Sep 17, 2023
I’ve been living in France for about 6 weeks now*,* I’ve noticed there are four stages to communicating in a foreign language.
Most of the time I’m still at stage 1. For a few daily tasks, I’m at stage 2. Very occasionally, I reach stage 3. I have never reached the mythical stage 4.
You might be thinking, wow, stage 3 events, sounds like it’s going well for him!
It’s not.
Stage 3 is often a worse place to be than stage 1.
Stage one is when you have no knowledge of what to say to begin with.
For example, when the homeless man starts speaking to you after you tried to say hello to his dog and it started barking aggressively at you. They don’t speak English, you don’t speak French. It’s a standoff that often involves poorly interpreted hand gestures, and very little progress for either side. Thankfully, sometimes it’s easier to understand animals than people, and it’s reasonably safe to assume the man was confirming that the dogs loud barks and snarled teeth meant he is not a fan of strangers.
Sometime this stage can has its benefits.
Like when a local surfer is shouting at you for taking their wave. It’s hard to be offended, or even care, when you have no idea what offensive words are coming out of someones mouth. Just paddle away to a different crowd.
Of course, you’re not living in France to stay at Stage 1. Thankfully the Google Translate App is an effective way to progress to Stage 2.
Stage two starts out well, but ends poorly.
It begins when you’ve learned the first line of communication, have practiced it a few times, and you’re foolishly confident you can walk away from this interaction without the other party switching into English. Which they are all perfectly fluent in of course.
Example stage 2 starting sentences: