Blog: Parlez-Vous Francais?

The first time I had a teacher not speak to the class in French was in the fifth grade at Roesland Elementary School. From kindergarten to fourth grade I was enrolled at Académie Lafayette, a French-immersion school in Kansas City, Missouri. My dad lived right next to the school, so my parents decided both my brother and I would go there.

On my first day of Kindergarten I was greeted with a hearty, “Bonjour, classe!” by my teacher, Madame Suzie. After I waved my parents away with an apathetic and newly-learned “Au revoir” our teacher began teaching us more about the language. We began each day learning new phrases in French, and eventually we transitioned from being taught in fractured French to barely speaking English at all.

For the next five years, going from Madame Suzie to Madame Hochard, I slowly learned French. I mastered the present tense by second grade, and I picked up the accent by third. I was smug, and rightly so. I mean, how many American third-graders could speak French fluently?

When I was just finishing fourth grade, however, my mom decided that Lafayette wasn’t providing enough of a challenge for me. So she decided to move me to the Shawnee Mission School District, and it was a completely different world. I learned a lot during my first few weeks of fifth grade:

  • English vocab lists actually exist, and they’re harder than they look.
  • People stare when you can sing “Alouette” perfectly.
  • There are so many more minorities than you’d think.
  • Not wearing a uniform to school is the most glorious feeling.
  • School food is bad everywhere you go.
  • “Perimeter” is not pronounced as “perry-meeder.”
  • You say the Pledge of Allegiance everyday in class.

While I caught on to these lessons pretty quickly, catching on to the curriculum of an English-speaking school was the hardest part. No more were the days of singing Charles Aznavour classics in music class, now we just sang “Proud to be an American.” No more learning about “la Révolution française,” just the American Revolution. But the worst part was that I was slowly forgetting my French. The language slipped through my fingers. I forgot the vast majority of irregular verb conjugations and French colloquialisms.

By the time I got to high school, I decided to talk to Madame Losey about taking French again. I didn’t know where I belonged. Had I continued with my French education I could have been placed in French 4 or higher, but with most of my French knowledge gone, I was put in French 2.

I’m currently in French 3, and my previous French education feels a little like cheating. The vocab comes to me pretty easily, and my accent survived. Although I feel like I’m showing off whenever I try to read something aloud. But even though I get the stink-eye from various classmates, I’m still glad I’m learning French again.

The French language and culture dominated a huge part of my childhood, and it will always be a part of me, whether it’s just knowing how to say “croissant” correctly or being able to talk comfortably with Madame Losey. Every time I speak, it brings me back to the fantasy of a little girl, dreaming of living in Paris, buying expensive cheeses and owning a beret in every color. Wanting to visit the top of the Eiffel Tower and look down at a city I would love. Thinking Parisians aren’t that bad. But even if I never go to France, I’m more than just content with knowing the language. C’est la vie.

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