Jun 30 2008
Me No Talk Pretty: French a la Brittany
Rough Guide to Brittany and Normandy
The new destination for the month of July at the store is France (15% off all titles for France!). I always think that I am “over” France, but then something always comes along to remind me why I love it so much. I think that it is precisely all the cliches about France that I love the most. I love the Eiffel Tower, going on bateaux mouches, cafes, crepes, red wine, pain au chocolat and when people mock my “bizarre” accent when I massacre the French language. I lived in a microscopic village in Brittany for a year and now I sound like a strange American-French hillbilly with really outdated slang. I have even been told by professors that my French sounds like the equivalent of what would happen if you sent a Japanese student to the Deep South for a crash course of English. This did loads for my confidence, but in the end I have chosen to think that the way I can’t pronounce my “r” is endearing.
Which brings me to one of my favorite books that deals with being an American struggling with genders of nouns while living in rural France, Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris. He makes me laugh and not feel like a linguistic failure. He also makes me really wish that he sat next to me in one of my language classes. I have a feeling he would be the best dialogue partner ever!
Read more: France, Learning a Language, News, Travel, Western EuropeLisa can usually be found staring longingly at the Eastern European shelf at the Globe Corner Bookstore. However, she really wants to go to Colombia.
