Lili Vottero: Junior Lili Vottero struggled with the transition from living in France and speaking French to living in the U.S.

After finishing an apple at her neighbors house, then five-year-old Lili Vottero didn’t know what to do with the core. Attempting to locate the trash can, her neighbors were confused on what she was trying to do.

“I want to trash it,” Lili said.

With her thick Southern French accent and broken stutters of English, the neighbors couldn’t understand her. The kids couldn’t help raising an eyebrow at the gibberish that came out of Lili’s mouth while her then-eight-year-old older sister Yolande giggled along — her English was better than Lili’s.

“It would make me feel so left out when my sister would laugh with them or play a game,” Lili said. “I didn’t really know what was going on because I couldn’t really understand [them].”

Since moving from Marseille, France in 2013, Lili has faced many struggles learning English as a second language. 

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Three months after arriving in the U.S., the girls settled into their new school, Académie Lafayette — a French immersion school. All of Lili and Yolande’s classes were spoken only in French except for one hour of English a day. 

“They sent me to AL so I could feel more comfortable making that big change,” Lili said. “I could kind of ease into it instead of going into a [regular school] not knowing anyone or the language [they speak.]”

She had no problem making friends when they were all forced to speak her language in class, but when it came to recess, it was free reign. Most kids took the opportunity to speak English — unintentionally leaving Lili out.

“When my friends weren’t there I would feel really isolated,” Lili said. “[They all thought] it was weird I could only speak French because recess is the only time to speak English because when you’re in school you can only speak French.”

Lili began spending recesses in her English teacher’s classroom studying extra reading instead of playing kickball.

At home, the Vottero family quickly became friends with their new neighbors who offered up extra mattresses because none of their furniture had arrived yet and unknowingly taught the girls English. 

While only knowing terms like “hello” and “how are you,” the girls were overwhelmed when their neighbors — around the same age — bombarded them with questions.

“What are you doing?”

“Where are you from?”

Lili couldn’t understand a single sentence.

Despite the language barrier, Lili and Yolande would walk next door every day that summer and play with their new friends while their parents were at work. They’d spend hours dressing up American Girl Dolls, trying to form sentences to engage in the games.

On his way back from work every day, their dad would stop by the store and buy each of the girls a toy. The girls would take their new stuffed animals and collection Barbie dolls — never taking them out of the box — to the neighbors house and spent all day obsessing over their new toys while they waited for all of their other toys to be shipped from France.

“Everything was so meaningful,” Yolande said. “Back then it was like we actually had nothing. All of our stuff wasn’t here. We were living in an empty house. It’s not like we could go to Nebraska Furniture Mart and buy a couch because we didn’t have a car.” 

In an attempt to improve their English, Lili and Yolande would record conversations with each other on their iPad. 

They would flaunt their new scarves and navy blue leggings in the videos, replacing the jeans she wore every day in France, saying things like “Look at my new suitcase,” or “These are my blackish pants.”

Through late night and listening to the recorded conversations, their mixed up nouns and disorganized sentences turned into small mistakes like mixing up “g” and “j” in the alphabet and occasionally using the wrong tense of a verb.

At home, the family would cuddle up on the couch and watch American movies with French subtitles. Their mom Sophia would keep her dictionary handy whenever a new word is spoken in “Peppa Pig” or “Barbie,” looking up unfamiliar words.

Many of these words were unfamiliar to her — even after taking English classes in high school, Sophia’s language skills lacked far behind Lili and Yolande’s. 

When Sophia went into her IB English individual oral assessment in high school, she was nowhere near confident. The grader — who’d been there for over 12 hours — showed her the paper. The whole passage was in English. 

“I said ‘You know what, you can give me a zero, I’m leaving,’” Sophia said.

The grader was upset with her reaction and lack of confidence in her English skills. Luckily for Sophia, she asked her what language she preferred. Her answer: Italian. The grader allowed her to finish her IO in Italian.

Years later when she moved to the U.S., Lili and Yolande would have to translate conversations with church members and at the bank so Sophia could understand them. 

The girls sometimes use their mom’s lack of English to their advantage.

“Why is Mom in such a bad mood right now?”

“I know it’s so annoying.”

Lili and Yolande would giggle and talk to each other in English right in front of their mom. They could say the most absurd things and she had no clue what they were saying — English was their “secret language” at home.

With their East friends, their “secret language” is French. 

Though sometimes sassy, the Vottero’s still appreciate their French roots. There’s still a prevalent language barrier between the girls’ friends and Lili’s parents as they aren’t fully fluent in English yet, so the friends don’t usually make an effort to talk to the parents.

One day when Lili’s dad walked downstairs wearing snazzy gray and navy blue Polo Ralph Lauren pajama pants, her friend whispered in her ear, “How do I say I like your pants?” 

“Phillip, J’aime ton pantalon.”

Lili’s eyes beamed at her friend’s small effort to communicate with her dad — conversations between her friends and her parents usually stops at exchanging hello’s and thank you for having me’s.

“It was so good to have people not judge you because you come from another country and you don’t speak the same language,” Sophia said.

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After living here for nine years, now-junior Lili’s struggle to communicate with people has become less apparent as she is fluent in English and her accent has gone away. She still celebrates her French culture through the Eiffel Tower decorations in her living room, bilingual pets who answer to commands given to them in either language and speaking French at home with her parents so she doesn’t lose the language.