Franglo

One of the scariest aspects of this move for me is learning another language. I know that being immersed in French while taking lessons is going to expedite this process but this terrifies me even more that starting my MBA.

It is very hard to understand as a child why French is important when you live in a suburb of Vancouver and have never been further than Alberta.  My formative years in the language were plagued with horrible instructors and by the time I reached senior high, I had no foundation on which to grow. My grade 11 instructor passed me because I tried so hard, having enlisted a tutor to get me through. I am a very good student and school came very easy for me, so this language experience was a bit traumatic. This is always in the back of my head as I attempt to learn other languages.  I have moved to a French speaking province, have taken on three French children and a French husband, so failure is not an option.

Yesterday was my big adventure; it was the first time I took the train into the city by myself without my trust and very cute translator (aka my husband).  Québec is French, the announcements on the train as well as a majority of the signage are all in a language I can kind of understand. I managed to get myself on the right train for downtown.

It’s still very hot here so trains are delayed, there were many announcement explaining what is going on. I was able to understand about fifty percent of what was going on, as we approached a station they has mentioned something about track two. I was unsure if we were to get off at this station and board another train on track two. Like a tourist in a foreign county  I decided to see wait and see what everyone did. . In the back of my mind I know that if I make a mistake, I will for sure miss my 6 pm class. Trains only run every 60 minutes into the city.  I followed the lead of the rest of the people on the train and stayed on eventually arriving at Gare Central

I grab an iced coffee and put the school coordinates into my phone using google maps to guide me to class. I am sure I looked like a tourist on a mission. What did we do before smart phones and google maps?  Success I made it to class right on time.

I am enrolled in a conversation and grammar class, with the primary focus of getting us comfortable speaking the language. About 15 other souls are also on this adventure with me, and we have the United Nations represented with the diversity in the class.  We had to try and remember everyone’s name and the country the came from to practice our speaking. The exercise was a fun but also a bit exhausting trying to remember names – not my forte. Three hours later we emerged slight smarter than we did before with a list of exam dates and course requirements for the next seven weeks.

I repeated the journey back the train station, managed to board the correct train and get off at the right stop. All seemingly easy tasks but really quite difficult, when you don’t have a pause or rewind button to repeat what the announcement. I need closed captioning under people when they speak. I am a visual learner, so this is the way I consume french media.

Success, I came home to a happy husband who wanted to hear all about my adventure. I guess soon I will have to tell him in French.