Branching out, letting go

Read regular guest posts about a Kiwi living abroad in a non-English speaking country.

Tomorrow it will be exactly four months since I arrived in Saint-Nazaire and plunged into full-time French speaking. It also means I’m roughly halfway through my French adventure. So it’s a good time to reflect on progress, and particularly so because I feel like in the last one or two weeks, I’ve reached a new level – maybe, if I think of French as a staircase, I’ve gone up one or two stairs. I’m not sure why, but it’s that feeling of – I search for a word, and it’s there on the tip of my tongue, ready to be said. I feel more like myself when I speak, because I’m able to express myself more precisely and so my personality shows through a bit more. And I’ve started being able to let go of my liferaft words, and branch out into new vocabulary.  It’s exciting and liberating – maybe a bit like the first time you ride a bike without training wheels. They say you never forget how to ride a bike, so I’m hoping that I don’t take any backward steps from this new level. Onwards and upwards!

Chatting to my mum the other day, I mentioned how I felt like the French use a wider range of vocabulary on a day-to-day basis than we do in English. She replied that perhaps its just my newfound feeling of proficiency, and having access to a wider French vocabulary, that gives me that impression. No doubt she’s right, but it really piqued my interest about comparisons between French and English. More about that, however, in the next post…

It’s the little, daily interactions that boost your confidence and keep moving you up, up, up the staircase. Today I went to the bank with a question about my credit card – not only did I get my question answered, but I managed to have a laugh with the women behind the counter as well. (And it was real laughter, as opposed to me laughing along because I knew something funny had been said but I didn’t quite catch what it was!) Also, tonight I had dinner with some language assistants who live in Saint-Nazaire but are working with high-school aged French students. I got an awesome compliment from their French flatmate, who told me he thought I was French when I first arrived, based on my accent. Yessss! Of course, at that point I hadn’t said much more than “Hello”, “My name is Mihiata” and “How are you”. Still, it gave me the boost I needed for the week!

Mihiata  – Saint Nazaire, France