As a foreigner who has been speaking and writing French for many years, I've encountered two quite different kinds of problems. On the one hand, my accent hasn't evolved very much. Consequently, French people are immediately aware that I didn't grow up as a French speaker, but they're generally incapable of identifying my native language or my land of birth. On the other hand, although I'm still capable of making grammatical mistakes, my behavior in that domain is often much better than that of native French people.
At present, there's a lot of buzz about major changes to French spelling, particularly at the level of circumflex accents, as shown here
Nîmes
Up until now, the dot over the letter i has been replaced by a circumflex. But maybe this accent should be removed from now on. I wouldn't be surprised if many foreign observers, seeing this buzz, were to imagine that the task of writing correct French is about to change considerably... for the better, or for the worse.
Now, without going into details (which would be sure to bore those of my
Antipodes readers who are not necessarily familiar with French), let me simply point out that this whole affair is little more than buzz.
So, carry on with your familiar handling of French spelling, as if nothing whatsoever is about to change!
“Consequently, French people are immediately aware that I didn't grow up as a French speaker, but they're generally incapable of identifying my native language or my land of birth.”
ReplyDeleteEr…not necessarily. I have some evidence to the contrary. Once upon a time many years ago we were having dinner in Le Trumilou, Quai de L’Hotel de Ville. We were sitting next to an elderly French gentleman who was dining by himself and was obviously a regular. As I recall, either you or he were observing and commenting on the number plates of the passing cars. You identified one that was from the department in Brittany that you and Christine had lived in (vingt-deux??) which our neighbor overheard. Whereupon, seized with euphoria, he responded that he came from that department, and, after further discussion, as it turned out, the specific town in question where you had lived! During the next (what seemed like an eternity) I memorized the menu, checked out the bateau-mouche traffic on the Seine, and monitored the pedestrian traffic while you and he had an intense and convivial discussion on what was happening in the town in question, what the local priest was up to, who had married whom etc. What was interesting to me was that at no stage did he ever seem even vaguely curious about your accent. In fact I am sure he didn’t even notice it because of your extremely detailed familiarity with his local context. And if anyone had asked him I’m sure he would have said you were French (or probably Breton!).
I have subsequently used this experience in talks I have given on the nature of language proficiency to illustrate the fact that there is much more to proficiency than pronunciation and syntax.
Garfield Groundhog
Note de l'editeur: The poster works in the field of language teaching and learning.
Dear Garfield Groundhog,
ReplyDeleteI was delighted to hear that anecdote, which I had completely forgotten. And I'm thrilled to learn that some of your language students have been inspired by my art of acting as if I had once been a citizen of Saint-Brieuc.