The Journey of Embracing a New Language

The Language of Connection

There’s a scene that never fails to captivate me in the film “Husbands,” where John Cassavetes, acting in his own masterpiece, attempts to charm a stunning blonde in a London casino. “What languages do you speak?” he inquires. She replies with a simple “none.” Then, with a flair of seductive gravitas, he declares, “I’m going to give you a little bit of French,” and proceeds to unleash a torrent of words that sound like French but are nothing more than gibberish. It’s a playful rendition of fake French. “Do you like Italian?” he asks next, then launches into his own version. The woman laughs, bemused, and points out, “It’s not real.” To which he responds, “It’s real to me.”

I first encountered that film in a quaint cinema nestled in the Latin Quarter, accompanied by my husband two decades ago when we were just beginning to explore our relationship. He was eager to introduce me to “his Paris,” a city where he had spent a significant part of his life. Although my husband is American, he has a remarkable command of the French language, immersing himself in its rich literary and philosophical heritage. French culture, with its illustrious writers, thinkers, and filmmakers, gradually became a part of my life too. Yet, despite this exposure, the only French I spoke was the playful imitation inspired by Cassavetes’ character. My academic journey had taken me through Italian, a language I diligently pursued, while Spanish had briefly caught my interest during my early days in Los Angeles. However, as I delved deeper into Spanish, I noticed my Italian fading away, as if being relegated to some distant storage facility, perhaps never to resurface. Consequently, I decided to abandon Spanish and focus solely on preserving my love for Italian.

As time passed, I began to ponder the notion that some individuals are inherently monolingual, and perhaps I was one of them. This realization freed me from the societal pressure to be a polyglot, which I had previously deemed a “virtuous” goal. The polyglots I had encountered were often those who grew up in multilingual households or attended prestigious schools, and I recognized that their linguistic prowess stemmed from luck rather than moral superiority.

After the birth of our son, we enrolled him in a French school, hoping he would have the fortune of becoming one of the lucky few. Each summer, we traveled to France, but I held onto the belief that it was too late for me to learn French in my adulthood. A significant barrier for me was my accent; I felt condemned from the start due to my inability to master the French “r.” Even those who had only taken a few high school French classes seemed to execute it flawlessly, whereas I struggled and was hesitant to draw attention to my inadequacy.

Everything changed three years ago when I discovered that a friend of mine had taken the bold step of learning French well enough to compose and present an artist’s statement at a museum. Her achievement, while impressive, stemmed from a simple yet profound quality: willingness. This realization made me question why I couldn’t adopt that same willingness to learn.

I sought out a highly recommended teacher, who was initially hesitant to take on a beginner like me. Determined to prove that I wasn’t a lost cause, we began our lessons, and to our mutual satisfaction, we made tangible progress. However, my family had a different perception. “Stop talking so loudly,” they would chide, “and don’t make it sound so fraught.” They encouraged me to focus on intonation rather than worrying about my accent. My son observed that French words simply didn’t seem to fit comfortably in my mouth. Even my husband shared tales of a fluent American acquaintance who navigated Paris with a flat “r” and was easily understood. “Just do that,” he suggested. Yet, it felt too late for me to adopt a flat “r”; I was already entrenched in my unique, albeit imperfect, accent, unable to revert to a previous state.