Are you a different person when you speak a foreign language? That's just one of the questions the New Yorker's writer and native North Carolinian Lauren Collins explores in her autobiography, about her tough efforts to master French after marrying a Frenchman whose name —Olivier—she couldn't even pronounce properly. When in French ranges from the humorously personal story to a deeper look at various theories of language acquisition and linguistics (语言学).
The couple met in London “on more or less neutral ground: his continent, my language.” But the balance shifted when they moved to Geneva for Olivier's work. The normally voluble (健谈的) Collins found herself at a loss — “nearly speechless.” The language barrier, and her dependence on her husband for simple things like buying the right cut of meat worsened her mixed feelings about “unlovely, but not ridiculous” Geneva. She comments, “Language, as much as land, is a place__To be cut off from it is to be, in a sense, homeless.”
Her sense of alienation (疏离感) leads to an examination of America's miserable record when it comes to foreign languages, “Linguists call America 'the graveyard of languages' because of its singular ability to take in millions of immigrants and make their native languages die out in a few generations,” Collins writes. Educated in Wilmington, N.C., and at Princeton, she could — like the vast majority of Americans — only speak their mother tongue.
Eight months after she moved to Switzerland, Collins gives up on the natural acquisition of language and finally attends a French course. As she struggles with grammar and vocabulary, Collins notes smartly that vert (green),verre (glass), ver (worm), vers (toward), and vair (squirrel) compose a quintuple homonym (同形异义). “Although it's difficult, French can try” she says.
French is actually considered among the easiest languages for an English speaker to learn, especially compared to Arabic or Mandarin Chinese. Collins, whose notably rich English vocabulary includes glossolalia (nonsense speech) and shibboleth (catchword or slogan), finds plenty of terrific French words to love. She writes, “English is a trust fund, an unearned inheritance (遗产), but I've worked for every bit of French I've banked.”
Unlike Jhumpa Lahiri, who became so hooked on Italian and used it to write In Other Words, Collins's goals for learning French were more modest, “I wanted to speak French and to sound like North Carolina.” She also wanted to be able to deal with chimney sweeps and butchers, communicate with her in-laws, and “to touch Olivier in his own language.” She admits that she feels different speaking French. ''Its austerity (朴素) made me feel more confused.”
Readers looking for the romantic spark of classic cross-cultural love stories featuring an outgoing American and a shy Frenchman will find flashes of it here. Among the many cultural differences the couple argue over are her enthusiastic American habit of applying the verb love to express enthusiasm for shoes, strawberries, and husbands alike. But there's far more to Collins, book than fantastic comedy, and those who have experienced linguistic crossings themselves tend to find particular resonance (共鸣) in its inquiry into language, identity, and transcultural translation.
Arranged by chapters named for verb tenses, When in French works its way from The Past Perfect (Le plus-que-parfait) to The Present (Le Present) and The Conditional (Le Conditionnel). Collins ends on a delightful note with Le Futur—fitting for a new mother about to move with her hard-won French husband, French language, and Swiss-born daughter to the French-speaking city of her dreams, Paris.
