I was fortunate to be enrolled in K to 12 French Immersion as a child. By being exposed to the language at an early age, I was able to pick up a convincing accent. This sometimes seems more difficult for adults who start at a later time.
The problem was once I completed high school, I discontinued my french learning and exposure. I am from Canada and although the country is officially bilingual, in my area, as it is in many places, unless you go out of your way to find it, you will be exposed to very little French language in everyday life.
About 15 years after I had graduated high school, I was given a job with the federal government. As strange as this might sound, I forgot that I had applied (and been accepted) as a bilingual agent. I was terrified. Obviously I would put “bilingual” on my resume as I had completed French Immersion. But I really did not feel prepared to speak french to native french speakers in the country. They would talk like they would to anyone. It’s not like they would slow down to ensure they pronounced every word perfectly so that I would understand.
I won’t act like it was easy. For the first year or more, I struggled. I really felt like I was learning the basics. Things would go over my head and I found it difficult in many cases to express myself. On top of that, it was a technical subject matter so there were many new words I had to learn.
To illustrate the predicament I was in, I remember a lady on the phone mentioned to me something about being the grandmother of a boy that was with her. At a particular point, I attempted to call him her grandson but I said “grand fils”, which is sort of a direct translation from the English grand son. However, in french, the correct term is “petit fils”, which kind of makes sense when you think about it. She had a great laugh once she discovered what I was attempting to say.
Another thing that threw me for a loop was pronouns. In English, a pronoun like “his” is attached to the person, or the subject. “His table” or “her car”, e.g. However, in french, the object determines the gender you would use. So if a man has a car, you wouldn’t say “son voiture” but rather “sa voiture”. Sa is feminine and it’s used in this case because the car is considered feminine. Often on phone calls with clients, I would use the wrong preceding word until I realized it was based on the next word rather than on the gender of the person being referred to. Why words like table, chair, address, etc have genders is a topic for another day.
My main issue when starting this career was increasing my vocabulary as well as how to say certain things. In another article I discuss the best ways to learn French, in my opinion. Although challenging, I am glad I had that exposure. It wasn’t always pleasant, but I did learn quite a bit.