While I was in France, I was the designated linguist. Despite frequently telling my parents that I don't speak or study French, they seemed to believe that if you can speak one language, you can speak them all.
Although not a proper 'misadventure', linguistics first made an appearance while on the ferry to France. I'd told Sophie I'd buy her some French magazines or newspapers for reading practice (not even because I'm just kind like that, it's more because I know how obsessed she is with French) so I did so on the ferry. Because I was buying a French magazine and paying in euros, naturally, the cashier thought I was in French. That was awkward. It's a good job I knew how much it cost because I could never do French numbers...
The 'misadventures' began when we arrived at the holiday home we were staying in to find a note from the owner that was entirely in French. Now, let me tell you, 00:13am CET is NOT a good time to be translating paragraphs and guessing verb conjugations in a language you haven't studied for about 3 years.
The next morning, we had a visit from the owner herself...who only spoke French. I had to follow my parents around the house with a dictionary and a phrasebook, and ended up in situations such as my mum yelling ''Rach, what's 'early' in French?'' at me from across the room.
We went to Dinan for the day on Tuesday which was where my proudest French moment came. We went into an ice-cream shop and my parents decided that I could ask for my own, because apparently it's better to look like typical Brits and point at flavours rather than ask for them in French. Somehow, I managed to go 'je voudrais un citron et framboise, s'il vous plait'. And no, I literally have no idea which part of my mind 'je voudrais' was sitting in, just waiting patiently for it to be remembered, but it was there. My brother, who studies French now, only ever managed 'mercy' (no, not 'merci'...) and my parents stood pointing at things and going ''M&Ms''.
The house owner came back on the Friday evening and once again, my parents seemed to think I could speak French. This time, I ended up in a slightly mental situation in which I was interpreting what the woman said. Now, I've tried interpreting - it's hard enough English to English, let alone a language you don't speak to English. The owner would say something and I'd have to wait until she repeated it slowly and then translate the words I knew and guess the rest. I think she asked us if it was our first visit to the region at one point. I don't know... Best of all, my parents only ever responded in English. I'm there interpreting for them in a language I don't know and my parents are there going ''yep, yep...yeah, sure". Honestly...
Before I'd even reached the country, I was reminded how important language skills are. My parents spent a lot of time going ''She owns a cottage that she rents out, she should speak English'' and my only response was ''Why should she? You don't speak any other language, so why should she?"
More than that, though, I was once again reminded how rewarding languages are. Being able to communicate in a language that isn't your mother tongue is incredibly rewarding. I was ridiculously proud of myself for that ice-cream shop moment, and that's the point - the ability to break down a language barrier is hard enough, but as we learnt at Linguastars, the ability to break down your own fear barrier is even harder.
If anything, my 'misadventures' have taught me that you shouldn't be scared of other languages. OK, so maybe your pronunciation will be terrible (I spoke in a Spanish accent everytime I said anything in French...) and maybe your tenses won't be the greatest, but the effort is there. And let me tell you, I greatly appreciated one of the waiters we had attempting to speak English, even if it was only ''to drink?''.
Have you had any 'misadventures' in a foreign language recently? Leave us a comment if so :)
Bisous ♥
Rachel
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