I complain a lot about how tough it is to learn French later in life, but there are also benefits. The biggest one is that I don’t fall victim to bad habits I have in English, most notably: cursing and using filler words.

I had a phase where I tried to learn all the French gros mots and integrate them into my speech so that I could sound like a real French speaker. But then I realized it only made me sound like a real asshole (case in point) so I stopped, for the most part. I do find myself using the word “foutu” (fucked) too much – and usually incorrectly, because it rolls off my tongue more easily than the ubiquitous putain (which literally means “prostitute” but is used more like “shit” or “damn it”).

Another French tendency that I am really glad I have avoided thus far is the urge to fill even the most minute pause between words and phrases with a sound of some kind, so that a few sentences becomes more like one record-length German word. I find the worst offender of the fillers to be “euh,” wherein the h is extended until the speaker gathers and pronounces their next thought – even if that next thought takes forever to reveal itself. But there are a bunch of other words – like “bah,” “ben,” and “du coup”- whose meaning is so minimal as to be inconsequential. They are essentially the “um,” “uh,” and “so” of the French language.

Then there are words that do add some emphasis but are still pretty much throwaways, like “quoi,” which gets tacked on to the end of sentences as a sort of grasping “ya know.” I find it such a grating addition to an elegant French sentence, and yet such an unconscious pattern of native speech, that the one time it slipped out of my mouth I simultaneously horrified and impressed myself. 

It’s true that I have taken to leaning upon another oft-used filler, “bref,” which means “anyways” or “long story short,” but which could usually be cut from a sentence without losing anything. I can’t help myself when it comes to this one – it’s the perfect word for someone as long-winded as I am. If I tire myself out in the middle of a meandering story, I’ll stop short, say “bref” rather dramatically, and skip straight to the one-sentence conclusion.

In English I take forever to get to the point, but in French my desire to use the least amount of words to convey the most amount of information overwhelms my compulsion to make myself 100% understood. That economy of language is, I suppose, another reason why I haven’t succumbed to euh, bah, or hein yet… They do count as words even if they don’t actually say anything.

P.S. Non-native French-speaking bloggers Damon and Jo made me giggle with their imitation of the French predilection for filler words in the video below. (Also, possibly my favorite advice ever: “If you want to sound French you just gotta add all these noises.”) 😂