What did you wish you knew before you studied abroad in France?
At the time that I left for France, I had been studying French for over nine years. Nine years of rehearsing conjugations. Nine years of practicing noun-adjective agreement. Nine years of trying to master that cursed guttural “r” sound that the language is notorious for. I talked to myself in the shower to try and simulate conversation and smooth out the pathway from my brain to my tongue. Remember your imperfect tense. The conditional comes after the imperfect, the simple future after the present. It’s “traverser la rue” not “croiser la rue.”
“Living in a new culture is like playing in the starting five of a basketball team when you retired from Major League Baseball yesterday.”
I was nervous because I felt as if I was auditioning before an entire country. The United States already has a bad rap for language education. Right after The Pledge of Allegiance, our most quoted nationalist saying just may be “Learn English.” America has a habit of being everywhere and wanting everywhere to be just like us. I didn’t want to be that type of person. Besides that, I just loved languages, and I wanted to master as many of them as I could. France would be my trial by fire.
In retrospect, my experience was wonderfully flawed. The truth is when you're studying abroad, whether it be in your native language or in a different one, you will make mistakes. Living in a new culture is like playing in the starting five of a basketball team when you retired from Major League Baseball yesterday. You will drop the ball. I am pretty sure I have gotten lost in Paris, asked for directions, was met with a fusillade of French, and with a huge smile of understanding, promptly walked away from them in the wrong direction as they stared at my anxious back in utter confusion. I had some beautiful moments, such as when a woman was surprised to find out I was from the U.S. because my French was good enough to pass for a native. Yet there were many moments where I was reduced to a babbling mess of waving arms and sweaty palms as I clamored for the right word to say in a three-word sentence. And I don’t know if I would change any moment. I actually wish I gave myself the opportunity to make more of them.
The sooner you embrace your capacity for mistakes, the easier you will be able to prevent your faux-pas from completely mortifying you when they happen. I had some moments where I did not allow myself to go out and enjoy the city because the idea of trying to speak a language that never ceased to trip me up exhausted me. I would lie and bed and retreat to social media, where most of my friends from home allowed me to be what I was always used to being. There were so many moments for growth when I buried my sneakers in the fertile soil of the Parisian sidewalk. Every opportunity I missed to do so stunted my growth. If you ask for directions and get lost anyway, roll with it. If you try to speak the language and get called out on your accent, don’t shut up. The most important lessons are often in the screw-ups.”