French was my first attempt at speaking a language other than English. I went to a French preschool, so I always think that subconsciously pushed me into taking French as a requirement for my middle school language. Of course, being from Ohio, the only other language you could take was Spanish, so I preferred to follow my French fantasy of leaving the midwest. My teacher was very effective in maintaining interest in the language. We did a lot of role playing and hands-on activities. In high school, I continued monotonously taking French classes because I liked the language and I was good at the grammar puzzles, yet I could speak almost no French.
In college, I studied abroad in Tours, France, where I had a knack for writing excellent papers about 14th century French literature and the problems of Modern France. My professors were quite impressed with this and encouraged me to stick with it. French Literature became one of my majors, yet I still could not speak it.
Next, after attending a Peace Corps recruitment fair, it was suggested that I go to a francophone country because I “spoke” French. So, I went to Mali, West Africa, where I refused to speak French because no one in my village spoke French, and it was the language associated with colonization and the “tubabus”. I learned Bambara and Minianka and became quite good at the proverbs. Furthermore, I tried to learn Minianka because it was an oral language used by a minority, and, by learning that language, I would gain the hearts of my villagers. I learned so quickly because it was an emergency situation and I had to speak Bambara to communicate because there was no one to translate anything. It all had to be mimed. I also learned the language from the little children in my village who would come talk to me literally all the time Because I was teaching school in Barbara, I wasn’t intimidated by the children, and they would correct me. Immediate correction of pronunciated mistakes is a wonderful thing that I found that adults won’t do. Adults are trying so hard to understand what you are saying, that they never correct you, and you never get better. I was never corrected in a non-threatening way when I spoke French
When I returned from the Peace Corps, I couldn’t do much with my Minianka and my Bambara, so I wanted to learn Spanish. Because I had learned so much from immersion in Africa, I took a teaching position in Guatemala. Without knowing a word of Spanish, I went there to teach. I asked my friend to give me conversation classes, and I learned to speak with no formal instruction. I also met my husband, and our common language was Spanish, which helped heighten the sense of urgency of learning the language.
However, my husband is Brazilian. So, when we got married, and moved to Brazil, I was faced with Portuguese. Nonetheless, northeastern Brazilian Portuguese is very different from the original language as known. I morphed my Spanish into some kind of Portuguese and decided to take some Masters classes in the University. These classes helped me immensely with reading and writing because I had never had a formal class. When I got a job as a telephone operator in a hotel, I learned more of the provincial accents and pronunciations.
Finally, what really helped me increase my Portuguese vocabulary and fluency was time and breadth of experiences. After having my daughter in Brazil, I had worked in a hotel and in schools, been in the hospital system, the government, and the university. All of these different environments carried with them different procedures, different protocol and different vocabulary.
Ironically, I can speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Bambara and Minianka, but I still can not write correctly anyone of them. The language that I can write correctly is French, which I can’t speak.
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