Parlez-vous francais? (part II)

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

 - Ralph Waldo Emerson





Let's take it back. Three years back.

It is my first time in Paris. I am sitting in a chilly classroom in Université Paris IX, a thin black scarf is wrapped around my neck; it is my vain effort to conform to Parisian fashion. I am surrounded by a handful of foreign exchange students from a handful of different countries. We are all here for the same thing, and we are all waiting.

A sharp clicking sound begins to echo down the hallway; louder, and louder, and louder. Our hearts beat just a little bit faster because, as every student knows, the first day of class is always a little trying on the nerves. Suddenly the door swings open and we are greeted with a resounding “Bonjour!” and a theatrical sweep of the arms. A bold, elegant, middle aged woman clad in a typical Parisian black winter coat bursts into the room and does what can only be described as a bow. Her name is Madame Gouverich and she is to be our phonetics professor for the next semester.

"Learning another language," says Madame Gouverich as she begins her opening monologue, “is nothing short of an existential quest; a journey into the very heart of our perception of reality."

I was in love with the class already.

“When you aspire to learn another language, students, you are agreeing to become an actor; a professional actor. In this class, you will not be a foreigner trying to speak French. You will be a French speaker foreigner. You will no longer try to speak French. You will speak French. C'est compris?”

She was a wonderfully eccentric woman, Madame Gouverich, the sort of teacher who never gave out an e-mail, but instead gave us her home address and asked us to contact her by hand written letter. I remember her having wild hair which was unusual for a Parisian woman. She also had a beaming, infectious smile, another Parisian anomaly.

What I really loved about the class though was that every session was dedicated to a sound. Just one sound. Can you imagine that? I loved the attention and care which was given to each delicate part of the language, and we saw that all these details eventually strung together in the end and helped us to imitate the whispery fluency of our Francophone counterparts.

Every sound was important. Each rise and fall in the sentence took on meaning and helped us to break down the immense language barrier that Parisians have constructed against foreigners trying to speak their language. I liked the way that nothing was left to hazard. We would spend whole afternoons discussing the R sound, which tickled the throat ever so slightly and was nothing like the English R which floated strangely in the middle of the mouth, or the aggressive Spanish R that rolled off the tip of the tongue. We would also recite poems to help us master the liaison; that peculiar French oddity where sentences are married together with melding sounds.

In many ways I felt that it was the most helpful French class that I had ever taken, because it treated the language delicately and with respect; it is the way, I came to understand, that French needs to be treated if it is to be spoken correctly.

The other thing that made the class so enjoyable was the contagious passion that emanated from Madame Gouverich. She was on fire with a love of language that was impossible to resist. Passionate people have a way of inspiring others. If the flame burns bright enough the spark is sure to catch others on fire and this was certainly the case with Madame.

Madame Gouverich really opened my eyes and showed me that speaking another language is more than memorizing dry grammar and vocabulary - it is about acting; it is about building a totally different persona; and it is about coming to understand your very own language in the process. I have learnt so much about English by studying French.

So remember that when you are learning another language that it is important to study native speakers. Watch how they act. Enter into their world. Observe their hand gestures, their facial expressions, and their intonations. See the world through a different perspective and don’t worry that you can’t do it, learning a language is as natural as eating and breathing.

Don’t forget that you are not just translating yourself from one language to another, but are in fact creating an entirely new version of yourself. It is a thrilling and immensely revealing process and I highly recommend that you give it a try.

It is also a whole lot of fun, which is always a good reason to do something, right?




- written on November 19, 2009, a Thursday.

Back to the island

My Parisian journey has come to an end. I am now back on the island of Trinidad and Tobago, and have no idea what my next step will be. Thank you so much for taking the time to follow my journey in France. If you wish, you may check out the new blog that I have created to document my impressions of my homeland.

Here is the link:
Pablo on the Island

Much love and happy reading,

Pablo

A First of Many Goodbyes (Poem)

We came in late October,

When your sun was beginning to soften her face, and

When your winds were beginning to blow in from the North.

Your arms were not stretched out then,

But neither were they crossed.

We came and we sat for a while,

On wooden chairs, and stony paths, 

On bridges that lay beside grumbling waters, and in

The trains that snaked their way through your belly.

You did not try to prove yourself.

We were the ones who had to show that we belonged,

If only for a while.

Then the wheel turned, and tipped, and 

Now we stand near the end.

Like lizards now, battered from those frozen months,

We lie in your grass, and make sure that we 

Take some of your sun back with us.
To show the folks back home, of course.
All those questions of belonging have died now,
Leaving us at peace with our stories, and our photos.
What we hear now are voices over voices, and 

The hushed sound of new trees.

Month after month

Our ears were tickled with accents from distant lands,

Not so distant any more, and 
Month after month,
We wanted you to let us dance to your music.

But the old drums are beating louder now, and the waves

Have made their way over the waves
 From those places that we left behind.

Au revoir, we must now say, for

It seems to me that one seriously needs

 To consider returning home,

When one has acquired the habit

Of drinking coffee from a bowl.

Lalin Bel Revisited

Bonjour mes chers lectures et lectrices,

Today I would like to present you with a reading of one of my poems, entitled Lalin Bel, read in Trinidadian French Patois, one of my island's lesser known languages.

All of the photos in the video are original except for the first one which I stole from some unsuspecting soul on the world wide web. Please forgive me.

I also hope that if any native Kweyol speakers stumble across this post that they would forgive my mauvay pronunciation. I still have much to learn.

Thanks go out to Marvel Henry for the translation.

Enjoy

First Sense - Hearing/L'Ouie

Bonjour a tous.

Merde, I have abandoned this poor blog for way too long.

So here I am, once again, staring at the foreboding blank screen and trying to battle my inner demons of laziness and resistance. It is a difficult battle, but I think that on this fine Sunday morning the inner spark of creativity, that desire to create which pulses inside all of us, is finally going to burn through my feelings of resistance and allow some sort of creative juices to flow once again.

I am still, however, not really in the mood to filter through my thoughts and chip away at my writing in an attempt to make it clearer. So today I present you with something which was scribbled in my notebook sometime in the not too distant past. It is unfiltered and unedited (for the most part :p) and it is my way to ease back into this blog.

Enjoy.

Those early years in France...marked a crucial period of transformation in which I found my true calling...and experienced a profound awakening of the senses...

                                                                                      - Julia Child

An Awakening of the Senses


Sense #1 - Hearing


Peaceful sounds, familiar sounds. The silence of the snow. My ears are fine tuned here. Yuh hadda look fuh de music boy, yuh hadda find ah way tuh catch de words. How do they sound? Is that how it sounds? Always trying to tune in to the subtilities and the nuances. I listen. I eavesdrop. I listen to the world go by. I maco. I have become a macoer. Je maco, tu macoes, il maco...

Slam the apartment door behind me. Walk. Walk and think, and keep on moving forward.

Miniature cars scoot by, children chatter excitedly to their parents, and old people click their canes against the pavement. Grumbling stomach. Sometimes other people can hear that sound. I think. Sometimes it stays trapped inside. Silence gives way to the daily drama at the bakery. Orders are shouted out with precision. No time to linger here. The sound of bread cracking, and fingers tapping on glass displays filled with sugary goodies.

In the train station.

So much time spent on the train. Hours spent zooming underneath the city surrounded by thousands of silent commuters. The endless throng of street musicians. I know them by heart now. Accordionists who all play the same songs. Beggars clothed in dark veils who kneel on the ground with hands outstretched, and eyes turned toward the ground. Their trembling hands speak a language that everyone can understand.

On the train. Loud buzzing means that the doors will close. Pardon. Excusez-moi. Pardon. A voice echoes from the ceiling, announcing the next destination. She says it twice, her voice calm and whispery. It is she who has taught me how to pronounce these names. Chatou-Croissy, Rueil Malmaison, Nanterre Ville, Nanterre Universite, Nanterre Prefecture, La Defense, Charles de Gaulle Etoile, Auber, 


Chatlet les Halles. People spill out of the train here. The doors open and spit out a mass of humanity, all clothed in black, who click their way across the platform. It's so noisy here. The biggest and busiest metro station in all of Europe.

 New train. Same voice. Saint Michel Notre Dame, Luxembourg, Port Royal, Denfert Rochereau, Cite Universite, Bourg la Reine, La Croix de Berny, Antony, Correspondence pour l'aeroport d'Orly, Correspondencia para ir al aeropuerto de Orly, Change here for Orly Aeroport, Attention, ce train est en direction de Saint Remy les Chevreuse, il desservira toutes les gares, merci, Massy Palaiseau, Palaiseau,


 Palaiseau Villebon.

 Ah reach. Walk down the street, boots and sneakers banging on the street. They walk heavily. Teenagers. Adolescents. Pass in front of the lycee. The sounds of teenage French. An angry, rebellious sounding French, words twisted and placed upside down so adults, and foreigners, can't understand them. Femme becomes meuf, and musique is zicmu  They win. I can't understand most of it. 

I am starting to feel a cut above the tourists. I can understand some of the French that these teens are speaking. I belong here more than the tourists, don't I? Integration is a long process. Who am I kidding? I can't understand a word of it. 

Memories of the City.

Just walk and think. Walking would be a lot quieter without thinking. 

The brown Seine gurgles beneath us. The Notre Dame. Organs, echoes, prayers, familiar and fading childhood beliefs, snapping of cameras, a thousand different languages. Confession. You have the choice between English, Francais, and Italiano with Fr. Cicero, and Francais, and Espanol with Fr. Amblard. They sit in soundproof glass boxes. Only the confessors know what thier voices sound like.

 The Train. Always on the train. The train is silent during the morning. Faint sound of rustling papers. So many people read on the train here. Think back to New York where everyone had an ipod, immersed in their own noisy world. Here people are immersed in their own worlds of silence. Time to think. The train, usuallty quiet in the morning, wakes up at night. Tongues loosened by liquour. 

Cafes. Watch the world go by. Stare at strangers right in the eye, it's ok. Listen to the world move. Big city. The endless sounds of movement, of talking.  Big city. Quiet city. 

New York. 

Remember that?

There was an endless roar in New York. A roar that wakes you up and makes you feel alive. Actors and musicians flock to New York. They always have. They need this roar to inspire them, to shake them out of the daily humdrum. Why compare Paris to New York? It's more difficult to compare this city to my island, I suppose. We live a more insular existence there. A world apart.

What am I trying to say?

Writers flock to Paris. They always have.

Things are slower here. Thicker.

There is time to think.

Me. Writing.

Blank page. Pen. Tea with three sugars. Mahogany desk by the window. Faint smell of fresh, cheap varnish, and white tiles mopped with bleach. Chair facing the door, then the window, then the door. Orange sun beaming though the blinds. Room tinted with a pale, yellow glow. Sepia effect. Like an old, dusty photograph. Beautiful. Beautiful but blinding. Blinds pulled. Quiet room. Blank page. Stare at the walls. The bare, white walls. Bare. Boring. Blank. Take some tea. Wait. Look at the tea. Hot tea. Hot, thin smoke slithering out of the cup. Dances for a second, stretches out like a yawning spider web, and then swirls into nothingness. Touch the cup. Hot. Hot, sharp, piercing heat. Brief, needling pain. Heart beat picks up for a moment, starts to rat-tat-tat-tat-tat, and then slows. Falls to a heavy thump, thump, thump, thump. Sip the tea....

Read the rest of the story in the latest issue of Tongues of the Ocean, an online literary journal which is based in the Bahamas and focuses on Caribbean prose and poetry.

Reflections on the Program II - Bonjour Laziness

 The Ten Commandments for the Idle

1.  You are a modern day slave. There is no scope for personal fulfillment. You work for your pay-check at the end of the month, full stop.
2. It's pointless to try to change the system. Opposing it simply makes it stronger.
3.  What you do is pointless. You can be replaced from one day to the next by any cretin sitting next to you. So work as little as possible and spend time (not too much, if you can help it) cultivating your personal network so that you're untouchable when the next restructuring comes around.
4.  You're not judged on merit, but whether you look and sound the part. Speak lots of leaden jargon: people will suspect you have an inside track. 
5. Never accept a position of responsibility for any reason. You'll only work harder for what amounts to peanuts.
6.  Make a beeline for the most useless positions (research, strategy, and business developments), where it is impossible to assess your 'contribution to the wealth of the firm'. Avoid 'on the ground' operational roles like the plague.
7. Once you've found one of these 'plum jobs', never move. It is only the most exposed who get fired.
8. Learn to identify kindred spirits who, like you, believe the system is absurd through discreet signs (quirks in clothing, peculiar jokes, warm smiles).
9. Be nice to people on short-term contracts. They are the only people who do any real work.
10. Tell yourself that the absurd ideology underpinning this corporate bullshit cannot last forever. It will go the same way as the dialectical materialism of the communist system. The problem is knowing when...  

The commandments above are taken from a French bestseller called Bonjour Paresse (Hello Laziness), which caused quite the stir when it was released in 2004. The book, written by Corinne Maier (a young, disillusioned ex-corporate star), is an entertaining critique of the French corporate system and of the absurdity of the corporate world in general.

I stumbled across the commandments yesterday morning on the train while reading one of those free metro papers. The weather was particularly beautiful, the temperature surprisingly warm, and I was in an all round fabulous mood. Remembering the old adage 'be grateful when you're feeling good, and graceful when you're feeling bad', I thought that it was probably a good a time as ever to pull out the old notebook and start scribbling down some of my mid-point reflections on the assistantship program. The article had tweaked my interest and seemed to speak to me on a very personal level. I felt like I should share it on my blog.

Now any one who knows me knows that I have always been slightly weary of the corporate world. Not in an extreme anarchist, death to capitalism, let's all be hippies again kind of way, but just in a, 'umm that's not really what I want to do with my life' kind of way. I don't know, it's just that the idea of spending my life working for a corporation whose sole goal is to convince people to buy crap that they really don't need just never really sat well with me. A couple of 9-5 cubicle jobs only helped to reinforce this feeling of mistrust.

It seemed like most of what I was doing in these big companies was just a big waste of time. True talks.

Anyways, that slight feeling of rebelliousness (if that's what you want to call it) is probably the main reason why I now find myself twenty four years old, university degree in pocket, singing nursery rhymes for twelve hours a week, and feeling much the happier for it. I don't know what system will eventually replace capitalism but I don't see how this sort of heartless system could go on forever.

Listen peeps, I'm not going to beat around the bush, I only officially work for twelve hours a week (not including time spent giving private lessons), and I feel like this is the most productive I have been in my short lived professional life. Surely that says something. Or then again, maybe it's just me...

Anyways I'm not trying to push people's buttons here. All I'm saying, is that for those who are interested, I think I have discovered one way to escape this system, this so called 'real world' (yeah, right) at least for a while. Like me, you can 'escape' through programs such as the French assistantship, and the JET program (the Japanese version of what I am doing). Clearly this sort of program is not for everyone, but for those of you who are now starting off your careers and are looking to travel, I highly, highly recommend that you give them a look.

 JET Program - http://www.jetprogramme.org/

French Assistantship - http://www.ciep.fr/en/assistantetr/

Other opportunities to teach English abroad - http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/work/esl/index.shtml


A plus!

Lalin Bel (The Moon is Beautiful)

Lalin Bel

Watch her.

Watch how she hangs

In the eastern sky.

Watch how she sits coldly,

And quietly,

On the frosted window sill.

Look at her and know

That you are no longer looking out

Toward the cold, grumbling river

Of the so called old world,

But that you are now seeing reflections

From wilder waters.

Lalin Bel

It is she who holds the memories of the

Warm, rough seas that beat against

A rugged island.

Do you remember?

Do you remember when she

First came out of the sea?

Remember how she pushed

Her milky head out of the

Pitch lake ocean,

And how she sat on the water’s edge?

The fiery stars were there too,

Brushed across the inky dome

Like glittering sand.

Now,

Look.

Watch how she covers her face

With wispy, frosted clouds.

Watch how she hides herself in shame.

Lalin Bel

They too bathed in the pitch lake sea,

And they too made fires burn bright

On the cool, starry sand.

Do you remember?

Do you remember the pearls in the sky

And the pearls in their eyes?

Do you remember

The sound of the bats

Flapping in the shady trees

And the squeaking of their feet

On the cool powdery shores?

Lalin Bel

Please,

Zanmi mwen,

Tell me that you remember.

Tell me that you remember the cracking

And the popping of the

dry coconut husks.

Remember,

The thick ashy smoke

That flushed the buzzing mosquitos

Out of the houses.

The driftwood that went up in flames

of deep reds, and yellows,

And blues.

Lalin Bel

Remember how they woke the next morning,

Remember how the sun was harsh and

How it burnt their eyes.

Remember how the fires had burnt down to ash and how

The sea had carried away their castles.

Now,

It is only shadows that dance

On the chip-chipped shore.

Now,

The rough sea

Swallows the stars.

And now,

 The wind skims lightly

Over the ocean’s oily face.

----

Their laughter was pure that night,

                                                                                                                                  

 But it was swept away

By the breeze.

Wi, 
Zanmi mwen,

 Lalin bel, bel, bel.

Sleepy Sunday Reflections

Sunday. The red and blue train snakes its way back to the town in the distance, its echoes slowly fading from a booming roar into a far away hum. It was the same train that brought me to this garden. The hill rolls down from the park into a stretch of cozy looking French houses and eventually sweeps under the impressive skyscrapers of La Defense, Paris' financial district. Seemingly planted on the horizon, the spiny Eiffel Tower scratches the bottom of a thick, rippled cloud.

I can hear the joyful sounds of families enjoying a peaceful Sunday afternoon behind me. Footballs are being kicked, picnic baskets are being opening, and children are squealing with laughter. There are so many elderly couples here. Couples that have spent a lifetime together, that have seen each other grow old and ugly, and that still walk hand in hand, happily enjoying the last seasons of their lives. I am leaning on a long stretch of metal railing that borders the park at St. Germain en Laye, a lovely town just a short train ride away from my cottage. I came here to walk, to relax, and to reflect.

The town is bustling with life. It is one of those days when the world seems to open up before you, and everything seems fresh and new again. One of those days when that spiritual feeling of awe begins to stir in your chest.

The world truly is a mysterious place.

The unusually warm weather is a wonderful mood lifter. Looking up, I see that the curved sky is painted with deep blues of many different hues . The colours are more vibrant than usual. Soon the sun will set and the blue sky will melt away and the true magnitude of the cosmos will be revealed. I take a deep breath of cool air, and I am grateful. There is nowhere else I need be. There is nothing more that I need.

I am alive.

-----

They catch you off guard sometimes. Just when you think that you are beginning to dangle dangerously close to having a nervous breakdown. Just when you think that nobody is listening to you, that you have lost all control of the class, and that no one appreciates your presence, one of them goes and does something kind and unexpected.

A new year's gift. I really wasn't expecting this. I am touched by the attention to detail; the Trini flag that was pasted on the envelope, the festive red bow, and by the card written in perfect English. Moments like this give you the strength to continue.

This gift came from one of my eight year old students. By the time that she reaches my present age, I will be forty years old. A dizzying thought. Working in a primary school puts you face to face with the new generation. You get to experience their boundless energy, and their pure, innocent zest for life.

Halfway across the dark Atlantic ocean, however, there are thousands of children who will not be alive to see the dawn of the new decade.

------

Tears in Ayiti.

The Earth shook herself for thirty seconds and now an entire city lies in ruins. More reminders of our fragile we are, of how quickly things can change for the worse. This one really hit close to home. Imagine, a little bit further south and it would have been Port-of-Spain, and not Port-au-Prince, crumbling on every major international news station. Those would have been my family and friends, and perhaps myself, trapped underneath those concrete buildings.

My heart is aching for these people. This is our neighbourhood, and these are our neighbours that are suffering.

How much can one people take? These are the descendants of warriors. Warriors who bravely wrestled their freedom back from their oppressor's hands, and now they have been dealt yet another cruel blow. It is hard to make sense of tragedy. Impossible, perhaps. The 'whys' and the 'what ifs' are endless.

There is nothing we can do but open our hearts; to help however we can, and to give whatever we can, freely, and with hearts full of compassion. This could easily have happened to us.

There is nothing else that I can say.

Parlez-vous français? (Part I)

So you want to learn French, huh? You have visions of yourself sitting next to the gurgling Seine, with a book of 18th century French poetry nestled on your lap, as you whisper a chain of sweet nothingness-es into the ear of your new French lover. Or maybe you see yourself as your company's official interpreter, sitting in a crowded boardroom in Paris, filled with important looking men and women decked out in expensive business wear, and dazzling your French speaking clients with your linguistic prowess.

Whatever your motivation, you are about to embark on a thrilling adventure of intellectual and personal discovery. One that you may not quite be prepared for.

According to a recent survey by the U.S. State Department on foreign language learning, French is the second most studied foreign language in the United States and has been rated as a 'level I' language, meaning that, in theory, it should only take about 600 hours of classwork to achieve minimal proficiency. This can be compared to a 'level III' language like Mandarin Chinese, which is said to need at least 2200 hours of classroom study in order for a learner be considered 'minimally proficient'. French, therefore, should be a breeze, right?

Not so fast, my linguistically adventurous friend. For while this may be true for reading and writing the language, when it comes to parlez-vous-ing with the best of them, I'm afraid that it's just not that simple.  

Heed my warning well: If you decide to study French, you're going to have to make up your mind to go all the way, because when it comes to speaking francais, being mediocre just isn't going to cut it.

With some languages these days, notably with English, the current lingua franca of our world, you can get by with being a casual speaker. No matter how bad your accent, or how terrible your grammar, the odds are that if you make the effort to speak in English, you will be responded to in English. When it comes to French, however, the prevalent attitude in these parts seems to be, speak my language well monsieur, or do not speak it at all.

Now, just to give you an idea of what sort of linguistic beast we are dealing with here, the French language is one whose every evolutionary step is monitored by a lofty, hoity-toity organization known as The Academie Francaise. An organization whose sole goal is to preserve the purity of la langue francaise and whose members refer to themselves as, and I kid you not, The Immortals. Dum, Dum Duuuum, (cue dramatic music). These are the guardians of the sophisticated French language who battle for its purity and who have vowed to fight till the bitter end to keep that pesky English language from diluting their beautiful tongue.

Quite frankly, if your French is crap, or to be more specific, if, despite whatever level of grammar you may possess, your French pronunciation and accent are crap, the Frenchies are going to either (a) ignore you completely or (b) speak to you in English, no matter how broken their English may be. It can be quite the disheartening experience when after years and years of study, nobody will grant you the pleasure of conversing with you in francais.

In a way, and maybe it's just the snob in me speaking, I don't really blame them for this attitude, because there is indeed something truly upsetting about hearing badly spoken French. I mean maybe I've just become immune to badly spoken English as it is the global norm nowadays, but hearing someone communicate in approximative English doesn't really bother me that much. Hearing French spoken with a bad accent, on the other hand, is akin to hearing the sound of a set of sharp nails scratching their way across a blackboard. Some languages just aren't meant to be butchered, I suppose.

But take heart! I am not saying that it is impossible to speak French well. Oh, no, no, I am just saying that it's, well, it's just a lot more difficult than it seems. But whoever said that anything worth aspiring to was easy, eh? Like most things in life, the rewards, and the immense feeling of personal satisfaction that come with progressing in the French language far outweigh the difficulties.

So if you've made up your mind that you want to parlez with the best of them, just make sure that you know what you're getting yourself into. Paris wasn't built in a day you know.

(to be continued)
---


Here is one of my favorite clips from the movie 'Paris je t'aime' which depicts, among other things, some of the things that I've been talking about. You get a feel for just how difficult it can be in the beginning when you take those first brave steps to converse with a local in French. Enjoy :)