themselves giving you their warmest regards. When anything is presented to you - at a store, at a restaurant, at the post office - they say "s'il vous plait" aka "please," as if it's an honor for you to be taking something from them. And nearly every transaction ends with "et voila!" (and voila!) It does feel like you've witnessed a bit of magic!

With my Rosetta Stone stamina lagging, I was feeling grateful to have gotten into a class at the government language school. It's cheap and meets often. Boo-to-the-yah. Just what I needed to keep trudging.

I started in March and have been going three times a week for an hour and forty minutes each session. There are people from Ukraine, Serbia, China, Syria, India, Turkey, Spain, Latvia, America (there's one other girl! An au pair! Of course that word's in French...), Israel and Finland in the class. I sit between a Spanish girl and an Israeli girl. Some have husbands with Amazon, some are hoping to get jobs here, some have a spouse who speaks French, and I assume many hope to make Luxembourg home for lack of a better option. Two Venezuelan women, an elderly mother and middle-aged daughter, were fleeing their country's unstable government. They dropped out of the class shortly after it started and I assume they moved to Italy, like they were planning, because a sister lived there. So many people here are betting on French to give them a better life. Me? Oh, me. It's just for fun....

Feeling humbled was not the reason for my new found interest in French, though. When I learned from our French teacher about some rules and some reasoning, I began to understand. It's like English, it's like any language, really. It's got its quirks and its frustrations. It's got its versions of "where, wear, ware," and "it's and its" and plenty of mumbling and slang that will mess you up when you try to figure it out on the street. But when you can say a sentence and your teacher says, "tres bien!" (very good!), you realize you might understand this language enough to love it after all. I've even told my friends, "J'adore mon cours français!" (I love my French course!) but in English, because it was my American friend who asked and I can't even say that sentence in French without looking it up first on Google Translate.

So my future learning French looks bright. Because there are so many more words and sentences and sentiments to discover. If I already knew one thing about former-French-learning Martha, it's that I love discovering new words in my own language. I guess I didn't realize that there are millions of new words yet to uncover; they're just all hidden in other languages.

The best word in French so far? Arrondissment . When I was researching my first trip to Paris and came across the neighborhood set-up, I just had to know how to say this word. My friend, Becky, told me how to say it.

"Air-on-deez-mon."
"What the. That doesn't sound like anything!" I thought.
But now, with French class, and listening to French radio (au revoir Die Besten Hits .... at least sometimes), I am loving these words that end in the suffix "-ment." Mohn. MOHN. Air-on-deez-MOHN.
Just let go of the T. Let it go.