Scribbles

Merde, my French has taken an unexpected turn for the worse. My abilities in French were steadily improving back in the States, but at planet INSEAD, where I speak English 99% of the time, my French has been stunted. It’s not that surprising when you consider my lack of time to explore the country and interact with the locals. And while many other students here share my problem, it’s hardly any consolation.

Today someone from my mobile phone carrier called to inform me that my phone bill was overdue. I know I had setup automatic payments from my bank when I signed up, but somehow they screwed it up. Instead of arguing with them, I just took the path of least resistance and tried to set it up again, reading off all the relevant account numbers and codes. During the exchange, I caught myself mid-sentence speaking in half French and half Spanish. For example, when I said the number 74, which in French is actually “soixant-quartorze” (translated literally to “sixty fourteen”). I started with “setenta…”, caught myself, then blurted “soixant-catorce”, and immediately realizing I had blotched the 14. Under duress, I couldn’t remember the French equivalent and struggled for the right word. Luckily, the two sound close enough for the woman to understand, and she was extremely patient, probably more amused than annoyed. After completing my task in embarrassing fashion, I vented to my French housemate, who just laughed at me, deservingly so.

How did this happen? Well, many people in the chateau are doing French as their second language and Spanish as their third. So they’ve been practicing with our resident Español speakers. By being around, I’ve inadvertently recovered some of the Spanish I learned back in high school. As a result, we’ve all been mixing up these two languages, mostly because we haven’t achieved sufficient fluency in either. The ironic thing is, back in California when I was studying for the exam, I was accidentally throwing in French for all the words I couldn’t conjure in Spanish.

Nonetheless, I’m grateful for having some competency in English. It’s become quite clear how much more people struggle at INSEAD without English as a native tongue. It restricts their ability to follow some professors, to fully articulate themselves, and to read all our case studies and textbooks in a timely fashion. And let me just say, these students are rather competent in English (heavy requirement just to get admitted.) If I had to do this in French, I’d be in a world of hurt. For now, I’m setting a goal to strengthen my French in the latter periods when the course work lightens up a bit. Buenas noches!