Category Archives: French

Ahhh, frustration

Posted in best words & worst words, French by

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I have only one memory of learning how to read, but it’s a very clear one. I was reading aloud to my kindergarten teacher and I got stuck, yet again, on a word with “ough” in it. I could not for the life of me remember how to make that sound (or rather, sounds, since the ough’s in though and through and thought are all pronounced differently). Phonics were of no use to me with such a complicated combination of letters.

I think that moment became lodged in my long-term memory because of the emotions associated with it. I remember being very aware that my teacher knew this was a problem area for me, and feeling both embarrassed and frustrated that I was having the same trouble over and over again, many times beyond what I perceived to be acceptable. I really didn’t want to disappoint her by not learning what she was teaching, and I really didn’t want to disappoint myself by being anything less than whip-smart. 

That memory was called to mind this past week as I struggled, for the millionth time, to properly pronounce euil/oeil/ueil sounds in French. They are my Achilles heel. I cannot for the life of me ever ever ever remember how to pronounce, let alone spell, words like feuille (leaf), accueil (welcome), and oeil (eye), except that there is a general sound of vomiting involved. (It is purely coincidental that I have the most trouble saying the words that I also find the most hideously guttaral.) Every single time I come across a word with one of those crazy mixtures I just say it three different ways back to back and hope that one of them is approximately correct.

My inability to put proper French pronunciation in the vault fills me with the same despair I had as a five year-old. The difference, though, is that as a 36 year-old I can remind myself that I just used the word “though” effortlessly, without a second thought (there it is again!) and have been doing so for three decades. Eventually, if I stick with it, I will do the same for French.

[Photo: Janna Lauren]

Last Saturday, or: the honeymoon may be over

Posted in French, le week-end, music, travel by

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Having studied my map diligently, I set out on foot at about 1pm in the direction of downtown. It was supposed to take about an hour and fifteen minutes. I saw a lot of familiar sights and a lot of new ones; it was a nice walk. After about an hour I decided to stop in at a supermarket for a drink and to check where I was. I had not busted out my map before then because being seen with one would make me susceptible to all sorts of propositioning I didn’t want. Continue reading →

For God’s sake

Posted in French by

facepalm

Apparently I’ve been saying, “It’s not worth the ass,” instead of, “It’s not worth the cost.” Well, what can I say, perhaps sometimes it is truly just not worth the ass.

[Photo: Tim Green]

Impressions from one week in Dakar

Posted in foreign food festival, French, travel by

first looks Senegal

I feel like Annie. Every five seconds something prompts me to sing to myself, “I think I’m gonna like it here!” Continue reading →

a très bon bon voyage

Posted in French, travel by

blurry_party.JPGOn Saturday I had a going away party at the same Alphabet City bar where I gathered my friends almost 15 years ago, on my last night in town the first time I left New York for parts unknown (in that case, Los Angeles). Esperanto has been trucking along at the corner of 9th and C for two decades, as oblivious to my comings and goings as the rest of the city, and that thought is oddly comforting to me. 

The place looks pretty much the same as it did in 2001, but boy has my world changed since then – or rather, boy has it expanded. 15 years ago a small band of high school and college friends came to see me off as I embarked upon adulthood with very little understanding of what that would actually mean. This past Saturday, in addition to those wonderful lifelong friends, I was surrounded by a crowd of people who were connected to me by new threads unimagined at age 21: grad school in Austin, a filmmakers collective in Brooklyn, a global humanitarian aid organization, my French conversation group, a producers guild, and a certain world body that shall remain nameless. 

The next day, someone who hasn’t known me long remarked, “You have lovely friends.” He was exactly right – they are lovely friends and lovely people.

Taking stock of them all from the back of the bar, I was a bit overwhelmed. What a beautiful reminder of the amazing amount of love and friendship and cheerleading and general awesomeness of character in my life. 

Then a French guy at a table a few feet away from me called me over to flirt/ask me if I was French. Of course I ascribed symbolic significance to this and I responded, “J’irai à Dakar la semaine prochaine pour améliorer mon français et ce soir-ci, c’est ma fête du voyage. C’est une très bon signe que tu as demandé ça!” Of course he didn’t really understand why it was a good sign, or maybe he just didn’t understand me, but either way I knew the universe was telling me to go forth and conquer French (and Frenchmen).

When the party died down my high school besties and I headed to a nearby new wave club that I’ve been going to since college. Like Esperanto, Pyramid has remained virtually unchanged since the first time I stepped through the door.

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November 2001 at Esperanto, back in the days when you could smoke in bars and people took photos on film!

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February 2016 outside Pyramid, where the concept of time is meaningless.

I am in thrall to nostalgia more than anyone I know, and it’s hard to overstate the rush of visceral emotion that washed over me when the DJ played “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” This is one of just a few songs I remember listening to and loving as a five year-old in England, which was my first (short-lived) ex-patriot experience and what probably set in motion my abiding wanderlust.

It was another powerful strike to the heart, which, combined with the deja vu of dancing with friends who I have been dancing with since I was 15, sent me into a heightened state of preemptive homesickness perfectly balanced with euphoria for the future. 

The words of the song are vague enough that I could bend them to my fancy and convince myself they were karmically delivered for that exact, ephemeral moment.

In short, it was a very good night and a very good way to say goodbye (for now).

worry time

Posted in French, travel by

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The cafe where I get my coffee every morning has a strange habit of playing brutal nature documentaries on the TV behind the bar. I’ll be sipping my espresso while glimpsing killer whales ripping apart baby seals, or adorable snow foxes feasting on scavenged carcasses of polar bear prey. Nothing like being reminded, first thing after waking up, that life is a ruthless competition for survival.

This morning for some reason I found that thought comforting. My anxieties about departing from stability and not knowing where my next job is coming from pale in comparison to having to outrun a lion.

But trouble finding work abroad is just one in a long list of fears I’m juggling about my upcoming trip. Most of the time I can keep calm and carry on but I’ve also had moments of utter insecurity and panic.

There’s a cognitive behavioral therapy technique called “worry time,” and it’s just as straightforward as it sounds. You carve out five minutes a day to articulate and dwell on each of your worries, the idea being that listing them out will take away their bite and you’ll stop obsessing over them.

So, here’s my current worry time rundown:

  • I had counted on only needing two months of immersion to become proficient in French but lately I’m realizing that is probably a very big underestimate, especially in Senegal where the accents will be new and challenging to me. I don’t have enough money to continue this trip indefinitely and I’m nervous that I’ll have to come back before locking in solid language skills.
  • Out of sheer force of disgusted and terrified will, I haven’t thrown up in more than 25 years, but I fear there is no way I can get through Africa without at least one bout of food poisoning. While I begrudgingly accept that I’m going to have to break the no-vomit streak at some point in my life, I’m horrified at the thought of breaking it many times in quick succession.
  • I spent almost $6,000 on a camera package in the hopes that “if you build it they will come.” I have a few good leads for short video production jobs in Senegal and a couple of other nearby countries but nothing locked in, and I’m worried that I won’t be able to pay back the cost of my kit. Maybe I should have used the money to just travel the world instead of over-ambitiously trying to study and work and travel all at once.
  • On the opposite side of the coin, I worry that I’ll get lots of work but screw it all up and be blacklisted from the entire continent.
  • I’m concerned about what’s going on in Mali and Burkina Faso. It sucks in its own right but I’m also worried that it could impact the security situation in Senegal.
  • I fear that the doxycycline (malaria prophylactic) that I’m about to start taking will make me antibiotic resistant to some weird Sub-Saharan disease I’ll later pick up.
  • I’m also afraid that the doxycycline will give me an allergic reaction and my throat will close up. (Even though I have taken this drug before, with no adverse effects.)
  • I wonder whether the needles that my new miracle-working acupuncturist left taped into my back (yes, you read that right) will give me septic shock and / or pierce my spine and paralyze me just days before my flight.
  • My quasi-conquered roach phobia is most likely going to be given a run for its money in Africa, and that gives me pause. Very, very long pause.
  • And finally, every time I think of the haircut I’m getting on Friday I worry that I will break the vomit seal in the barber’s chair instead of in Senegal. The real worry, though, is not nervous wretching. It’s that if I hate my new hair, I’ll have to hide it under head wraps for six months while it grows back from hideousness.

Of course, I can counter each of these fears with very rational counterarguments for their being unrealistic, overblown and / or not necessarily all bad. I’ve been doing that, a little. But mostly I’ve been forcing myself to continue putting one foot in front of the other despite my constant worry about everything big and small that could go horribly wrong.

[Photo: Domiriel]

A very New York sort of day

Posted in French, travel by

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This morning at the subway turnstile I realized that my Metrocard had expired, and since I have so little time left in New York I renewed it with a weekly unlimited pass instead of my usual monthly one. It was kind of bittersweet, kind of shocking, and kind of awesome.

After my downtown meeting directly across the street from the Woolworth Building, I took a moment to walk casually past the “no tourists beyond this point” sign and gawk at the spectacular lobby. (Had anyone stopped me I would have said, “Humph, I’m no tourist!”) Even though it’s one of the world’s first skyscrapers, the Woolworth Building had never been on my NYC bucket list, but after seeing it in person I now know it should have been.

My next order of business was in Midtown and a huge pain, but when I was finally done and waiting for the subway at Grand Central, the finale of a pretty delightful song by the speakeasy-style band on the platform harmonized perfectly with the sound of the train pulling into the station.

I thought, you will get none of this in Senegal.

And yet.

Today I received information about the family I will be staying with in Dakar for about two months. The homestay was arranged by the language-learning center where I’ll be doing 40 hours of one-on-one lessons over two weeks. I had found and loved the sound of this particular program two years ago when I first started looking into immersion possibilities in Senegal, and very (very, very) coincidentally, my newish-at-the-time friend found and chose the same program when she decided to do her own French immersion last summer. She loved it and especially loved her host family so I requested them as well, and today I found out that they are free, and that’s where I’ll be staying.

Yes, I’ll be giving up skyscrapers and subway symphonies for awhile. But soon I’ll be feasting my eyes and ears on all new sights and sounds, and I am so excited about that.

[Photo of Woolworth Building lobby: Christ-ophile]

Well this was unexpected

Posted in French, travel by

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So apparently my golden ticket is not so golden. This morning I went to the Senegalese consulate to inquire about visas, since they are not required for visits of fewer than 90 days but I may want to stay beyond that.

It was quite a surprise to be told that the visa is the least of my problems. Once in Senegal I can visit the immigration office at any time to apply for a visa… but I will not be allowed in the country – or for that matter, on the plane – if I show up to the airport without a return ticket.

I spent about twenty minutes trying unsuccessfully to ascertain whether “return” meant going back to the country of origin, or onward travel to any destination outside of Senegal. The two people I spoke with consulted about the nuances of this question and I could not follow along in the least (nor could they give me a firm answer in English). At first I thought they must be speaking Wolof, but I kept hearing words that, if pronounced entirely differently, would have sounded like French to me. This led me to wonder, not for the first time, whether Senegal is actually the best place for an American to learn French. But I’ll table that question for now in favor of the bigger issue.

As it turns out, you can’t just buy a one-way ticket somewhere and promise them at passport control that you will definitely leave within the time allotted to you. I feel pretty naive for making this little faux pas, but I’m not entirely sure how best to correct it, since I have no idea when I want to leave Senegal nor where I want to go next. I don’t want to book an arbitrary placeholder return ticket and change the date and/or destination later, because that will cost money that I haven’t budgeted for this particular use. But it looks like that’s exactly what I’m going to have to do.

Looking forward to spending the next eight hundred hours on the phone with United…

[Photo: Eva Holm]

I’ve got a golden ticket, I’ve got a golden ticket!

Posted in French, travel by

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People. I just booked my ticket to Dakar. I wanted to lock it in before the dust settled on my Elsewhere trip and the paralysis and despair of unemployment (which started this evening) wrapped me in its death-grip. I also thought, wouldn’t it be nice to go into the new year with something to definitively, concretely look forward to and plan for? And why wait? The longer I put it off, the more opportunity I had to start squirming.

So I’m flying to Dakar on Valentine’s Day, which seems appropriate given how I’ve loved Senegal from afar since the age of 14. The amazing thing about this trip is that while I panicked two years ago when I purchased a solo ticket to Argentina (13 days long) and became mildly anxious when I booked a 1-person trip to Mexico City and Elsewhere (11 days long), I barely batted an eyelash of anxiety when I confirmed this ticket (one-way, i.e. unlimited-days long). Practice makes perfect, I guess.

Now I am heading downtown to raise a glass and toast not only the new year but also the next adventure, 22 years in the making.

Happy new year! Or, rather, bonne année et bonne santé, from someone who will be speaking nothing but French in a matter of weeks…

what luck!

Posted in French, inspiration & encouragement, travel by

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In the more than two years that I’ve been going to French conversation Meetups, I have met people from virtually every francophone country – except Senegal, the one in which I’m most interested. Last night, less than one week after setting my tentative departure date for Dakar (February 15) and beginning to make concrete plans, I met two guys from… Dakar. They live in New York at the moment, but one of them, Michel, will be heading back soon. I told him he will be my first friend there, and I hope I’m right, because living in place where you don’t know a soul is pretty challenging.

He also works at a really great Senegalese restaurant in Harlem, so I now have a plan for my first lunch as a lady of leisure in January.

Ask, and – sometimes, when it feels like it – the universe answers.

[Photo: Tomo Tapio K]