At a certain point in the process of learning a language you begin to feel a certain fragile confidence. It is no longer such an ordeal to order a dinner or answer the phone or have a casual conversation. The newspaper is more or less comprehensible and the radio – well – about fifty per-cent. Your French teacher smiles on you occasionally, especially when you pull off a subjunctive. It seems that progress is being made. Then you run up against real life and you realize that you actually have the language skills of a not very smart three year old. I have just reached this point with French.

The problem is that the vocabulary of everyday French is not the one you learned in school, or from reading books. It is the obscure lexicon of those small, specific words you need to know to deal with the contingencies of domestic life. What, for example, is the French word for the pressure regulating valve on top of bottled gas cylinder? Last week I really needed to know. How do you say bulb holder, masonry drill, radiator thermostat, windscreen washer fluid, download speed, or fuse box? All these useful words and many more had completely escaped my attention and, of course, there’s never a dictionary around when you need one. The world of technical and material things is a huge challenge, linguistically speaking. We are taking French classes at a local institute called the Open University. My wife is up at the top level, level seven, while I am plowing my way through level four. But we’re both humbled and often embarrassed by all the simple things we don’t know. Somewhere ahead in the fog of future time is the shining promise of full linguistic mastery – as David Sedaris put it, “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” But not yet, oh no not yet.

Language is not the only stumbling block. The whole culture is full of things we should know but don’t. For example, in trying to make seat reservations for a short visit to England by train we stumbled into a regular Bermuda Triangle of public holidays. The railway agent had a big chart of dates in May up on the wall, many of them marked in red. We quickly learned that these indicated periods around public holidays or, in other words, “Not a chance.” The month began with May Day, le Fête du Travail, a major holiday when obviously no bookings would be possible. A week later on the 8^th came Victoire 1945, which also signals a long weekend when trains will be full from Thursday till the following Tuesday. Then Ascension Day on the 21^st blocks out another set of days, and finally Pentecôte on the 31^st another big holiday when everyone wants to travel. “Pentecost.” Said the agent, almost shocked at our ignorance, Of course you can’t get a booking at Pentecost!” As an added complication we were reminded of the British late spring Bank Holiday on 25^th, during which tens of thousands of Brits travel to France by train. In short a perfect storm of public holidays, during all of which the high speed train system would be booked solid. In the end, with the help of the long-suffering agent, we squeezed in a four-day trip at rather inconvenient dates and times. It was the best we could get, and we were lucky to get it.

There is a certain irony in the fact that the citizens of such a strongly secular nation claim so many religious holidays. But of course religion has nothing to do with it. The French just love public holidays, as many and as long as possible, and for any reason. I am one hundred percent behind them, now that I have my train tickets.

In Saint Quentin la Poterie, this is David Bouchier

At a certain point in the process of learning a language you begin to feel a certain fragile confidence. It is no longer such an ordeal to order a dinner or answer the phone or have a casual conversation. The newspaper is more or less comprehensible and the radio – well – about fifty per-cent. Your French teacher smiles on you occasionally, especially when you pull off a subjunctive. It seems that progress is being made. Then you run up against real life and you realize that you actually have the language skills of a not very smart three year old. I have just reached this point with French.

The problem is that the vocabulary of everyday French is not the one you learned in school, or from reading books. It is the obscure lexicon of those small, specific words you need to know to deal with the contingencies of domestic life. What, for example, is the French word for the pressure regulating valve on top of bottled gas cylinder? Last week I really needed to know. How do you say bulb holder, masonry drill, radiator thermostat, windscreen washer fluid, download speed, or fuse box? All these useful words and many more had completely escaped my attention and, of course, there’s never a dictionary around when you need one. The world of technical and material things is a huge challenge, linguistically speaking. We are taking French classes at a local institute called the Open University. My wife is up at the top level, level seven, while I am plowing my way through level four. But we’re both humbled and often embarrassed by all the simple things we don’t know. Somewhere ahead in the fog of future time is the shining promise of full linguistic mastery – as David Sedaris put it, “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” But not yet, oh no not yet.

Language is not the only stumbling block. The whole culture is full of things we should know but don’t. For example, in trying to make seat reservations for a short visit to England by train we stumbled into a regular Bermuda Triangle of public holidays. The railway agent had a big chart of dates in May up on the wall, many of them marked in red. We quickly learned that these indicated periods around public holidays or, in other words, “Not a chance.” The month began with May Day, le Fête du Travail, a major holiday when obviously no bookings would be possible. A week later on the 8^th came Victoire 1945, which also signals a long weekend when trains will be full from Thursday till the following Tuesday. Then Ascension Day on the 21^st blocks out another set of days, and finally Pentecôte on the 31^st another big holiday when everyone wants to travel. “Pentecost.” Said the agent, almost shocked at our ignorance, Of course you can’t get a booking at Pentecost!” As an added complication we were reminded of the British late spring Bank Holiday on 25^th, during which tens of thousands of Brits travel to France by train. In short a perfect storm of public holidays, during all of which the high speed train system would be booked solid. In the end, with the help of the long-suffering agent, we squeezed in a four-day trip at rather inconvenient dates and times. It was the best we could get, and we were lucky to get it.

There is a certain irony in the fact that the citizens of such a strongly secular nation claim so many religious holidays. But of course religion has nothing to do with it. The French just love public holidays, as many and as long as possible, and for any reason. I am one hundred percent behind them, now that I have my train tickets.

In Saint Quentin la Poterie, this is David Bouchier