Currently I'm in Paris for the Salon du Livre, the Parisian book fair.
As readers of this blog might know, my feelings for book fairs are fairly ambiguous. But since I have not made a serious effort to stop going to them, I cannot complain without turning myself into a hypocrite.
My first Salon du Livre was in 2003, and especially for that reason I started French lessons in the fall of 2002.
Through a neighbor of mine in New York, I found a private teacher. Given my history in high school, I thought that a private teacher was appropriate.
My private teacher was named Michel. We exchanged a few e-mails, and then we set up a date for my first lesson. The agreement was that I would come to his place on the Upper West Side. For my first lesson, I put on a suit to be on the safe side.
Michel turned out to be the opposite of a suit-person. Actually, he was a Trotskyite, and for a while I thought he was the last Trotskyite in New York. But then I found out that I was mistaken. There are more Trotskyites than I expected. A year ago, I met a French writer who claimed that her eleven-year-old son was a Trotskyite. It’s fair to say that the movement is not dying.
Anyhow, I liked my French teacher a lot and I decided to continue my lessons even after the Salon du Livre in 2003.
In 2003, my attempts to speak French with journalists were stranded quickly. Four years later I decided I not to hide anymore.
When I’m in New York I speak French twice a week with a Trotskyite. The time had come to speak French to other people as well.
I informed my translator that I would try to speak without her help, but in case I could not continue I would ask her for assistance.
We are speaking here about a public event. The public was by no means larger than 25 people, which gave me this feeling that even if I stumbled over my sentences it would not be a disaster.
Now and then, I had to ask my translator for a word. But I managed to finish the interview in French and this was reason for some moderate happiness.
That evening, I had a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of speaking a language you haven't mastered completely.
When you are forced to use only simple, everyday language it’s impossible to be very subtle. In my own language, my answers would have been more elaborate. But at the same time, speaking French forced me to be more honest. Or so I thought.