Just for fun (and some language thoughts)

Someone threw this video up on Facebook, and I can’t stop watching:

Not because of the sentiment (a good one), or because it’s just fun, but because I keep reminding myself that these kids (for the most part at least) are French.  And then I get jealous of how they’re able to lip-sync English like that.  But then I think about whether that would be oppressive, since it’s not like one can choose whether to be inundated with another language like English is throughout the world.  But then I inevitably return to just marvelling at the way English is just part of everyday life here in a way that very few Americans ever experience.

Fear is the mind killer…

I think I’ve finally come to accept what one of my Middlebury professors and a friend have both told me: that my French language ability is fine, but that I’m clearly terrified of using it. Not sure how to handle that particular problem, but I thought I’d put it out there.

Just after hitting “post,” remembered one of the impetuses for putting this out there (different from the spark for self-acceptance). I read this in today’s Direct Soir

Les Français nuls en langue? «C’est une légende. Les Français – et surtout les Parisiens – ont plutôt peur du ridicule. Ils n’osent pas se mouiller et boudent l’anglais par jalousie, parce que le français n’a plus la cote à l’international», estime Riccardo Fadanelli, directeur du club de conversations Konversando. [The French, language idiots? "It's a myth. The French -- and especially Parisians -- are instead afraid of ridicule. They won't stick their neck out and they turn their backs on English out of jealousy, because French is no longer admired internationally, Riccardo Fadanelli, director of the conversations club Konversando, supposes]

I suppose that one way of dealing with one’s own fear of ridicule is to make sure everyone else shares it as well…