Let me sum up Paris for you in a word. C’est magnifique. Well, that’s two words I guess. No, really it’s three words. And that’s part of the problem. They speak a very funny language here. It’s sounds good, but it’s impossible to understand, and, god forbid, don’t try to speak it to them.
Those of you who know me well, know that I am a bit of a striver for languages, particularly French. I’ve spent more money and time conjugating irregular verbs and trying to understand the subjunctive vs. indicative moods than anyone I know. Alas, it’s all been for naught. My two semesters of college study. My eighteen months of twice weekly tutoring by a very comely french maestra in London, two months of morning visits from a local professeur when we stayed in the south of France for the summer, and hundreds of hours of self study. The result….not only can no french person understand me, it’s more likely than not that they will understand something entirely different than that which I thought I said.
Por ejemplo, no, that’s Spanish isn’t it. Ok, par exemple…..we we doing the tourist thing visiting the Tour Eiffle (see how I worked in the French rendition), after waiting in a long, long line I approached the clerk with considerable linguistic bravado having had more than sufficient time to compose my forthcoming conversation with the ticket seller. “Bon jour madmoiselle” I said with an entirely American smile. Then I panicked. She wasn’t really young, but I couldn’t see a wedding ring. But then again, she wasn’t old. She was kind of in the middle. Should it have been “bon jour madame”? How was one to know for sure? Did I offend her by misstating her demographic. Perhaps I had gotten off to a bad start. I plunged ahead. I had translated the sign overhead and knew that there were different prices according to which level one desired to go. I knew S. would want to go to the top so I said, “Je voudrais, deux billets, sil vous plait,…”. I was certain I had nailed the sil vous plait, but I had used first person conditional of the verb vouloir (to want) thinking that I wanted to be polite without being obsequious, but then again, maybe I should have said, je veux, which is first person present tense which translates as a more direct request as in I want. One of my many instructors said one can never go wrong being too polite so je voudrais it is. Deux billets for two tickets seemed safe, but perhaps I should have clarified, “billets pour deux personnes”. Nah, it’s clear one would only buy two tickets for two people so deux personnes would have been redundant.
I plowed on to the more difficult part. I wanted to go to the top, the third level according to the instructions, so I needed to indicate that in the completion of my sentence. My brain froze. I could not think of the word for level in French. Hmm….what I needed was a work around. You can’t stump us clever Americans. I would use “etage” as a substitute. Etage means floor as in the first floor of your house. What I wanted was third floor because floor three (etage trois) sounded stilted. So I settled on troisieme, but it had to come after etage, I thought. I completed the sentence with much satisfaction and only the smallest of doubts. “Bon jour madmoiselle. Je voudrais deux billets pour etage troisieme.” I handed her a one hundred Euro note which is my fall back for not being able to understand when they say the price. She gave me my change and two tickets and pointed to another line.
It would only be a matter of time before we were on the top of the Tour Eiffel avec une view magnifique de toute de Paris. We had to change elevators at the second level which meant another line which we braved after the obligatory photos. As I passed my billets to yet another clerk, he grimaced and wagged a finger in my face then pointed away from the elevator. Saying, “non, non, non”. There was no mistaking his message. We had the wrong tickets and were not allowed to go to the top. I inspected the tickets to confirm my fear, and, yes, there it was. A large two printed boldly in black.
How could I have gotten this result when I did everything right. My French was well thought out and perfect grammatically. Maybe a few problems with the accent, I guess.
C’est la vie pour un American en France.
