After a week and a half, I have come to this conclusion: I completely and totally fail at real French. Yes, I can discuss Pierre et Jean with relative success and amuse small children with a rendition of “head, shoulders, knees and toes” en français. These fine accomplishments, however, have absolutely nothing to do with exchanging pleasantries with shopkeepers or asking how your neighbor’s kids are doing in school.
I find myself using phrases I learned the first week in French 101 and completely avoiding the subjunctive and the plus-que-parfait. My noun-adjective agreement has gone flying out the window. I must relearn a language of grammatical errors, interjections, and slang in a variety of accents spoken at the speed of light. It makes me wonder if we should even bother trying to “teach” ourselves foreign languages, but instead just throw ourselves into the fray of a different country and culture and just absorb.
Then again, the cliff-diving approach does seem a bit impractical and frightening. While your second year of French may not have taught you the verbal crutches you need to sound like a français, there was probably one chapter filled with useful food vocabulary and directions on how to conjugate “avoir.” So, in the true spirit of counter-arguments, I have provided a list of useful classroom French lessons to which you should pay close attention:
1. Numbers: never underestimate the power of knowing the difference between 15 and 50—this could save you beaucoup de centimes AND aid you in your quest to become the perfect haggler.
2. Ways to avoid using the subjunctive—hey, it’s one less conjugation pattern you need to memorize.
3. Question words—the combination of who, what, when, where, and how and lots of descriptive hand gestures can get you a long way in the (hopefully) right direction.
4. Useful phrases such as “Il y a” (There is), “c’est” (it’s), “beaucoup de choses” (many things), and “Qu’est-ce que c’est?” (What is it?)—Again, accompanied by the right gestures and facial expressions, these can get you far in the pastry shop.
5. OF COURSE, you should always always be polite. “S’il vous plaît” and “merci” are musts in any circumstance.
And really, discussing Pierre et Jean is a start. You never know when you may need to draw upon 19th century home décor vocabulary or describe the overall theme of your trip to the grocery store.