When I was failing my English classes at primary school, I could never imagine that one day I’ll be writing plays, screenplays, poetry and prose in English. Nor that I would be speaking six languages (imperfectly). To learn English was a privilege afforded only to a selected group of students in communist Hungary and I remember cursing the fact that I was deemed smart. Learning English was a torture. I received a 2 (out of the 5) mark. I was convinced that I had no talent for learning languages.
And yet, by some miracle, a year later I received a 10 (out of 10) mark in my first English class in Israel. “I thought you couldn’t speak English,” my mother said, floored.
What happened? I’m not entirely sure. A better teacher? A better book? A more encouraging environment? A drastic mind shift? All I remember is that I was suddenly loving learning English.
Or, maybe it was the fact that I had already learned to speak Hebrew, and after Hebrew everything seemed possible. I remember sitting in an Israeli classroom at third grade staring at the foreign scribbles on the blackboard (written in the wrong direction!) that I was supposed to now learn. All I could do was cry. The second Hebrew word I learned (after djuk, a cockroach) was ‘babait’, meaning ‘at home,’ which was the word my teacher kept repeating, while drawing a house in my notebook. My classmates looked on sympathetically and took turns in teaching me Hebrew. Six months later, I was fluent in this impossible language and copying Hebrew passages from the bible into my notebook, just for fun. Soon I was writing poetry in Hebrew (about death, what else?) inspired by the poetry of Hungarian, Jewish poet Hannah Szenes. At high-school I excelled in Hebrew grammar, literature, Bible studies and English. More surprising was the fact that I seemed to derive pleasure from these classes.
I also enjoyed Arabic, until I missed two months-worth of school during the Golf War and I struggled to catch up. All that has remained from my knowledge of Arabic today is my ability to read and write, which is a useless skill without understanding what I actually read.
I have always been fascinated by Italian. Italian has an energy to it that immediately lifts my spirit. A quality of theatricality and drama that makes it impossible (for me) to be depressed. As a young girl, I absolutely adored those Fellini films with their eccentric characters, and vowed to learn Italian one day.
I decided to take up Italian while serving in the army. Discreetly, at my secretarial desk in the navy I was memorizing Italian phrases. Mi chiamo Imola. Sono nata a Budapest. Ora vivo a Tel Aviv. Sono innamorata della lingua italiana. I was a lousy soldier, but my Italian was getting better, even if it meant talking to myself like a mad woman.
I’m not sure what took me to Madrid in 2004. The grey skies of London, a heartbreak, or craving a change of scene. I taught myself Spanish from audio books and practised it everywhere and with everyone. I remember my pride when I sent my first text message in Spanish (un bebé cuando estás libre?) to a man I had just met – only to realize that I had asked to have his baby (un bebé), when all I wanted was a drink (una copa, or una bebida, and not a noun constructed from the verb beber, to drink, as I had mistakenly assumed).
I spoke no French when I moved to Montréal seventeen years ago. We had a family of skunks living under our balcony, so the first French word I learned was mouffettes. It sounded so cuddly. I was proud to able to tell the exterminators that we needed them to transport these adorable beings into a safe environment s’il vous plait. Pas de probleme, they replied and I hoped that my bad French didn’t sentence the cuddly mouffette family to their accidental death. The following week I signed up for a beginner’s French course at the Université de Montréal. There, I learned slightly more useful phrases like, Qu’est-ce que tu fais comme travail? and Quel âge as-tu?
The silent letters irritated me and I couldn’t quite grasp the French logic. ¿Por qué el idioma francés no podría parecerse más al español?, I thought in the first three weeks of the course, until we began to learn some grammar that pointed at some obscure logic. Il y a toujours de l’espoir. I completed three French courses by the time I was a married woman and pregnant with Celeste. I had barely just covered the conditionnel and hadn’t yet learned about the subjonctif when childcare took over my life.
When Eliane was eighteen months old I was asked to work as an interpreter for asylum seekers, as Montréal was suddenly receiving many Hungarian Roma refugees. There was a shortage of qualified interpreters, so social workers were happy with my flawed French and imperfect Hungarian. The little I knew was more than anything they could produce without me. And thus, I became an accidental interpreter; those refugees’ only hope of understanding, and being understood; a vessel through which the most vital immigration information flowed back and forth. It was a responsibility that made me sweat with terror. I pleaded social workers to speak slowly and clearly. About a year and a half into the job, however, I suddenly noticed that I was no longer sweating. I managed to do a decent job with my imperfect grammar and without ever using the subjonctif.
At university I decided to learn Italian (properly). Italian was my pillola della felicità during my separation, and later, divorce. Italian, by comparison to French, was much easier to grasp. No silent letters and a forgiving culture that congratulates you for being able to say a basic ciao and grazie. Like a cunning Casanova, Italian hooks you with a seductive language that rolls off your tongue effortlessly, before you wise up and learn about verbi irregolari and the congiuntivo (same as the French subjonctif). Italian is not necessarily easier than French, but is definitely better at presenting itself as easier going. L’italiano è semplicemente più bravo a flirtare. E sono troppo innamorata per rifiutarlo.
It was through learning Italian that I have found a new appreciation for the French language. I promised myself that I would read Beauvoir, Proust and Flaubert in their original language and master at last the subjonctif. But then Quebec Premier François Legault passed Bill 96, which was supposed to protect the French language, but instead made me go to war with it. As soon as speaking English was seen as blasphemy in Quebec, I stopped saying Bonjour in public places. ‘Hello,’ I greeted teachers, nurses and public officers, daring them to remind me that “au Québec on parle le français,” so I could launch into a passionate speech in Hungarian, or Hebrew (depending on my mood) about how it was the Kanien’kéha Nation that had occupied the unceded land of Tiohtià:ke before the French colonized Quebec.
My Québécoises girls hate it when I talk politics. “C’est bon Maman. On a bien compris.” They would roll their eyes in embarrassment. More recently, Eliane informed me that she is not planning to “depass” me when it comes to learning languages, because she has better things to do, and mastering seven languages is “just too much to ask of anyone.” Still, I dare to hope that both my girls will depass me one day. Even if Hungarian is said to be the fifth most difficult language to learn.
But is it? According to whom? Who writes this list of “the ten most difficult languages to learn”? Who gets to decide which language is harder to learn than the other? What are the criteria by which these decisions are made, I wonder, as I imagine The Olympics of Languages where languages compete for gold, silver and bronze medals.
Legault aside, I believe that almost everything sounds more sophisticated, and definitely sexier, in French. C’est une question de gout, bien sûr and this controversial view might be debated in The Olympics of Languages, but as far as my personal taste is concerned, French comes second only to Italian as la lingua più bella del mondo. I will naturalmente keep this opinion to myself as I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Especially not the feelings of my French friends que j’adore. Because despite the reputation that the French have in the world as striped jumper and beret wearing cheese and wine lovers who have turned extramarital affairs into an art form – my personal experience with the French so far has been nothing but positive. Discounting the two Frenchmen who wanted to leave their wives for me. I wish I knew what I unwittingly said, or did, at that New Year’s dinner party to give them such a reckless idea – besides being the only single, childless, twenty-nine-year-old woman at the table. Perhaps it was my strange accent, or a certain je ne sais quoi?
My first language was German, since my parents immigrated from there to the US. I had to learn English in my neighborhood through the other children. My parents then sent me to eight years of German weekend school which was HORRIBLE. I decided to take French in high school, and you're right, what a beautiful language. Of course, German is so guttural, so anything would have been an improvement (I think.) My husband is 1/2 Greek, and we've been to Greece multiple times now, so I recently switched my Duolingo from Spanish to Greek. Spanish is so easy compared to Greek with its weird alphabet, and also it's not as pleasing on the ear like French. Nothing beats French, mon amie!
Another beautiful, insightful read! Grazie mille cara Imola.