Allons-y Alonso!

Before coming to Cameroon, the only French words I knew were “Bonjour,” “merci,” “sacre-bleu,” and “allons-y”—the former two from Beauty and the Beast and Doctor Who respectively.  But I feel like I should speak French.  I mean, on the six degree of separation scale, I am definitely only one degree away from speaking French. 

One of my best friends and roommates for two years in undergrad was a French major; surely some French should have rubbed off on me just by breathing the same air, right?  Diffusion?  I guess I should know better having once been informed by one of my friends that it’s impossible to learn a language through osmosis. 

My Spanish professor in undergrad thought I spoke French.  I later concluded that she must have had me confused with someone else, but after failing to correct her the first time, I simply had to smile and nod every time she said “Oh Allison, this [insert tense or grammar or vocabulary topic here] should be very straightforward for you!  It’s similar to French!”

For some reason I’ve had multiple Europeans assume that I’m French (obviously before I open my mouth).  One even went as far as to ask if I was a French ballerina.  He claimed he could tell by the way I walked across the square—though I think it was part of a larger ploy to get my number. 

But despite hovering so close to the language for so long, I had very little to go on after arriving in Cameroon.  I figured that since I already (sort-of) spoke a Romance Language, how hard could it be?  Difficult.  Or difficile.  (Don’t be too impressed, I just looked that up right now.  And then felt dumb because it was so close to Spanish.)

I am not an auditory learner, so when for the first few weeks other members of the field team would try to teach me helpful French phrases while we walked from one field site to the next, they would in one ear and out the other.  To remedy this, a couple of weeks ago I decided to sit down with our French at a Glance book, inherited from Chris, who had inherited it from his advisor when he first came here ten years ago.  It was at dinner so our Cameroonian field assistant was helpfully sitting mere feet away and couldn’t escape my onslaught of questions.  Our conversation went like this:

Me (in the most horrid French accent imaginable):           “So it’s je parle, tu parles, elle parle, nous parlons, vous parlez, elles parlent?”  (pronouncing the words as I would in Spanish, aka “parle” as “parlay”)

Jean Bernard:    Laughs. “Non, je parle, tu parles, elle parle, nous parlons, vous parlez, elles parlent?” (except it sounded like je parl, tu parl, el parl, nou parlon, vou parl, el parl)

Me:        Wait, what happened to the ends of the words!

JB:          Laughs.

Me:        No seriously, I speak, You speak, She speaks, You all speak, and They speak all sound the exact same??

JB:          Laughs.

So apparently, unlike Spanish, French is not phonetic. 

Me (debating banging my head against the table):           Hmmmmm

But after the first few weeks of giving the deer-in-headlights look to everyone who addressed me, I have finally mastered enough phrases to have a (very simple and stilted, mostly one-sided) conversation.  Every conversation I have goes a little like this:

Me:        Bonjour (Hello)

Cameroonian:   Merci, bonjour.  Comment ça va?  (Thanks, hello.  How is everything?)

Me:        Ça va bien.  (Everything is good)

Cameroonian:   [undecipherable French words that I take to mean “What are you doing wandering around the African bush in such ridiculously attractive jungle pants?]

Me:        Je regarde les oiseau.  (I look at the birds)

Cameroonian now with an incredulous smirk:     Les oiseau?  (The….birds?)

Me:        Oui, les petite oiseau.  Pour la science.  Je suis étudiante biologie.  (Yes, baby birds.  For science.  I am a biology student.)

Cameroonian:   [undecipherable French words]

Me:        Je suis désole.  Je ne parle pas bien le Français.  (I’m sorry.  I don’t speak French well.)

The conversations go either one of two ways at this point, either:

Cameroonian:   [undecipherable French words]

Me (having fully exhausted all my French):          [blink and smile as the awkward seconds tick by until…]

Cameroonian:   Ça va, Ça va.  Au revoir!  (It’s fine, it’s fine.  Bye!)

Or they make the switch into English which it turns out they speak much more fluently than I speak French.

But at least I am learning.  Slowly.  And I plan to continue practicing.  Just as I will continue my search for someone named Alonso so I too can say “Allons-y Alonso!”