By Miranda Wolford. What do you get when you throw one beginner French speaker into a country where French is the main language? Many, many mistakes.
When I was ten years old, I met my childhood hero, the legendary basketball coach and famed leader John Wooden.
Amidst a sea of black and navy suits, I patiently stood in line, donning my very best and most professional-looking red dress. My father, blending in with the suits, placed one hand on my back, gently prodding me closer to the chair in which John Wooden sat. My mother, peering over my shoulder at the empty book in my fidgeting hands, gave me a reassuring tickle on my arm — I was a notoriously nervous kid. Then, our turn arrived.
No table stood before Mr. Wooden, nor did he sit elevated on any sort of stage. Not so scary, I thought. Approachable, in my eyes. I asked him if he would please sign my copy of his book; I had prepped my precise phrasing in my head beforehand. He agreed to my request with a smile and uncapping of a pen. Easy-peasy. Then, he posed a follow-up question. I didn’t prep for this.
“And how do you spell your name, Miranda?”
Oh, phew. Little did John Wooden know he was speaking to the three-time champion of my elementary school’s spelling bee.
“m-i-r-a-n-d-a” came my singsong reply.
“Are you sure? I don’t think that’s how you want me to spell Miranda.”
Gulp. Did I make an error? Spell the wrong name? Did he want me to put a period at the end? Spell my last name too? Oh, I got it...he wants me to capitalize the M. Problem solved.
Except that when he asked me again to spell Miranda, I froze. I knew what he wanted me to say, but my fear of being wrong — and being wrong in front of my childhood hero, no less — overwhelmed me. I waited in uncomfortable silence for the inevitable: he would give me the answer.
And as predicted, the answer came, John Wooden picked up his pen, and I was left with an inscription in my favorite book — with a capital M for Miranda.
I was also left with a bit of a sinking feeling in my stomach. If I were to ask my parents about this specific moment, now years later, I doubt that they would even be able to recall it in such detail — it appeared to be quite insignificant. But for me, it remains crystal clear in my mind: this was the first moment I found myself too afraid to speak up for fear of making a mistake, even when I knew my answer was correct.
And so commenced a painful trend that would follow me through oral history quizzes in high school all the way to my seventy-person foreign policy lecture at Duke, when the professor would pose questions to the class. I am rarely described as a soft-spoken person, but when faced with the prospect of making an error, my confidence caves.
So imagine my nervousness in traveling to Togo, a country in which tribal dialects mesh with village French, and being expected to effectively communicate with the locals. Prior to boarding my flight to Lomé, my thoughts were consumed with fear not from the work we would be doing, the conditions we would be living in, nor the unfamiliarity of this new country but rather from my fear of being seen as the village idiot for my ineptitude in French. Sitting on the plane, I had one semester of collegiate French under my belt and a doggy-eared French-English Dictionary clutched in my sweaty hand. My flustered “merci” to the flight attendant handing me a cup of water outed my failed attempts at fluency. Suddenly, I was once again that notoriously nervous kid about to meet John Wooden.
But like my meeting with John Wooden, I was also well-prepped. In anticipation of meeting my new host family in the village of Farendé for the first time, I had written down, translated, and memorized key phrases that I thought would give the impression of fluency, or at the very least, competency. I wanted to ensure I didn’t stutter when I told my host family how excited I was to be there, how thankful I was for their hospitality, and how much I was looking forward to the next two months.
Any new French learner can tell you the one tried and true godsend of this particular Romance language: cognates. Words that are roughly the same between French and English in terms of spelling, usage, and most times, meaning. Most times.
Weary of making mistakes while speaking French, I quickly became a huge fan of using cognates for the sake of familiarity and an assurance that I would be understood. Here’s what I said to my host family to introduce myself:
“Bonjour, mon nom est Miranda. Merci beaucoup pour votre hospitalité. Je suis très excitée d’habiter ici avec tous de vous.”
Even for non-French speakers, some words should be immediately recognizable: nom (name), hospitalité (hospitality), and excitée (excited). Recognizable in spelling and formation, yes...but recognizable in meaning, too? Let me give you the translation of what I said in English:
“Hello, my name is Miranda. Thank you so much for your hospitality.”
So far, so good.
“I am very sexually aroused to be living here with all of you.”
Not so good. What happened next was both a blessing and a curse. My host family is comprised of six of the most fearlessly strong, compassionate, and welcoming girls and women I’ve met in this lifetime. Headed by the brazen matriarch Justine, they put Taylor Swift’s feeble attempts at a girl gang to shame. (Trust me, there will be another blog post coming your way about this band of badasses). And as I introduced myself to them, petitioning to be their newest temporary member, they stayed true to form and welcomed me with warm smiles, a slew of questions about my journey here, and absolutely no indication that I had just told my new family how sexually excited I was to be here.
The blessing? My dignity remained intact for that glorious period of oblivion in which I didn’t know the faux-pas I had made. The curse? I blew full steam ahead utilizing this same phrase for further introductions to villagers in the coming weeks.
How are you enjoying Farendé so far?
“Oh, I love it...the people are overwhelmingly nice, the work has been meaningful...I am just really aroused to be here.”
I will be working with you on the microfinance project, it is so nice to meet you!
“My name is Miranda, and I cannot wait to begin working! I am very sexually excited to meet you as well.”
I heard you are teaching cyber classes, is that true? When do they start?
“I am horny to say that the first class is tomorrow at three o’clock!”
And so on, and so on...
Two weeks and a whole lot of unwanted marriage proposals later, the bubble popped. I had written out some notes for a micro-finance introductory meeting we were holding at the community center, the Centre-Social. This would be my first time interacting with the potential applicants for funding (as well as my first time speaking in French to a group of 30+ people) so a strong first impression seemed mission critical. As had become habit by this point in time, I turned to one of my fellow Duke students to confirm my French was somewhat comprehensible. The first half of my introductory blurb read as perfect French — to my credit, I have come out of my shell considerably in pursuit of bettering my language skills — but then, my dutiful editor read the last line. The line read, in French, “I am very sexually excited to meet all of you in the coming weeks.”
The first giggle emerged. And as I became aware of my sexually-deviant phrasing, the sunburn on my shoulders spread to my face in embarrassment. I hadn’t merely forgotten to capitalize a letter this time; I had expressed what would translate into English as “horniness” in a traditional Kabiyé village in northern Togo. In this culture, it is considered disrespectful to wear anything above-the-knee to market days. Young women must go through initiation ceremonies centered around the concept of virginity before being considered adults. Sex has no place in dinner table conversations here, yet I had included it in almost all of the introductory conversations I had with new acquaintances...even my host family. You see the problem?
But much like my spelling mishap with John Wooden, this unfortunate translation error seemed relatively insignificant, funny even, to everyone but me. My host sisters may have smirked silently to themselves initially, but as the weeks have progressed, we are now thick as thieves with the dance parties and card games to prove as such. My community partner Cyril, quite possibly the most selfless yet humble person I’ve met, soldiered on with me through countless interviews for micro-finance, while practicing his English and my French on idle afternoons. And for the countless women I greeted in the markets or men I spoke with in the fields, I continue to hold conversations with these people, just now with heightened fluency and confidence.
Cognates are most-definitely still a godsend for any new French speaker, but also a godsend? Mistakes, even ones that express sexual excitement to a village full of traditions and rituals to the contrary. As I navigate through conversation upon conversation, I walk with a sense of invincibility, knowing that even with my poor conjugations and occasional slip into my American accent — at least it cannot be worse than telling a bunch of village elders I am horny.
Now, four weeks into my stay in Farendé, and I am still very excited to be here.
Je suis toujours très passionnée d'être ici.