Lost in Translation: Confessions of a French-Learning Hot Mess

Sassy, Sloppy, and Slightly Fluent: An Expat’s Guide to Speaking French-ish

I will never be French. I have accepted this the way one accepts gravity or the spoiler for a Netflix show you were never going to finish anyway. All six foot four inches and two hundred thirty pounds of me screams American. Add the T‑shirt, shorts, and permanent baseball cap and the verdict is in before I open my loud English‑speaking mouth. I also carry that deeply American urge to stay busy so the universe does not repossess my self‑worth. Even in retirement I cannot sit still. Reality TV? Cute, but my brain drops IQ points faster than a phone in a toilet. Somehow my days are packed and I do not know how I ever squeezed a nine to five into this circus. Apparently all I did back then was work and absolutely forget to live. How on‑brand for my homeland.

Growing up, learning another language was not on the family bingo card. My relatives figured I would move down the street, marry someone from the same zip code, and die within spitting distance of the high school. French? Why bother. The only foreign language remotely useful, according to the clan, was Spanish, and I flunked that after one year with a proud D. So here I am decades later living in France with the enthusiasm of a golden retriever and the vocabulary of a decorative houseplant.

Yuri loves to remind me of my linguistic chaos. He swears I am Madonna circa 2001, moving to London and suddenly adopting a questionable accent. He does a dramatic impression whenever I pronounce croissant like I am auditioning for Les Mis. He says my accent is terrible and yet he is also impressed at the bizarre ways I contort my vowels to sound vaguely French. Picture a Midwestern baguette in skinny jeans. That is me.

Last night Yuri announced that in twelve months he plans to surpass my French. Honestly he could if I do not get my act together. I keep imagining that tonight is the night I binge French movies, French podcasts, French interpretive dance, whatever. Then 8 p.m. rolls around, the toddler is finally unconscious, and I want something easy. Enter Emily in Paris. I can scroll Instagram, watch the show, and miss absolutely nothing. A multitasking dream for someone whose attention span was assassinated by one‑minute TikToks. Learning French is the opposite. It demands focus, patience, and adulting skills I do not possess after 7 p.m.

Speaking of the toddler, Sonia is getting her hair braided today by the French braid queens who speak zero English and have no time for my tragic pronunciation. I’ll have to explain parts, lengths, vibes, and that no, I do not want beads that jingle like a wind chime in a hurricane. And all of that in my best broken-French-with-a-side-of-panic. It takes me right back to the trauma of my first haircut in France, where I nodded like a confused golden retriever during the consultation and left looking like a rejected extra from a late-90s boy band reunion tour. Just sitting there in stiff silence, praying for mercy, while she snipped away my dignity. Language may be a barrier, but apparently so is taste.

My relationship with the language is an on‑again off‑again soap opera. Waves of passion followed by long phases of ghosting. When we first moved here I assumed immersion would magically do the work. Spoiler: expats herd together and the French who want English practice will switch languages faster than you can say croissant. They do not want to teach you French. They want you to help them nail the difference between cheap and chip.

Yuri is about to start volunteer teaching English at the local AVF. I told him French folks learning English in France must feel like I did learning French back in the States, surrounded by people who could not parlez a single vous. Rough crowd.

I began like everyone else on Duolingo. Yes, it is trash. Yes, it teaches random vocabulary no sane person needs. I still use it. Then I was told to get a tutor and actually speak. Cue performance anxiety. Covid hit, life went online, and suddenly talking to a stranger on Zoom felt less terrifying than eye contact at the bakery. Preply and iTalki became my social life. I met Alice, a French musician stuck in Thailand. Tour canceled, she turned to teaching. We vibed, my French improved, life was good. When she went back on tour I found Vicky, kept climbing the French mountain, and even met her in Paris. Alice is back in northern France now with a son Sonia’s age. I keep joking they will marry and secure my language tutor for life.

Fast forward. My French plateaued. I relied on daily errands for practice. Install two hot water tanks? Yes. Kitchen remodel? Absolutely. Doctors, dentists, plumbers, bureaucrats, I have spoken to them all. These are sparkly moments of accomplishment, not a sustainable learning plan. I need immersion, volunteering, movies without subtitles. We just got free tickets to the new Disney film. It is only playing in French. Sonia will translate while we pretend it is a learning opportunity not child labor.

To be fair I can speak decent French. My problem is listening. My lessons were in English so my ear is lazy. Yuri, whose first language is Russian, hears French better than he speaks it. Together we make one functional adult. The trouble starts when I sound semi‑fluent and the French unleash verbal machine‑gun fire. I catch the first syllable, black out, and wake up when they are asking for my soul on a form in triplicate.

Tonight I am off to another glitzy expat soirée, the kind with a cocktail list starring the Le Bureaucratique Meltdown, the Carte Vitale‑tini, and a bubbly number called Prefecture Panic Spritz. Gossip will swirl with every clink of ice as we gripe about neighbors who refuse to scoop their dog’s sidewalk souvenirs, marvel at the looming summer holidays, and melt together in the latest heatwave that has us all shimmering like soft cheese. Sonia will make a brief cameo to score a Merry Cake cookie, flash a crumb covered grin, then glide home with the babysitter while Daddy and Papa dive headfirst into adult beverages and unapologetic venting.

But honestly, part of me wants to host the opposite kind of gathering. A no‑English Night, full immersion chaos. A party where the rule is only French. No cheating. No “Franglais.” No helpful hand gestures. You must suffer like the rest of us. I’ll decorate with sad little French flashcards, put the Bescherelle in the bathroom, and set up a charcuterie board that judges you silently. There will be games like “Guess That Verb Tense,” “Translate This Bureaucratic Nightmare,” and “Two Truths and a Lie in the Subjunctive.” You can’t get wine refills until you conjugate avoir under pressure. If you say "cheese" instead of fromage, you have to chug a warm glass of boxed blanc. Bonus points if you flirt awkwardly with someone using only words you learned from Duolingo. First person to accidentally insult my mother-in-law wins. It's like a murder mystery party, but the victim is your dignity.

Bottom line: moving abroad does not inject language skills into your veins. You have to grind. I will never understand expats who refuse. Sure you can hide in an English‑speaking bubble but raise a bilingual kid for five minutes and watch how fast you need to decode school emails. I owe it to Sonia to master this language so one day when she claims she is studying at a friend’s, I know she is not actually boarding a train to Toulouse.

Moral of the story
Living abroad without learning the language is like ordering salad at an all‑you‑can‑eat buffet. Technically possible but why torture yourself. Put in the work, butcher some grammar, embarrass yourself at the salon, and eventually you will unlock the real perks: gossiping with neighbors, eavesdropping on the postman, and knowing exactly why the cashier side‑eyed your produce. Learn the language or spend the rest of your life nodding politely while someone might be selling you a goat. Your choice.

If this post made you laugh harder than my accent bombing at a French comedy club, hit subscribe, restack like it’s your new cardio, and drop a comment with your own linguistic train wreck.

Follow me on Instagram @Le_Simple_Sudiste for more expat shenanigans and daily sass.

If you would like to buy me a coffee, I’ll gladly park myself in a café, crack open a French book I won’t read, and pretend to study while actually eavesdropping on strangers like a caffeine-fueled linguistic spy.

Stay fabulous, mispronounce with confidence, and remember every awkward sentence is one step closer to understanding the gossip your kid shares about you at school.