Tuesday, May. 06, 2008

Please excuse my French

As a predominantly English-speaking culture, we take for granted our language, as we assume everyone in America speaks the same language. What we seem to have forgotten during the years is that Americans come from all around the world. For many of them, including my dad, English is their second language.

Just these past few days I've met what so many people have come to know: the language barrier. My family and I hosted two French students from Saint Denis high school in Loire, France. Both were teenage girls — 15 and 16 years of age — and so while we naturally had much in common, the ability to communicate our similarities initially impeded our conversation.

The French culture always has fascinated me, and I've studied French at school for five years. It's one of the five romance languages and I personally believe the Eiffel Tower is one of the most romantic monuments in the world. So obviously, I wanted to know as much as I could about "la vie fabulous en France" (the fabulous life in France).

As well as the two girls could speak English, there were inevitably speechless gaps — and I rarely find myself speechless. During the couple of days that they were with me we saw the teenage horror movie "Prom Night," their first movie at an American movie theater, we went shopping at the mall and saw my school's spring musical "Jekyll and Hyde."

Through their intermediate English and my bits and pieces of French, we got by surprisingly well. When I signed my family up to host French students I didn't think communicating would be a problem. I didn't think it would be hard for them to speak English or hard for me to speak French. And while our two French students, Gabrielle and Guillemette, did not hesitate to speak English and make mistakes, it was much harder for me to take a chance speaking French in fear of sounding like a fool.

One specific moment I won't forget is when Gabrielle and Guillemette were trying to talk about the squirrels in the middle of the street and how they would do a dance — going left and right when I almost hit them as I drove down the street. They didn't know the English word for squirrel and I didn't know the French word. We were left sitting in my car with them imitating the mannerisms of the squirrels, trying to get me to understand what they meant. When we finally figured out what each other was saying, there was just a huge fit of laughter.

In the end, our difficulties and struggles pulled us together in a weird and almost unexplainable way. We bonded because we learned from each other. I struggled with my French and they struggled with their English, but we tried — and that was the most important thing. If they had come to my house and didn't try to speak any English at all or if I hadn't tried to speak French with them at all, the few days that Gabrielle and Guillemette spent with me would have been worthless.

Their immersion experience was not just for them. Not only did they get to experience America, but I also got a little taste of France.

Annie Piekarczyk is a senior at Mount de Sales Academy.