2008 Woodie Awards
The interpreter: tales of the oral tradition
Insomniac Humanoid
Anna Nguyen
Issue date: 3/28/08 Section: Life & Style
I was at a local Starbucks, waiting to replace my former order of a cup of café au lait for a grande black coffee. The lady in front of me took a few steps back, displacing the generous space that divided us. To avoid body trafficking, I, in turn, took a few steps back, perhaps more cautiously than the lady, as I did not want to step on the shoes of the patron behind me. In fact, I took a half of a step. The attempt was futile, as the lady in front lightly bumped my shoulder. She turned around to offer her apology.
"Pardonne," I said politely, exaggerating the "ar" stress, a technique I tried to perfect in my French phonetics lab.
"Franglais," the combination of the French and English language, is the term deemed by both French and American students. In France, I resorted to communicating in "Franglais" when I failed to interpret my thoughts fluently. My pronunciations of English words in French are not only limited to polite formalities; in fact, I have caught myself pronouncing words in English that end with an "r" with an accent - and these words are not even the respective French equivalents. My French vocabulary usage also includes conjunctions, such as substituting "and" for "et." Unless I am tutoring my sister with her French homework, such language lapses are spoken unintentionally.
This trait was also evident in a recent letter from a friend who is still studying in Pau. The text was scrawled mainly in the English language, but short French phrases were also scribbled within many of the sentence structures. I'm not sure if David was aware of his Franglais letter-writing, but I must admit I was relieved that the letter was not written only in French and that he did not showcase his new skills in mastering the subjunctive or the pluperfect grammar structures.
Despite some intensive language classes at the Universite de Pau and taking the occasional language classes for several years in high school and at the UA, I do not consider myself to be completely fluent. This is a result from lacking confidence to speak the language to strangers, lacking full comprehension of the many complicated grammar structures and failure to properly conjugate the necessary verbs with the necessary subjects when speaking in a hasty manner.
"Pardonne," I said politely, exaggerating the "ar" stress, a technique I tried to perfect in my French phonetics lab.
"Franglais," the combination of the French and English language, is the term deemed by both French and American students. In France, I resorted to communicating in "Franglais" when I failed to interpret my thoughts fluently. My pronunciations of English words in French are not only limited to polite formalities; in fact, I have caught myself pronouncing words in English that end with an "r" with an accent - and these words are not even the respective French equivalents. My French vocabulary usage also includes conjunctions, such as substituting "and" for "et." Unless I am tutoring my sister with her French homework, such language lapses are spoken unintentionally.
This trait was also evident in a recent letter from a friend who is still studying in Pau. The text was scrawled mainly in the English language, but short French phrases were also scribbled within many of the sentence structures. I'm not sure if David was aware of his Franglais letter-writing, but I must admit I was relieved that the letter was not written only in French and that he did not showcase his new skills in mastering the subjunctive or the pluperfect grammar structures.
Despite some intensive language classes at the Universite de Pau and taking the occasional language classes for several years in high school and at the UA, I do not consider myself to be completely fluent. This is a result from lacking confidence to speak the language to strangers, lacking full comprehension of the many complicated grammar structures and failure to properly conjugate the necessary verbs with the necessary subjects when speaking in a hasty manner.
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