57% fluent in french, whatever that means

My dear husband has a PhD in linguistics. He's been studying language for the past ten years. One might incorrectly assume that he would have fluency in several languages under his belt by now, especially having grown up in multilingual Europe. Rory can teach you about phonological processing and phonetic reduction, individual differences in speech production, and even the Acazulco Otomi word for “potato”. He's a very smart and knowledgeable guy when it comes to Language with a capital L. But as he is fond of saying, “Learning a language is hard.”

Autumn in Paris from the Bois de Boulogne on our Journée sans Anglais

Indeed it is. Being plonked down into a foreign country where you don't really speak the language is quite challenging at times. Even though according to Duolingo I'm 57% fluent in French after six months of individual study, more often than not, I don't understand the conversations happening around me on the subway, in stores, and most embarrassingly, when I am trying to be an active participant. For an adult who has prided herself on being reasonably articulate and skilled at communication, it's a bit of a sucker punch to the ego when a child speaks to me in French and I have to look at her with a perplexed and apologetic expression on my face like, I only caught one word you said and you're making me so nervous that I can't even think how to say in French that I didn't understand you. Please don't think I'm a weirdo or a complete idiot, or worse, an American.


Rest assured, I have been studying and learning and making a lot of progress with my French. For example, last week, I somehow “volunteered” to coordinate logistics for a two-weekend Baha'i study circle event, meaning that I had to contact about fifteen Parisians and ask if they would provide lunches or childcare for a group of 15-20 people. I was expected to call people I didn't know, on the phone, in French. I've had anxiety about calling people since I was ten years old, but to have to do it in a foreign language...*shudders*


Well, I spent about a day gathering the courage, writing out and practicing a bunch of possible scripts for the calls, looking up French phone expressions, Facebook friending the people I was about to call, and generally being terrified any time I touched my phone. That evening, I started calling people. And for the next several days, I left messages entirely in French. I had calls that began in French and switched into English when I couldn't explain myself anymore. I emailed and texted people in French (WAY easier than calling, let me tell you). And on the weekends, I brought snacks to the gatherings and interacted with people in French (“Quoi de neuf, Talia?” “Pas beaucoup,” I said smoothly). I still panic every time my phone rings, but the experience of successfully communicating in my new language really energized and emboldened me.


Not everyone gets to be shoved into the deep end of the language-learning pool like I just did, so if you're studying a new language, here are some of the other tools and activities I've found useful.

• Duolingo: An online site that turns language-learning into a game. There are 23 languages available, including Klingon! It does get a little repetitive after 20 levels or so, since the format doesn't change or get harder as you go. But it's great for learning vocabulary, conjugations, and phrases.
  
• Quizlet: A site that allows you to create flashcards (or use other people's flashcards), then study them using a variety of strategies and games.
  
• Comme Une Française: A great website with lots of videos on authentic French language usage, explanations about daily life in France, common mistakes French learners make, and tons more. It's run by Géraldine Lepère, a young woman who acts as teacher and mentor and helps people (particularly expats living in France) feel more at home with French living.
  
• Cercle International de l'ARC: If you happen to move to Paris and want to practice conversing in French without paying 12 euros for a speed-dating style Franglish event, The International Circle of the ARC is an organization where you can meet up with people from around the world and talk in French with the guidance of a native French speaker (it seems to be retired people who serve as these French animateurs). It's only 10 euros for the whole year and there are three 2-hour sessions five days a week.
  
• Children's books in French: Local libraries probably have some. I enjoyed reading Madeline, Harry Potter, and have started on Le Petit Prince. Comic books are really popular in France. Not the superhero kind like in America, but the graphic novel kind and classics like Asterix. Pictures help a lot when reading a new language!
  
• Netflix: There are quite a few movies and TV series in French (or other languages), and you can always add subtitles. We started with English subtitles when watching in the US, but now that we're in France, they only have French subtitles. I just started a popular comedy series called Fais pas ci fais pas ça. It really helps to watch the acting, hear the French, and read the French text—it's more effective than just studying a language book.
  
• Journée sans Anglais: Rory and I just started having a Day Without English. Yesterday, we managed without English for many hours and it improved our fluency and understanding. Of course, it helps to have someone to talk to in whatever language you're speaking. It's a little awkward by yourself...But lacking a language buddy, you can always just have an inner monologue in the other language.

We've lived in France for two months now, and I still feel like a complete numpty (great scottish word) when it comes to speaking in French. But I'm getting better! And everyone assures me that by the time I leave Paris, I'll be très natural at the language. For now, I'll keep perfecting my look of polite confusion.

A weekend in Paris

My mum and dad came to visit us last weekend, which was fun. We got to experience four people living in our little flat (which is not as bad as you might think!), and see some parts of Paris that we hadn't seen before.

All four of us at the Sacre Coeur basilica in Montmartre.

They brought with them several goodies for us, such as Tunnock's Caramel Wafers, and a camera which Talia bought me as a gift. (It was easier to get it posted to my parents' house than to here.) There was also a copy of the newspaper Le Figaro. I've been reading the free newspaper Direct Matin, which I can get on the metro, and I can understand most articles fairly well. However, Le Figaro is apparently written for a more discerning audience (one that actually pays for their news, I suppose), and the language is a lot more impenetrable. My language skills still have a long way to go, it seems.

Foremost among the gifts was a gargantuan quilt my mum made for us. It is very large (sized for a king-sized bed) with various designs - one side for Talia and the other side for me. I'm not doing a very good job of explaining it, and I don't have a photo (yet!), so you'll just have to trust me that it's really amazing. And super warm! Which will come in handy as it has been getting colder and colder here in Paris, it was only about 8C yesterday (that's 46F for you Americans).

The visit was quite lovely. We went to some famous sights, and some not-so-famous sites. We were able to catch a string quartet performance in the middle of our sightseeing, which was a pleasant break in quite elegant surroundings.

Apparently this big pointy antenna is quite famous?
I forget what it's called.

The Quatuor Arod (Arod Quartet) playing in the Hôtel des Invalides. Yes, that is a Hyacinthe Rigaud painting of the sun-king, Louis XIV, in the background.

We also took a trip to the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, one of Paris's larger (yet less touristy) public parks. It's a hilly area, and much more like a natural space than some of Paris's more Victorian parks (I'm looking at you, Jardin du Luxembourg). There are trees, waterfalls, and a little lake with an island. On the island is the Temple de la Sibylle, a miniature replica of a Roman temple. I don't know why they built it, but it certainly lends the area a subdued neoclassical elegance. This is one park I am looking forward to returning to!

One of the waterfalls at the Parc des Buttes Chaumont.

The Temple de la Sibylle.

Being in the position of "locals" showing my parents around Paris was interesting. It was a gentle reminder to me and Talia that we do actually know a lot about how to get around here, what to do, what not to do, and so on, despite our occasional feelings of inadequacy or overwhelmedness. Paris is big, and living in a foreign country is (still) scary, but we're getting the hang of it.

More generally, it was great to have my parents come to visit for the weekend, and it's so much easier for them to come over than when we lived in the US. I was remarking the other day how strange it is to see them so often, and also for so short periods. When we lived in the USA, we would see them for one or two weeks at a time, once a year. Now, the visits are much shorter, but much more frequent. And who could refuse a weekend in Paris?

Weekend festivals

The French do seem to love a good festival. It seems that every weekend is full of some exciting public event. Here's a rundown of what we've been up to in the last few weekends.

Journées du patrimoine

The journées du patrimoine ("days of heritage") are actually a Europe-wide program, a celebration of culture and history. This manifests itself in various talks and events, but principally in that many public buildings and museums open their doors for people to come inside and have a look around. You can visit the Senate, the Italian Embassy, or even see behind-the-scenes at the Métro stations. This year's heritage days were three weekends ago, the 19th and 20th of September. We knew that it was coming up, but I must confess that we had just forgotten about it and neglected to go anywhere interesting! Still, it didn't stop scores of French people from having a relaxed and culturally enlightening weekend.

Journée sans voiture

The Sunday of the following weekend was the journée sans voiture ("day without cars"), a new experiment in Paris where cars were banned from the streets. The ban was only applied in some of the central arrondisements, and buses and taxis were still able to drive around, although there were a few streets where vehicles were banned entirely. You can see some before-and-after videos here.

Talia and I cycled down from our flat (where we had contend with cars on the road, how ignoble!) and headed into the centre of the city, where the atmosphere was like that of a public festival. There were street performers, musicians, and a load of people walking and cycling around. We took some time to pop into a Scottish Pub to watch the rugby (which Talia has agreed is a lot more fun to watch than American Football). We were able to see the second half of Scotland's victory over the USA in the Rugby world cup, which was very fun.

Inside the Scottish pub, rugby on the TV.

Paris is normally a very easy city to cycle in, and I'll probably write a post sometime about cycling here. But on the journée sans voiture, it was even easier. With no cars around, no thundering masses of traffic, it was simple and relaxing to bike from place to place. I certainly hope that this becomes a regular Paris tradition.

Nuit blanche

The next weekend, this most recent Saturday was nuit blanche. The name literally means "white night" but it's the French expression for an all-nighter. Here, various public buildings open themselves up to the public, and there are several arts and musical events put on all around the city. The difference here is that it begins at around 7pm, and continues until around 6am!

A short from beneath the Arc de Triomphe.

We found an event we wanted to go to, la Nuit du Quator à l'Orangerie (night of quartets at the Orangerie), a series of string quartet performances in an art gallery surrounded by Monet's paintings of water lilies. It began at 7pm, finished at 6am, and had a different quartet playing each hour. How exciting! However, once we got there, the queue was huge and they were only letting in so many people per hour. There was very little chance that'd we'd get to go in (at least not before 1 or 2am, and we didn't really want to stay out that late), so instead we went for a wander through central Paris. Instead of going to a rugby pub and watching Scotland's defeat at the hands of South Africa, we instead walked up the Champs-Elysée to the Arc de Triomphe, one of the few major Paris monuments that we haven't yet visited. Afterwards, we slowly made our way home, stopping for dessert in a local café. Not the night we had planned, but an extremely enjoyable one nonetheless.

Dessert! This is a café gourmand, a coffee (espresso) with three different miniature desserts to sample.

Free museums

For Americans, the sheer number of free or discounted museums in Paris may seem overwhelming. For Brits too perhaps, although some cities (notably Glasgow) have made a strong commitment to keeping a preponderance of free museums. Notably (and relevant for today's post), there are several museums in Paris which normally charge for entry, but are free on the first Sunday of the month. (There are a few also which are only free on the first Sunday of the month at certain times of the year. For example, The Louvre is free on the first Sunday of the month from October to March.)

Yesterday, the day after nuit blanche, was the first Sunday of the month. Not wanting to squander this opportunity (there are, after all, only 12 first Sundays every year), Talia and I biked down to the Musée des Arts et Métiers. Its name literally means "Museum of Arts and Crafts", but it's basically a museum of science and industry, with exhibits on scientific instruments, materials, energy, mechanics, communication, construction, and transport. Each section takes you on a historical tour from the pre-industrial days (before 1750) up to the modern era.

The outside of the Musée des Arts et Métiers. Yes, that's a converted church on the left.

Although we got in for free, we paid to get a little audio guide, which gives you extra information on each exhibit as you go through. It was well worth it; as well as providing extra background information on some of the more interesting artefacts (such as Clément Ader's steam-powered aircraft), it also provided historical and economic overviews of the importance of particular innovations in industrial processes, such as the use of regenerative heating in blast furnaces, or how precisely a Koenig Sound Analyser works. (The sound analyser pre-dates the oscilloscope, yet allows for frequency decomposition of sound, which is really cool.)

After the tour of the museum, we then visited the nearby Musée Carnavalet, a museum which chronicles the history of Paris. This museum is free all the time! We didn't spend a lot of time there, although we got to see several rooms full of various historical artefacts, and then a large exhibit on the history of the French revolution. The revolution exhibit was very interesting since it held lots of contemporary ephemera from the era - paintings and cartoons, newspaper printings, popular ceramics made to commemorate particular events. Given how rapidly public and political opinion changed between 1789 and 1795, it was fascinating to see those little snapshots of history memorialised for the future.

Finally, on our way home we bumped into another demonstration. Unlike the previous one documented on this blog, this one was in Place de la Bastille and was in support of immigrants and refugees. There were various people there from all sorts of organizations, although sadly no tractors this time. We snapped a few pictures, but you can see some professional ones here.

His sign reads "no person is illegal".

Next weekend

What exciting festival is in store for us next weekend? Thursday the 8th to Monday the 11th is in fact la fête de tournez les taureaux, "the festival of turning bulls". Yes, the Turnbulls are coming to visit - we'll be hosting my parents for a long weekend. If it's anything like the last few weekends, we're in for a treat!

An Abundance of Free Time

Before we moved to France, whenever we told someone that we would be moving to Paris for Rory's work, I was inevitably asked the question, “So what are you going to do there?” I would usually smile sheepishly and say, “I have no idea!” and then elaborate on what I might do with all my free time (since I can't legally work until I have my residence permit, which may be several months). Anyone who knows me probably knows that free time was a foreign concept to me. Rory had to persuade me not to teach cello lessons on the weekends or after 7 pm, and any time that wasn't spent teaching was usually spent on Baha'i activities like serving on the Local Spiritual Assembly and participating in neighborhood community building. It's not that I didn't want free time, it's just that there were too many good causes to support.


To be honest, having nothing but free time in a new city and country is a somewhat terrifying prospect. To not have the consistency of getting out of the apartment every day, and to not have specific projects for which I am held accountable, means that there are some days when I stand on our balcony and gaze out at the bustling street below, and then decide to spend the rest of the day at home. As I wrote three and a half weeks ago when Rory first started his job,


“Being unfamiliar with my surroundings, the timid, small town girl in me would have been completely content to stay at the apartment doing laundry and watching episodes of “Jane the Virgin” until Rory returned. Paris is an amazing city, don't get me wrong, but the throngs of people all saying things I can't understand, the irrepressible fear that someone will steal my purse...these things make it scary to tackle the city on my own.”


On that day three and a half weeks ago, I'm proud to say that I was writing those thoughts not in our apartment but in a gluten-free cafe called My Free Kitchen. I steeled my resolve and trekked to this cute cafe where I deliberately ate very slowly, not just to make the delicious blueberry almond cake last longer, but also to give my nerves a chance to calm down. It was a relatively easy walk, only 30 minutes and almost a straight shot from our place, but I was nervous nonetheless. No one messed with me, no one even talked to me, it was all fine, but I couldn't shake the nervousness.

GF blueberry cake from My Free Kitchen on my first solo outing

Fortunately, that successful first solo outing gave me the courage to explore other new places in the city by myself. I have visited several of the surprisingly numerous gluten-free cafes, I've gone to the bank and the post office and the town hall to conduct important business (speaking in French, I might add!), I even went for an early morning run to see new parts of my neighborhood.

Hôtel de Ville, Paris' City Hall

A large part of the rest of my time has been spent working on learning French, cooking and baking in our tiny kitchen, reading and writing (Harry Potter in French is a fun way to learn new words), meeting friends-of-friends, and finding groups to join on Meetup. This week I went to a meeting of the Trailing Spouses group at a coffee shop next to the river Seine and found a bunch of lovely American, British, and Australian women to chat with. Just before that, I registered for a French conversation group at the Cercle International de l'ARC (I had an interview in French! It was terrifying!).

Harry Potter at the Wizard School

Hogwarts is called Collège Poudlard. *Giggle*

All this is to say that I am finding fun and productive ways to use my free time. Without the extreme demands on my time and energy, I am finding that I can be more creative and more open to new experiences. I am standing at a crossroads, with paths branching off in all different directions, and I get to choose which paths to follow. It's an exciting prospect.

One month!

Today is a month since we moved to France. We haven't actually spent the whole month in France - we've been to Belgium, and taken a couple of trips to Scotland (and England, technically) - but today is a month since we moved.

So, what has happened in that time? Here's a run-down:

Work

I've started work. Being a postdoc is hard - harder than being a graduate student - and adjusting to a new environment with new colleagues is difficult but rewarding. Foremost among these differences, apart from, y'know, being in France, is that I am now in a cognitive science department, while I got my PhD in a linguistics department. So I've gone from being at the cognitive end of studying language, to being at the linguistic end of studying cognition.

Previously I had colleagues who wondered about why "John ate", "John ate the steak", and "John devoured the steak" are all fine English sentences, but "John devoured" is not acceptable. Now I have colleagues who wonder about how the mammalian auditory system represents acoustic information, or human metacognition under attentional load, that sort of thing. Well, we do more than just wondering, but I'll spare you the discussion of experimental research methodologies in cognitive science.

Apartment

Our apartment is set up and we're living just fine. We might do a little furniture rearranging or adjusting while we settle in, and we could probably do with some particular kitchen items to help us cook specific recipes, but the basics are all there. It's rapidly becoming a home.

 

Necessities of modern life

Bank accounts, library accounts, ATM cards, phone numbers, we have all of these. We've figured out the transport system and can navigate easily. Talia doesn't yet have her carte de sejour (residence permit), but that's a long process. We also don't yet have our cartes vitales (a card which entitles you to healthcare), so I'll probably need to chase up someone in HR at my work. French bureaucracy is somewhat labyrinthine so I'm not entirely looking forward to it.

 

Friends

Friends! Friends are good. We've met up with a few people we knew before we moved, not to mention seeing people on our trips to Belgium and Scotland. We went to a Bahá'í feast the other week and met some local Bahá'ís, which was really great. We have more friends-of-friends on the horizon who we will be meeting soon, too. I've always found making friends hard, especially when moving to a new place, but the effort has always paid off.

Language

Our language skills have improved a lot since we arrived. Well, Talia's have at least. She's been making her way through all sorts of complicated interactions in French just fine. I've been a little slower, partly because my work is more or less in English, and because I've not been trying as hard. I'd better catch up!

Mrs. Turnbull's Neighborhood (not quite as good as Mister Rogers'...)

We have been living in Paris for three weeks now! Although with the trip to Belgium, last weekend in Scotland for Grandma Turnbull's 90^th birthday, and next weekend's return trip to Scotland for a wedding, it doesn't exactly feel like we're firmly situated in Paris yet. Nonetheless, it's high time we shared with you about our appartement and our neighborhood so you can see where we live.


A little history

The view from our bedroom

In July, after extensive and disappointing online searches for apartments in Paris, we were contacted by Rory's supervisor at École Normale Supérieure (ENS) where he is now employed as a post-doctoral researcher. She mentioned that a friend of hers would be moving to China for ten months and was looking to sublet her apartment. And she could speak English. Hallelujah! We wouldn't have to deal with landlords we didn't understand and complicated rental laws and documents, and a mad scramble to find an apartment once we arrived. This was such a relief, since the prospect of finding a place to live was very daunting and stressful.

Our spiral staircase. Only 6 floors to go...

We saw photos of the 36 m² one-bedroom apartment and thought that it looked nicely decorated, well-maintained, and extremely colorful, if rather small. The walls were painted very bright colors—nearly every wall a different hue. The propriétaire assured us that the small kitchen appliance which looked an awful lot like a microwave/toaster oven was indeed a real oven (having an oven was a condition of any place we looked at, given my need to bake). The owner was also willing to give us a deal on rent, so it would only cost 1,100 euros a month! This was over our budget and at the time seemed ludicrously expensive. Keep in mind that in Columbus we had a three bedroom, two story house with an attic, a basement, and front and back yards for less than $1000. Oh, and did I mention this apartment is on the 5^th floor (6^th floor in American terms)? No elevator, of course.


Still, the assurance of having a decent place to live and a friendly landlord we could communicate easily with seemed worth the expense...


Back to the present

Lime green walls? Really?

Happily, it has been worth it! We are adjusting to living in smaller quarters and our legs are getting stronger from all the stairs. The apartment is certainly sufficient and I have even baked muffins in the “oven”. Our neighborhood is great! Transportation is easy: our building is right next to a metro (subway) station, and there is a Vélib' station across the street (Vélib' is a city-wide bike-share program with thousands of bicycles available to use for cheap). And we are within a short walk of almost everything we could possibly need: cafes, restaurants, grocery stores (even several health food stores), department stores, post offices, Office Depot, African and Asian markets, banks, libraries, parks, and so much more.


On a side note, there's a cool website at www.walkscore.com where you can find a measurement of how walkable your neighborhood is. Basically, how easy it is to live there without a car. Our house in Columbus had a walk score of 81/100, which is very good. My parents' house in Oregon has a dismal score of 1. Guess what our score is now? That's right, it's 99.

It says "Le Foll [Stéphane Le Foll, the French Minister of Agriculture] should come work on the farm to see if the difference in salaries is justified."

One interesting feature of our neighborhood is that we live very close to the Place de la Nation (“widely known for having the most active guillotines during the French Revolution”). Apparently, this place (plaza or “square”--though it's a circle) is where a lot of protests happen. I found this out last week when I awoke to the sound of a thousand tractors honking their horns and people shouting on a loudspeaker. French farmers had driven their tractors all the way to Paris to protest low agricultural prices, since many farmers are now nearly bankrupt. The noise and the tractors parading down the street lasted for about seven hours. I guess that's the price to pay for my new-found liberté, égalité, fraternité!

The view from our dining room/kitchen/living room

Settling in

If you've been following our blog, you'll know that we've been to Scotland and Belgium and even Canada and Iceland briefly, but we haven't really mentioned Paris yet. We've been here for nearly two weeks now, if you can believe it, so I should probably share with you some of our progress in settling in and making Paris our home.

La fontaine Médicis, in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

One aspect of settling in somewhere is having access to the things that you are used to having (or, alternatively, being used to having the things that you have access to). This can often be difficult when moving to another country, where things are done differently, and a degree of flexibility is usually required. One such item we were particularly concerned about was the availability of gluten-free flours. Talia is gluten intolerant, and loves to bake, and gluten-free baking requires a diversity of flours, starches, and gums of various origins. In Columbus, these often sold for fairly high prices at "natural" stores.

Imagine our surprise, then, when the first store we walk into - an African corner shop no bigger than a newsagents - has a huge variety of flours, both glutenful and gluten-free, for prices far lower than we could get in the US! These flours were marketed not as "natural" alternatives to support a healthy lifestyle, but simply traditional west African fare. We have since discovered even more stores with great variety of ingredients.

On the other hand, however, we have had great difficulty in finding baked beans, of either the American or British variety. (For those who don't know the difference - baked beans in America tend to be a bit more sugary, and come with pieces of bacon(!) in them, while British baked beans are in a more modest tomato sauce.) Apparently the French just don't eat beans in this way, and we had no luck in sourcing them in the "international" section of a local supermarket. There are some "English food shops", which import food specially from Britain (everything from pickled chutney to spotted dick), although we haven't checked them out. It will be hard, but I am sure that I can resign myself to a life without baked beans.

In addition to getting to grips with the food situation, I'm finding that I keep having to remind myself that, no, we're not on holiday, we really do live here. I suppose this is a common feeling when moving to a new place, but it's especially acute in a major tourist destination like Paris. Settling in will take a while, I think.