Why do I learn French?

Sunday, 18 September, 2011
Mon affaire avec le Francais.

My host Clauderic asked me, “Why do you like to learn French?” Pourquoi pas?
My love affair with the French language started at Papatoetoe High School. I took French from form three to the lower sixth form. Four years with Monsieur L. Thompson, as opposed to the other Mr Q. Thompson, who took me for either maths or biology. Or maybe neither!

My other subjects were all maths and science, but I did take Latin in form three and four. I always count myself lucky that I did, although at the time I didn't think so.. I also did one year of German in the sixth form, as an extra. But it still doesn't sound as appealing to me, as French and Italian. I just love to hear French or Italian people speaking. German sounds too harsh and I understand very little.

After leaving school I didn't want to study, just travel. After two years of mucking around in science and office jobs I trained for three years as a nurse, with the sole objective of travelling the world. Finally, I was off, my new nursing badge a passport to a new life.

In England I was very lucky to join an organisation called Colonies de Vacance. This French organisation had spread to England from France and offered educational holidays for children. I became a matron during the school holidays and later a “moniteur” and travelled all over the UK, to some very interesting places. I also made a lot of wonderful English friends, who remain friends today.

I spent several summer holidays at a rugby club, come holiday home, at Ramsay, on the Isle of Man. There I met Jennie Brousson, a deputy director. Her parents had a farmhouse in France! Her father was very English, a Group Captain in the air-force, but he had French ancestry, hence the name and his passion for France.

I was so lucky to spend several holidays at Nanteuil de Bourzac, in the Gironde Valley, between Angouleme and Perigeux. Once, we rode our bikes to Victoria Station and took them on the boat train and then the ferry to Calais, then on to Paris. There we changed stations, with bikes, and got off the train in Angouleme. We rode all the way to the farmhouse. How, I am not sure!

Jennie was a PE teacher and I was very unfit. It was a challenge for sure. An ordeal! I remember arriving eventually at the farmhouse, flinging my bike aside and throwing myself to the ground, on top of a stinging nettle. I can still remember it clearly. I was so exhausted I couldn't move and all I could do was laugh hysterically.

What adventures we had. My French was good enough to buy a baguette and a bottle of wine. To ask, where is the post office, where are the toilets, how much? But not much more. At school we learnt to read and write but not to listen and understand, or to speak!

I was privileged to return to France in 1995, 2005 and 2008. I spent time with friends in Coulanges sur L' Autize and visited Paris several times. During the last two visits I stayed with Servas hosts in Poitiers, Chambery, Annecy, Dijon, Marseille, Aix en Provence, Jonquerettes and Avignon.

In 2008 I spent two weeks in a class for seniors, 50+, at Accent Francais in Montpellier. Michel and Michele were my host family and we spoke in French every day. They helped me a lot. School was great fun, with classmates Richard from England and Kenichi from Japan, and our lovely teacher Virginie.. Not forgetting the “formidable” adventures in the afternoons, with Jean-Paul, who introduced us to the Languedoc-Rousillon region. This really gave me a passion to keep improving my French.


Staying with French people gives a real taste of French life, not possible in a hotel or on a tour, and is a wonderful chance to improve my speaking and listening..skills.

At home in 2010 there was the opportunity to attend French classes with Bela. Although the class was for beginners, it was valuable practice for me. Bela says she thinks I must have been French in a previous life, if I had one! Unfortunately most of the class high tailed it off to France in mid year and there were no more classes. However a two week holiday in, “oh so French,” New Caledonia made up for being left behind!

This visit in 2011, I have been in French Switzerland, near Lausanne and in France, for almost two weeks and now I am really getting into “ la vie Francais.”. Another week in Montpellier at Accent Francais was time well spent. Most of the class were young enough to be my grandchildren but I really enjoyed it. The intricacies of French grammar, the passe composee and imparfait tenses, negations and questioning, were a challenge. Especially as the temperature was over 30 every day!

Both our teachers, Olivier and Karen, encouraged maximum participation and very little reading and writing, so we were forced to listen, understand and speak. Our discussions were lively and very interesting, hearing all about the lives and opinions of these young people, great travellers, from all over the world.

Topics were wide ranging; from speed dating, to what we were doing when we heard the news about September 11, to what we thought about conspiracy theories, to historic events we had personally experienced. Only one other student was alive in 1969, when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon, and I listened to the momentous event on a transistor radio, at lunchtime at nursing school.

Now I find myself translating even my thoughts into French. One more week and I leave France for London. It will no doubt be a relief to speak in English again but I have plans. A “Club de Francais” in Katikati and hopefully, more visits to the French Pacific. I am not sure if will get myself back to France again. It is such a long way and I am not as young as I was. But who knows? I have not yet met the Frenchman of my dreams. It has not happened overnight, but it may yet happen.

Six months of the year in France and six in New Zealand would be a dream come true.