Space Cadet!

Learning to speak French on a day to day basis is a challenge. Actually, as I've written about before, I actually cheat quite a bit. There is a big difference between the French you learn in school, and what's actually spoken on the street. Also, there's a big difference between being able to function in a language (ask directions, read menus etc.) and actually express yourself and communicate with someone on a personal level. I'm totally, completely functional in French. But trying to express my personality or have any sort of a sense of humor are impossible. Forget witty comebacks: it takes too long to work out the correct verb conjugation, and then the moment is gone.

I'm still amazed sometimes that I can understand what's going on around me. I'll be going along, functioning fine, and then I have this out-of-body experience where I see myself doing whatever I'm doing, and I just think - "Wow." So, today I was in a meeting with my French colleagues. The meeting started perfectly fine, everyone jabbering in French, and I was following along, even contributing a little bit (a little bit, and very badly, but they got the gist). And then the out of body experience started "Wow, here I am having a meeting all in French! And I know what's going on! Well, sort of. I'm following most of it. Except when they talk over each other. But this is cool. Except I think I screwed up that last sentence I said, but whatever. I bet in a couple of months I'll really know what's going on and..." and then suddenly I hear (in French) "...isn't that right, Amanda?". And deafening silence. Everyone looking at me. Nervous laugh. And, lost in my lala land, I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about, although it apparently involved me.

Fortunately, I figure I have at least a six-month window where people will attribute any apparently spaceyness to my language skills. So I just said "Pardon? J'ai pas bien compris" ("Sorry? I didn't understand.") and life moved on. Gotta work on my attention span though.