Ubiquitous communications and fear

J'ai veux (mot?) ecrire ces enses en Française, mais j'ai oublieé tous les mots, donc j'ecris en Anglais...

For those who don't know, this week I have found myself in France, the folks at work, long since having grown sick of me, finally having found a trip to send me on that has not been cancelled. Alas, I am also totally bereft of an internet connection, as this post clearly demonstrates. :)

Much to my horror, when I arrived here I found that the people I was supposed to be working with spoke decidedly ropey English. One spoke the language reasonably, and could understand me if I spoke really slowly and took my time with difficult concepts (itself a challenge when what we're doing is inherently very technical). The other, alas, spoke significantly less English than I do French, and I learned my French at school some thirteen years ago, and other than a couple of holidays here, I haven't used it since!

Furthermore, no-one else around here speaks any English either. Even the people whom you might think would know English, such as taxi drivers and waiters, generally do not (with the notable exception of the head waiter in the hotel restaurant, thankfully). It has also become very clear to me that the French I learned in school is not the French they speak in France, and further that the French you need as a tourist is a world apart from the French you need in an area where no-one speaks any English! Horrors!

Still, I manage. In truth, my French grammar remains very good, and I can still read the language very well... except for menus. Here, the lack of context means that the test is one of pure vocabulary, and as I said above, I have forgotten all the words! Fortunately, here my habit of always ordering something different in restaurants comes to my rescue, as I can just order at random, safe in the knowledge that good restaurants don't serve truly inedible food. (Although, this did result in my eating an egg salad yesterday, which is almost as bad as fish in my list of disliked foods.)

Over the course of the week, my French has been becoming significantly stronger, such that I now understand most of what people say to me, if they don't speak too fast. A few more weeks of this, and I would be able to manage just fine, I think. The other thing that has become apparent is that I could never be a translator.

Allow me to explain: In order to most effectively process the language, I find that it is easiest to not just read, write and speak French, but rather also to think in French. If one then speaks to me in English, even for a few words, my mental gears shift, and it becomes significantly harder to adjust. Weird, no? And yet a useful skill at this time.

I guess that means I'm not really bilingual, but rather monolingual in two different languages!

The other event of note this week occurred this evening, when I went into Rennes to experience the nightlife. (That I am now writing this in my hotel room at 10:45 should suggest something of the quality of that nightlife.)

Now, as we know, the world has changed utterly in the last ten years, with the internet and the mobile phone having an effect that most people don't really realise. Suddenly, every question is an easy question, and if you want to talk to anyone anywhere, it is probably a trivial matter to do so.

But, if the effect of this ubiquitous communication isn't clear to most people, the effect of suddenly being deprived of it is even less well understood. Tonight, I found myself in the middle of Rennes, and thus without an internet connection. Furthermore, I was surrounded by people who spoke only French, and language with which my skill is, as indicated, rather poor. But, no matter. With my credit card, and my mobile phone, I was pretty sure I could walk out of almost any scrape I was to get into - there are very few things that cannot be fixed with enough money, and in the occasion that that went wrong, I could call someone for help...

until I discovered that my mobile phone battery hadn't charged correctly, and had therefore gone completely flat! Suddenly, I was completely cut off, and reliant on my native wit and charm, and the hope that my sheer charisma would break through any language barrier. Uh oh! I couldn't even call a taxi to take me home, since my phone wasn't working. Whatever was I to do?

Well, the story had a happy ending, of course. The tale featured an ATM machine, a trip to McDonalds while completely full after a meal of pancakes and the finest profiteroles ever, and la Gare. Perhaps one day I shall tell the tale, but I think I shall save it for a lull in some future conversation.

Au revoir!