On being American in Paris

After class the other day, I went to a sandwich shop I hadn’t tried yet, intent on buying a cheap lunch and doing some coursework. The man behind the counter was friendly and seemed to know many of the students also eating there, and he smiled at me as I ordered my sandwich. As I handed over my money, he asked how my day had been going, to which I replied, in French, to the best of my ability.

Then, to my horror, he said the one sentence that I have come to dread hearing:

“Are you American?”

I bit back my exasperated groan and nodded.

“I could tell from your accent,” he said, handing over my change. “Enjoy your lunch.”

You see, in my (admittedly limited) experience, Parisians act in one of two ways when face-to-face with an American who speaks a little French. Some knowledge of language is crucial to this distinction, of course, because otherwise, you can expect to be met with the sharp-glance-and-eye-roll uniquely given to loud American tourists on the metro. If, however, you do know a bit of French, Parisians will either receive your efforts with grace, helping you along through your halting sentences, or – the worst possible reaction - with total confusion, leaving you floundering in the waters of unfamiliar cultural mores and conversational pitfalls.

The first kind of Parisian I mentioned is a godsend. There is nothing better for the disheartened language-learner than a native-speaker’s encouragement and gentle corrections. Even better for one’s confidence is when your conversational partner can sense your discomfort with the language, waving it off with a smile and a “You’re doing really well, actually!” If only France was populated solely with these kinds of people, then learning French would be a piece of cake.

Unfortunately, it is not to be. There is a certain kind of look that makes me quake in fear: It involves narrowed eyes, a furrowed brow, and an air of such absolute confusion that I immediately backtrack on whatever I am saying, tongue tripping over words as my sentence falls flat. There is no good way out of a conversation like this, as I am quickly learning: Whatever you say will leave your conversational partner even more confused and leave you even more flustered and embarrassed. Trying to fix your sentence in French? No good – thinking in French is at least a hundred times harder when you’re panicking. Switch to English? Equally bad – chances are that you’re talking to someone whose grasp of English is elementary at best.

As I said, there’s no way out.

So, back to our friend at the sandwich shop. I accepted the handful of change he offered me and smiled. Despite my initial irritation that he could tell I wasn’t actually French, I was glad he was one of the first category of Parisians rather than the second.

And when he asked me where in the United States I was from, he only had to repeat his question twice before I understood.