I envy the bilingual.

I don’t just mean those who took French in University, or those who, like me, put down bilingualism as an asset during their monster.ca job search. Sure I could work as a translator, as long as all anyone ever told me was that they had to go to the bathroom or that this a red tomato.

I mean the fully, amazingly, stupidly bilingual people who aren’t only bilingual on the tongue, but in the brain as well. Their thoughts mesh from one language to the other and never is it more entertaining to eavesdrop than when you see two such people meet up in public.

To illustrate this in writing, I will replace all words in French with numeric sequences. Not only will this adequately convey a sense of confusion, but it saves me from showing my ignorance in the proper spelling of French words.

It is very difficult to misspell numeric sequences.

Ah, Jacques!

Ah, Pilo!

How are you?

I’m fine. And you? How is 65748 46577 6 38740?

8574902873 5647 28273 dog catcher 56 47291 mail-in rebate.

Really? 847563 938. I never knew. 746 292920 3746 2632 Charlie Brown 736 29293 486463 Steve McQueen.

Steve McQueen?! 65739209 437565 39485 375464 98 ha ha ha, Charlie Brown!

Ha ha ha!

Ha ha 75 84 75 ha!

You get the idea.

———-

Last weekend while in Ottawa, we took a wrong turn and ended up in Quebec.  I know, it can happen.

I was hungry and decided to stop off at a McDonald’s.  My wife - my French-speaking wife, was not hungry and so allowed me to go into the restaurant alone.

Now, if a McChicken is a MacPoulet, then shouldn’t Chicken McNuggets be Poulet McCroquettes?  Nope.  MacPoulet Croquettes it was.  McChicken Nuggets.  What a crazy language.

That, and all of the “combo” menus read “trio”.  This made perfect sense to me - burger, fries, drink… a trio!  It almost makes more sense than combo!  However, when I tried to order a trio the French McYouth behind the counter said in butchered English, “Do you meen a combo?”

No, I mean a trio.  Like it says on the sign.  A MacPoulet Trio.

S’il. Vous. Plait.

———-

When I was a kid we sang the national anthem every morning before class; I don’t know if they still do that anymore. We also said the Lord’s prayer, and I know they don’t do that anymore, but we never said the Lord’s prayer in French, so that’s a topic for another time.

We sang the national anthem in English on some days, in French on others, and occasionally that weird hybrid version they sing at hockey games, where they never change up which paragraphs they sing in English and which ones they sing in French. It’s like there’s only one version of a fully bilingual anthem, and that’s the one.

Brian Mulroney in deep negotiations with French lobbyists, June, 1985:

“We want zee ‘gloween arts’ part and zee ‘God keep our land’ part.”

“I… uh… I don’t think that’s quite fair.”

“Gloween arts!!!”

“If you take the gloween art… the glowing hearts, can you do without the end bit?”

(the group whispers amongst themselves for several seconds)

“We will take eet. Zee end always she be drown out by ockey fans anyway.”

“Deal.”

“Deel.”

We could always tell—to get back to the story—which anthem it was going to be by the way the instrumental bit at the beginning started out, and if it happened to be the all-French version you could just feel the entire class sigh with frustration; twenty-eight eight-year olds unhunching their shoulders and steeling themselves up for an extra 90 seconds of French class.

———-

Part of me wants to start taking French classes. Oh, not so I can understand the people at the McDonald’s in Hull, but just to be able to think in more than one language and have the full lexicon of two languages at my disposal.

Then the other part, the lazy part, reminds me that it’s not all fun and jeu. I vaguely remember something about twelve different tenses and some crazy witch lady named Mrs. Vandertamp. Learning French at this stage would be too hard, especially when you consider the fact that I hate all the French muppets on Sesame Street. You guys couldn’t even make one of them cool?

And yes, in case you were wondering, I had to look up “game” in French for that last paragraph. Pathetic, n’est pas?

———-

To finish, check out the song “Grade Nine French” from my University folk-comedy days…

Filed under: Life Happens