HOW I LEARNED TO SPEAK FRENCH

HOW I LEARNED FRENCH
C 2008 JoJo

Long before I was married, I’d decided that if I was going to have kids (and I really wanted children) I was not going to put them into nursery school and allow someone else to bring them up! I was going to do it myself, no matter what. So throughout the time they were toddlers until they hit high school, I was a stay at home Mum.

However, money was tight, so in order to earn some and help the family coffers, I became a Tupperware lady, giving home demonstrations. I’d be loaded up and ready to go. Hubby came home from work, I served dinner, and then I left. He washed up, threw all three kids into the bathtub (figuratively speaking), bathed them, diapered them (when necessary – and it was necessary for a long time – there’s only 3 years between the eldest and the youngest) and put them to bed.

Meanwhile I’d drive into Montreal – a good 15 miles from home – in all kinds of weather. If my hostess was prepared to put on the show, I’d go. I never once cancelled an engagement.

I always counted on getting future bookings from the ladies present at any given party. I had no problem doing this because I used to make my demonstrations funny, and I also took along my guitar and sang some Brazilian songs for them.

I remember on one demonstration holding up a large canister useful for storing flour and sugar. I had another idea.

“Ladies, if you’re ever going on a long journey, take this along with you. If nature calls and there isn’t a washroom convenient …” I didn’t elaborate how they could use it. I was kidding of course, but do you know – six ladies bought that canister for this express purpose (no pun intended)?

One day, a hairdresser from TMR (Town of Mount Royal – a very swish section of Montreal) asked me if I could do a demonstration in French. Most of her customers were French speaking she said.

“Oh yes,” I said loftily, even though I couldn’t speak French. And so she booked me. I spent that week looking up words frantically in my French/English dictionary, and memorizing how to thank my hostess in French for having me.

My hostess had put up a sign in her shop, inviting all her customers to come, and my demonstration was being held in her salon.

There was a big turn out. I set up and we began. I thanked my hostess for having me and was about to launch forth into my demonstration, when a lady sitting in the front yelled “I HATE TUPPERWARE.”

Oh dear! My heart sank like the proverbial rock! Here I was, holding a French demonstration when I couldn’t speak French, and now this lady was going to give me a hard time! I just hoped that, having gotten that off her chest, she’d shut up. My hopes were dashed. In a loud voice she started chanting the following ditty:

GINGER ROGERS IS A STAR,
SHE GETS ON THE TROLLEY CAR,
WHEN THE CAR GOES OFF THE TRACK,
THEN SHE GETS HER MONEY BACK.

I paused, thinking that maybe she’s done her all and would allow me to get on with it. But oh dear me no. She started chanting again:

ELIZABETH TAYLOR IS A STAR
SHE GETS ON THE TROLLEY CAR,
WHEN THE CAR …

At this point, I realized every Hollywood star would be getting onto that damn trolley car and getting their money back when it went off the track. I had to do something.

I quietly approached her. “Listen dear, this is my very first French demonstration, and I’m really nervous about it. I wonder if you could help me?”

She gave a big beaming smile and said “Sure, what do you want me to do?”

Well, I could’ve said that for starters, stop talking and chanting silly ditties, but instead I said “Do you think you could pass me the items off my table as I need them?”

Her face broke out into a huge smile and there wasn’t another peep out of her. As she turned to go, I noticed the tattoo on her wrist. Poor wee thing, she was a holocaust survivor and goodness knows what horrors she’d been through that had broken her mind. I was so glad I’d been gentle with her.

Now I began my demonstration. I had her hand me a Tupperware item. Turning to the ladies, I intoned, “Voici un bol.” Riveting stuff that – I’d just told the good ladies that what I was holding was a bowl like they couldn’t have figured that out themselves!

“Le bol est vert,” I told them, although they could plainly see that it was green. What to say next about the damn bowl?

“Le bol est joli!” Oh wow, I said the bowl was pretty! Now Tupperware is practical and useful for storing stuff for long periods of time, but pretty it isn’t.

I hastily took another item from my helper and held it up. “Voici un autre bol,” I said solemnly (Here is another bowl) “c’est bol est jaune mais il est aussi joli – however this bowl is yellow, but it’s also pretty.

Well at this point, my ladies started to smile. I could tell they were dying to laugh, so I threw my hands up in the air, and started laughing – they laughed right along with me. So for this rest of my demonstration, I’d hold something up, ask them what it was in French, and they enthusiastically told me.

At the end of the party, I thanked my helper and gave her a gift from my table, which she was thrilled to bits to get. Everyone applauded her and she stood there, beaming happily. Best of all, I sold more Tupperware that night than I’d ever done before! Woo hoo!

I got more and more French bookings, and with each one, I learned more and more French. Now I can speak it fairly fluently, and understand what’s being said, and can make myself understood – for all that I massacre French grammar, nobody seems to care.

When I worked for the Canadian Government, I was asked to undergo a French test. This was in three parts: reading comprehension, oral comprehension and grammar. Even though I’d never studied French in school, I decided to give it a crack.

I am completely bi-lingual in English and Portuguese, and French is very similar to Portuguese. When I’m at a loss for a word, I say its Portuguese equivalent, give it a French accent, and nine times out of ten it’s correct. This fools everyone into thinking what a fabulous linguist I am! Haha – if they only knew!!

The reading comprehension I aced; then came the oral. A very sweet French Canadian lady was my tester. She explained to me in French, that we’d be role playing. She’d set up a scenario and would ask me questions and I would answer them in French, to the best of my ability. She also told me she’d be taping our session.

So off we went. The scenario she set up was, I was coming to work for a new Company, and she was there to determine what my office needs were. I was fully aware of my grammatical shortcomings, so I decided to go for humour.

“So what do you particularly want in your new office?” she inquired.

“It is absolutely imperative that my new office faces East,” I told her.

“And why is that?” she inquired.

“Because I am like the flowers in the field – I must have the morning sun on my face.”

Well, she burst out laughing. The whole role playing thing went along these lines – my answers were always ridiculous, absurd and funny. She had a ball!

She took the tape of our interview back to the office with her, and gathered together all her fellow testers to listen to it. She later told me they shrieked with laughter and unanimously decided that, yes, although my grammar was regrettable, I had clearly understood everything said to me and had replied in a completely comprehensible fashion – so they passed me! Humour, my friends, will cover a multitude of sins – well grammatical errors in my case!

I then took the grammar test and failed – by one lousy point. Considering I’d never taken French grammar I was happy with that.

French and Portuguese are both Latin languages and are very similar. The grammar test was multiple choice, so what I did was translate each sentence into Portuguese, and think to myself does that sound correct grammatically? No it doesn’t, and go onto the next one, until I found one that sounded, in Portuguese, correct – and picked it. And I nearly got away with it!

In parting, the oral test lady said to me “If you ever have to take this test again, will you please make sure to tell them you want me to conduct it?

I would’ve chosen her like a shot – but I never took that French test again.

Too bad I didn’t pass that wretched grammar one – I would’ve earned an extra thousand dollars per year if I’d aced it. Back in 1986, this was a lot of money. Nowadays, it’ll buy you a tank of gas and a cup of coffee … well, it’s getting to be that way, isn’t it?