Are you moving to France? This is my story

ARE YOU MOVING TO FRANCE? THIS IS MY STORY

So have you ever thought about moving to France?

Nothing can be more exhilarating and scary in the same time than changing your destiny, and going on a one-way French immersion trip that you expect to be the pinnacle of your French fluency, only… it’s not.

From the endless ways in which you can mess up a sentence in French to the tricky rules of pronunciation, what is a France lover to do?

Check out the article below for some funny (when it doesn’t happen to you) insight into the first steps on the path of my move, and watch the video for some French worth listening to!

(This week: the verb ÉCOUTER – to listen)

I’m guessing that you want to go to Paris. Maybe for a week, for a year or for a lifetime. If that is the case, then welcome to my world: I travel a lot, and I even moved to Canada, so we are practically related. 😉

Let me first say that, if you don’t master French yet – which is probably why you are paying me a visit – I went through the same thing when I moved to Canada. Only my journey was in the opposite direction: I had to master English.

So I know exactly what you are going through, and I mastered English in writing (amongst others, I’m a blogger for The Huffington Post) and as a speaker (I even performed on stage and film).

But even if the languages are different, there is one thing in common:

Conversation anxiety

When landing at the Montreal airport, I was welcomed by an immigration officer, a lovely lady who I had to report to.

I was elated! I would finally speak my language in the country I chose to be my new home.

Pulling my large luggage (I’m 5’1″ and 100 lbs – most luggage is “large” for me) with an energy I didn’t know I had after the transatlantic flight, I sat down in the immigration office on a chair that looked too new and too clean, compared to the antique look that most objects have in offices in Europe.

I open my purse and handed my official papers to the officer (trying to hide my blisters from the luggage), I sit and wait for the questions.

The next minutes will bring me the most unexpected surprise of my short journey.

The lady officer was speaking to me in a French… that I couldn’t understand.

“Say what…?” – my mind was dizzy from the trip and from the shock.

The lady officer had a very thick Québequois accent, and I was not acquainted to it, because TV5 International – which I had been watching in Europe – uses show hosts who speak standard (Parisian) French.

Québec French was definitely not agreeing with me.

After the first few seconds, realizing that I don’t have much choice but to try to communicate – otherwise I was visualizing myself being deported back home – I put together a strategy that proved to be brilliant.

I don’t know how, but it worked.

Not only did it work for me then, but I used it in my first job at “The shopping channel” with great success, and my students use it all the time in order to make conversation possible when they don’t understand what’s been said to them.

So my technique was simple:

I started to look for the words I did understand.

Then I asked a question about that word.

The officer had to answer my question, this way she slowed down, and I understood easier what she was saying.

Every time she’d speak faster than I could understand, I’d ask for clarification on a word I did understand. And so on.

We parted as friends… but to me, that experience, even though successful, was terrifying.

So, see? Pronunciation is more important than we think it is, in real life.

NOW IT IS YOUR TURN!
Which part of this article most resonated with you and why? What is the one action that you’ll take today? 🙂

Let me guess.