Foundations in French

For the first 9 years of my life I lived in Brooklyn with my nuclear immigrant family along with learning standard English at an extreme level. My Haitian parents urged me to pick up English at a rapid pace and that was what I did. However with that mindset I failed to pick up the native language; Haitian Creole. Shortly after my 9th birthday we moved to the middle south part of Long island in a town known as Bay Shore. Within that little town was where I truly understood the concept of language and literacy. 

Years passed by in that suburban town as I enjoyed the beaches along the Shore and the neighboring slim island right below it. When it came to education I was always doing my thing until 7th grade when I was placed in French class and would have to deal with it until 11th grade. I originally fell in love with the language because of how soothing it could be and it was very similar to my native language Haitian Creole. I saw this as a clear opportunity and chose to run with it. I did well in my French classes and loved my teachers up until my 11th grade French class called Modern French Culture changed my perspective on the entire concept of language and literacy. My teacher this time was Madame Boisdon; straight from the mainland, standing at a tall 6’4. Her accent was powerful and this was the first time my French teacher was actually from France so I took full control of the opportunity and tried my hardest to pick up the language from a different approach. 

Madame was really good at speaking French but her English on the other hand was a bit wonky so the translations sometimes weren’t as accurate. This made me and many of my classmates catch on to this trend so we as a collective decided to give back to our jolly strict giant. We decided to teach her recent common slang such as “thats fire” or “lock in” which in return she would teach us French slang and some “bad” words along the way. At times the class would spend nearly an entire period trying to translate certain english words to french or french to English. This practice that occurred from time to time became frustrating but I realized that it was part of the learning experience so in the end being frustrated at something that would lead to something positive was contradictory. By June I was extremely confident in the language and was actually able to connect French to Haitian Creole better which allowed me to talk to my cousins, aunts and uncles back in Haiti a lot better. 

A year after while I was walking to receive my diploma I ran into Madame B and thanked her formally in French while she exchanged with perfect English. I then realized the impact of language at that moment. Yes, it becomes difficult to communicate to one another in different languages but it never has to bloom into animosity or frustrated confusion. It can be a really nice learning experience for the two parties. Sometimes we become frustrated and fed up when we have to translate words but if we can take our time and appreciate and learn from said languages, the action of translating becomes more of a learning experience for everyone. It was something my parents did back in Brooklyn; they never criticized me for not learning Haitian Creole while becoming strong in English.