Okay, first, I would like to announce that today I answered a question in class! In front of all the other students! And, upon being asked, I reminded the professor what reading she had given us last week. Huge victory!
Now, back to strange things I miss. Although neither of these are really things I miss, more just... difficulties in speaking normally...
Being able to make small talk.
I realize this falls roughly under “Speaking English” as one of those things I should have expected to miss. But I actually really enjoy speaking French, and I can do it, although by no means perfectly, pretty well. My conversations are filled with many grammatical errors and mispronounced words, but they’re recognizable as conversations.
But there’s the whole other heading under this category. Small talk. Especially, and specifically, small talk made while standing in lines, which, by the way, happens quite often (lines, or what passes for them in France).
For example, today, at the grocery store, I was carrying two large bundles of toilet paper (it was my turn to buy) that were unwieldy, but obviously not very heavy. A very nice looking man in front of me asks if I want to put them on the checkout counter. (Small but relatively important side note – the check out rolling… things… that brings your food closer to the cashier are really very short at this store. Placing my toilet paper there would have taken up the whole… what ARE those things called?... and been very much in this man’s way.) I smile and say, “Thank you, no.” But it’s so frustrating that I can’t say, “Oh, no, thanks, they don’t weigh anything, it’s no big deal.” Or, “Thanks! But it’s alright, don’t worry about it.” Or, “Nah, thanks, I’m tough” and then make some sort of flexing motion to show how little they weigh and how strong I am. Anything, really. It’s tough to be formal all the time. “Non, merci” and a smile are just about all I’ve got.
Speaking of being formal and “Strange thing I miss #3,” is knowing the nuances of etiquette. I’ve got the big ones – hands above the table, don’t chew with your mouth open, smile and say hello to people you meet, etc. – really, they’re pretty much the same (except for the hands above the table during the meal, but that’s one I think that American’s say you shouldn’t do [“Hands in your lap!”] and then do anyway). These aren’t what are causing me distress.
Instead, it’s when to say “Thank you.” During the last day of the two-week intensive course we had when we first got here, our professor says, “Ah, Americans, you say ‘thank you’ all the time. Why? It’s insulting!”
“Insulting???” We reply, since we certainly say “Thank you” all the time for the express purpose of being not-insulting. This is news.
“Well, yes,” our (very stately, patches-on-the-jacket-elbows style) professor replies. “It implies that what this person did for you they normally wouldn’t have done. That they’re not normally that nice.”
Since then, and mind you, that’s nearly two solid months ago, I’ve been absolutely terrified I’m accidently insulting people by telling them “thank you.”
There is an alternative, used especially between students and young people. Translated, it is “You’re really nice!” But I don’t want to tell somebody they’re nice when I’m supposed to say thank you, so usually I end up with something like “Thanks, you’re really nice!”
Naturally, I’m trying to listen to native French speakers to hear when they say one versus the other, but I’m still stumped on this one. I picked up a coin for somebody at the market, and he said I was nice. Then I did it again a few weeks later, and the guy said thanks. (Maybe the second one thought I was terribly rude and wouldn’t normally pick up dropped coins for strangers?)
For now, I’m just going to continue saying “Thanks! You’re really nice!” and hoping (as the stereotype goes) that they know I’m American and thus say “thank you” all the time anyway.
That or my professor has played an evil evil joke on us all.
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