French Connection
English

French Connection

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language learning

What does science say about languages you learned as a child but never used again? No idea — but something surprising happened to me this morning.

I was at the supermarket when a foreign woman asked me in broken Spanish where she was supposed to weigh her bag of tomatoes. The normal answer for someone like me, who's been learning English for ages, would’ve been “At the checkout.” But no, I didn’t say that. I said “Là-bas”, pointing to the checkout line with my finger (a French word meaning “Over there”). She was just as surprised as I was. I guess my reply in French was the last thing she expected, and definitely the last thing I thought would come out of my mouth.

Why on earth did my brain decide I needed to speak French? The woman had blue eyes, was naturally blonde, and taller than a traffic light. How many more clues did I need?

Despite my frustration, I found a silver lining: my French is still alive! I don’t know exactly where, maybe in some forgotten drawer of my brain, but I think I’m going to dust it off and give it another shot.

Headline image by lovelyscape on Unsplash

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