The Expat Life: Pulling My Hair Out, En Français

Posted on 26. Feb, 2009 by Emmanuelle Archer in Blog, Expat Life, Musings & Inspiration
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February 21st was International Mother Language Day.

From what I understand, this initiative is mostly aimed at preserving linguistic diversity. By pure coincidence, I recently came across several articles about endangered languages (Gaelic is one of them), as well as an interesting piece about the dilemma facing Nigerian youths who want to retain and speak their heritage languages.

I am a bit of a language geek, so naturally I am all for keeping linguistic diversity alive. I would like to believe that I have contributed to the cause, in some minuscule way, by learning some Breton before I left France to move to Canada.

In case you are wondering, no, I do not get to practice my Breton very often! Maybe I should organise a fest-noz (traditional Breton festival) one of these days…

Meanwhile, not all is well on the home front. After eight years in an English-speaking province, French and English are competing for memory space. I am ashamed to say that French may be losing the battle.

I am currently working on the French version of my expat coaching website, www.winningaway.com and I sometimes have to rely on good old Google and a couple of French grammar guides to double-check what I am writing.

Never in a million years would I have thought it possible- I mean, how can you forget your mother tongue, especially when you emigrated as an adult? It is puzzling, frustrating and a little sad.

Thankfully it is only my spelling that is affected so far. My spoken French has never failed me while I was on the phone with a francophone client (thank goodness!)
I guess I’d better start reading French newspapers again, something I had completely given up for the sake of assimilating into an English-speaking society.

Has anything similar ever happened to you? What circumstances were you in? Did you do anything about it, or did you just trust that your mother tongue would come back naturally once you were immersed in it again?

Emmanuelle