Dredging up the French, part 2 (turbo mode!)

Allons enfants de la patrie, le jour de gloire est arrive!

I talked about how my French is coming back to me a year ago, but since then, it's been on the accelerated path.  On the one hand, I've got a province where French isn't REALLY spoken a lot, but you can definitely find it.  On the second hand, I've got the boyfriend who was in Ontario French immersion school (and his father and sister will banter back and forth with him on occasion).  And on the third hand, and likely the most prevalent in my everyday life, we've got our new Quebecois postdoc and new Iranian postdoc, who both speak French.  They speak French to each other and to anyone else who admits they know a bit of French and would be willing to speak it occasionally.  The Ontario-native grad students and I are included.  It's super cool.

That's three hands of French, people.  French is launching a triple-pronged and multi-accented attack at me.  It sounds dumb of me to say "I know it's an official language and all, but I didn't know it would be so prominent," but that's kind of how I felt moving to Ontario, land of English-speakers.

I find myself falling into the trap that I always do with all of the (bits and shreds of) foreign languages I know.  People talk to me in the foreign language.  I understand, but knee-jerk answer in English.  My comprehension is solid and immediate, but so desiring am I to convey information back quickly, that I answer in the most expedient way possible.  I have to convince the postdocs to stop letting me do this.

Has anyone else moved to Ontario and noticed an unusual influx of French into their life?

Dredging up my French from a deep, dark place

I had what I would like to believe was a pretty rigorous education in French from the grades of 4 through 7.  Grade 4 was a bit lacking, but 5-7 were French overtime (as I am sure my elementary school friends at The Banana Stand and This Happy Happy Life will affirm).  I was good at it because I am a lingual geek.  I continued French in high school, but abandoned it in college for the more "interesting" (i.e. HARDER) languages of Japanese and Russian.

Because I learned French so young, it's always stuck with me.  I might not be able to string words together, but I can catch the gist of things pretty well, especially if they're written.  I haven't heard any Canadians speaking French yet, but French is rampant at my favorite place (where else?), the grocery store.  Almost everything is in both French and English, and I am proud to say that I am the owner of a bilingual toaster and coffeemaker.  Slick, eh?

But since I have encountered this sudden onslaught of a language I once spoke relatively well, it's started to come back to me.  Little pieces of songs and sayings, vocabulary words, common words, random words like parapluie that I thought I'd never see/use again.  I've found that I'll even talk to myself in French.  This came to a head today in the grocery store when I found the marshmallows (to which I am addicted) and upon seeing the French word for them, thought to myself, "OUAH!  J'ai trouver les guimauves au supermarche!!"

Where the HECK did that come from?!

Honnetement, je ne sais pas.  Mais je pense que ce continuer'a....