First Time Traveling-Language Concerns

Hopefully your classes will be taught in English. As for general travel, having SOME French skills will put you ahead of most Americans heading to France. Luckily Europeans are well trained in various languages.

When we went to France last year we had only the basic French words down. In Paris it was no problem, as everyone spoke English. But make sure when you're speaking to someone, you address them in French (Bonjour, madame) and ask (in French) if they speak English. We followed that advice and didn't have a single problem.

We went to the Normandy area and there we encountered a lot of people that did not speak English. But through smiles and mimes we were able to make it through with no problem. People were incredibly friendly. In a chocolate shop, the lady told us the total, but then wrote it down on a piece of paper so that we understood. That was very helpful and although now our French is much better, I still plan to take a little notebook in case their French words are spoken faster than my slow brain can recognize the numbers. And I mimed makeup remover (mascara OFF) to a lady in a pharmacy outside of Vernon (near Giverny). We all had a good laugh and we were able to buy what we wanted.

Basically, don't sweat it. Be extremely polite and you'll find that people are willing to help.

1) Don't panic.
2) Whereas you can't expect people to speak English (and if they do it may be basic), in Europe people don't expect visitors to speak their language either.
3) Learn the basics, Yes, No, please, sorry (very important), thank you, numbers, how much, the bill please, how do I get to .....; and if all else fails "parlez vous anglais". This will get you a long way.
4) Keep any addresses you want to get to on a piece of paper. You can show this to people and look lost. Your pronounciation of place names may be unintelligable.
5) Sign up for a "French for foreigners" (or for immigrants) evening course. This will be 100% in French because no two students will have the same common language. A steap learning curve at the beginning, but the only way to go.

It is remarkable how far you can get with a few words and a smile.

Ipccooney,
Many of us are confronted with language barriers when traveling abroad, however, you will have the advantage of spending more time to absorb the language than many of us who are just traveling for a short time.

Will your classes be taught in English?

If not, then your concern is understandable. Having said this, if you've studied French, the best way to learn it is by being completely immersed in it. You may find it difficult it or challenging at the beginning, but after some time, you will be speaking it much better than when you first arrived.

You will also meet other students who will be in the same situation, so you won't be alone.

Have a wonderful study abroad experience!

I could tell you some funny stories about the language gap issues I had on my first trip to France. My advice is to be patient and keep a good sense of humor. If you approach each encounter politely, using the French you have, you will find the locals will bend over backwards to help you and you will share a good laugh, if things get crazy. Good luck.

Manners, common courtesy, and a smile go a long way in a language situation. I believe this to be true in just about any country, including here when I see tourists coming into San Francisco. You'll find that even the tiniest bit of effort to speak in the local language will go a long way....that, and plenty of hand gestures, pointing, and facial expressions.

Hi,

"...being totally immersed in another language." That's the good part. The bad part part is: are you ready for that? Unless the course is a beginner, ie lower division course, I am going assume it's all in French. If you have finished your second college year and are now taking this summer course abroad in southern France, the course will be in French. I would be surprised if it isn't. My suggestions are:

1) don't be afraid of making mistakes and, above all, being corrected. After all, who is the beneficiary of the correction? You, and you'll know better the next time. The more you get corrected, the better it is for you the next time. 2) Keep plugging away at the French, write your notes, daily reminders, instructions, even your "diary" etc, etc in the language so that you start dreaming in French.

3) Don't be intimidated to speak when the chance presents itself? 4) Don't rely on "their" knowing a certain level of English in order to communicate, since you think your language knowledge is too "modest." That's not good enough.

5) Get down the grammar, I found the irregular verbs to be most taxing. 6) If you can't say it correctly, then know how to write and spell it correctly. 7) Finally, don't give up the efforts, period...since you're the one benefiting from this immersion experience. Forget about it being intimidating, daunting, or even a frightening experience when everyone is chirping away en français and you feel linguistically inadequate...so what? You're there to learn, absorb, and improve. That's exactly what will happen.

You tube is your friend for basic phrases. Also, www.travlang.com, click on foreign languages for travelers and select the French flag. We have had marvelous times learning and using phrases in French, Afrikaans, Zulu, Turkish, Italian, and Hungarian. Hungarian was the hardest next to Zulu.

So much good advice here. Learn the basic polite words (see Chris F, above). I think the basic list can be quite short for starters (Yes, no, please, thank you, hello, goodbye, where is the toilet? - and parlez vous Anglais?). But I'm guessing from your post - "I have a pretty good knowledge of the culture and history" - that you already have that much down and a little bit more, too.
Couldn't agree more about manners, common courtesy and a smile, as KC said. We've managed to surmount language barriers with my limited French and my wife's intelligence. One time I asked for directions and left the conversation confiding to my wife that I didn't understand what I'd been told. She said, "We go down here, turn left and it's on the right." I asked how she knew that, since she spoke virtually no French at the time. She said "I was watching him gesture." I had been so intent on trying to understand the words that I paid no attention to how he was directing us with his body language.
Like the others here we've had wonderful times getting around in France, buying things, asking directions, ordering food, even getting help identifying singers on the radio. Most people we've met in France have been delightfully helpful. One woman who couldn't get me to understand her directions (my fault entirely), jumped in her car to lead us to a rural B&B we'd been unable to find.
Just making the effort to be understood and starting with "bonjour", seems to help a lot. If hand gestures and facial expressions don't get the job done, we have frequently found that people will switch to their not-so-bad English when they realize it is superior to my not-very-good French.
I suspect that you may already be a better French speaker than I was when we first started visiting France. I'll bet you will be pleasantly surprised at how well you can communicate there.

I'm a French teacher with experience in this. ha!
My advice...try not to worry and just dive in. Many students will clam up at first and hide out in their bedroom. Don't let this be you. Be bold and be daring. Go out and just dive in. You'll make mistakes, and that's okay. You're there to learn and for the experiences.

If your main goal is to study French, my first piece of advice is NOT to hang out with the other anglophones you meet. Many students hang out with like-languaged students and miss out on the practicing part.

Hope this helps.

lp,

Don't be too concerned about the language barrier. Millions of people travel to France every year, and manage just fine. Most people that deal with tourists (ie: restaurants, hotels, shops) will have some ability to function in English. However, as the others have said, it's a good idea to learn some of the "basic" words. You'll probably find that after you've been there for a few weeks, using French becomes easier.

Will you be travelling to other countries during your stay in France? You may find it helpful to pack along a small Phrasebook as that will cover many of the situations you'll be dealing with. I believe there's also a section in the book on menu items you may encounter in restaurants.

Whenever entering a shop, be sure to greet the shopkeeper with a "Bonjour" or whatever.

Bon Voyage!

Immersion is the best way to learn a language! Don't be afraid to make mistakes. You'll get better. I found it helpful to formulate my question in advance and to think about possible responses to my question. That way I had a better chance of understanding the answer!

If you use your French every chance that you have, you will get better. And getting better is the point, right?

I'm reminded of the time I went to Amsterdam and a Spanish speaking tourist asked me to take a photo for him in front of the Rijksmuseum. He was instructing me on how to use his camera and kept speaking in Spanish, which was funny because Spanish is not a common language in the Netherlands and on top of that, not only was I a fellow tourist, but am also Chinese (i.e., it wasn't obvious to him that I'm not likely to speak Spanish). Yet, he just kept going on and on, the gist of which was that I needed to push harder on shutter release button on his camera. So in our excitement, we're liable to start blasting off in whatever language comes to bind.

Excellent advice here. One more suggestion: get one of the language apps for your phone and start practicing every day. I'm using DuoLingo. It's free.
Bonne chance!

Note what KC said. As important as knowing some of the language is knowing the customs. For example, knowing that it is normal and polite to greet shopkeepers, clerks, servers etc., when you enter a shop or step up to a cashier, and saying something when you exit. If you can't come up with the French its better to say something in English or whatever, than nothing at all.

I saw this happen with some fellow Americans who were too shy or unaccustomed to doing it and were constantly treated gruffly in shops.

....Europeans are well trained in various languages...... A better way to put that is that for most European, they have had some English as a second language. A Greek in Spain will try to communicate to his waiter in English.

My daughter spent a summer studying in Angers through her university. What really helped her was getting the name of others in the program and traveling with one of them. I think they decided to meet at the train station in Paris and travel together from there, but maybe they met at CDG. Anyway, that made the first step a little easier.

Patty, that's an excellent idea!

My daughter is presently studying abroad, & she met other students at the airport (US) & it definitely helped her feel more at ease.

Most important lesson; every encounter must begin with a sing-songy "Bonjour" then I add "je me excuse; je ne parle pas Francais". I got the funniest, kindest, accepting replies each and every time i said those things. Best of all "mais, moi, je parle Francais"- (ah, but I speak French) said with humor; we both laughed!
Many people say the French are rude, but is us who are rude by not saying Bonjour (or Bon Soir if its evening)

The above advice is excellent. I visited last summer and used some of my rusty high school French (last taken in 1976); everyone was polite and helpful. Once, while I was eating in a cafeteria in a museum, a gentleman asked in French if he could borrow a chair from the table where I was sitting. I replied, "Oui," and he immediately said "Thank you" and wished me a nice day in English. No doubt, my accent gave me away.

The biggest misunderstanding came when I checked into a small hotel and the clerk asked if I wanted what sounded like "Code weefee." It took me a few moments to realize he was saying "Wi - fi."

I had a niece who went to Loire valley for her trip abroad. She lived in a home with a couple & several other students. They were told they had to use French at all times. She was intimidated initially, but felt that overall, it helped tremendously with her language skills. Isn't the whole point to sharpen your use of the language? Good luck & enjoy!

I've traveled widely and second all of the suggestions, especially greeting with "bon jour" and a smile! I try to refresh my French a few months prior to visiting and find that it's improved each time I leave. Two books I can strongly recommend are:
Culture Shock - France by Sally Anderson Taylor; and
Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't be Wrong by Jean-Benoit Nadeau.
Got both from my local library and provided me with a great insight to customs and perspective of the French. I read both after my first trip and the information has made subsequent visits much more enjoyable.
Most of all, enjoy this experience!

The best way to learn a foreign language is to fall in love with someone whose native language it is.

Ipccooney,
You've received excellent advice.

What do you think?

Are you still there?

I've driven through the French wine regions and never had any real problems with the language. Yes, I know the six basic phrases and use them.

In preparation for my upcoming visit, I downloaded the "Dict Box French" app to my iPhone. It works off line so you're not using data. I don't know if they make the app for Android . . .

It's normal to panic when all you hear around you is a foreign language. If your courses are being taught in French, you will probably be up the creek, quite frankly. But if this is the case, try to get as much out of the courses as possible.

You won't have much hope of improving your language skills before you get to France, and depending on how long your courses last, you will not come back home speaking like a native French person, either. This take years of constant immersion and hard work, so don't beat yourself up over it.

Concentrate on the most common phrases, and try to perfect them. Waiters, salespeople, doctors, etc - all of them speak enough English so you can understand each other.

It would be a good idea to learn a bit about the local customs, too. For instance, if someone invites you for a drink, you should be prepared to pay your own way. The "invitation" is for the pleasure of your company.

Rick's guidebooks have little language sections. He also has standalone phrase books for all major languages. You really don't need much more than that. It's pretty obvious to waiters what you want in a restaurant, to desk clerks in a hotel, to ticket agents in a train station, etc.

I should add, that you'll likely surprise yourself with how quickly you'll pick things up, especially if you are there long term as opposed to a vacation. The times I've vacationed in Europe I've had to take a crash course on French or Italian, literally minutes before the waiter walked up to my table to take my order, and after a few meals I was surprised at how much I was picking up and retaining and how progressively easier it got. As any teacher of any subject might tell you, "you know more than you think" or was it, "you're smarter than you think." Be confident, your new language skills will come to you faster than you think.

Hi,

It all depends on how you think of it. If in order to communicate, you have to rely on "their" language skills, (why should have to do that?) then think of it this way: if they can learn of your language, then you certainly can learn of "their" language since you are certainly not linguistically deficient.

In all seriousness, a glass of wine really helps the fluency. I'm sure it just lowers the inhibition factor - but that's often the biggest barrier. I studied just enough French to know that I would never get the grammar right, but I'd mostly be understood (and possibly very amusing). The hardest part sometimes is finding people whose English is worse than your French, so they will want to speak French with you.