When in French: Love in a Second Language

When in French: Love in a Second Language
Lauren Collins

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR‘Talking to you in English’, he said, ‘is like touching you with gloves.’A language barrier is no match for love. New Yorker journalist Lauren Collins discovers this first-hand when, in her early thirties, she moves to London and falls for Olivier, a Frenchman. As their relationship begins to grow, Lauren senses that there are things she doesn’t understand about Olivier, having never spoken to him in his mother tongue. (Does ‘I love you’ even mean the same thing as ‘je t’aime’?) And when they move to French-speaking Geneva, Lauren suddenly finds herself no longer able to talk to the local handymen or shop owners, let alone her husband’s parents.Fearful of one day finding herself unable to communicate with her own children, Lauren decides to learn French. Along the way, she faces a series of challenges, from awkward role-playing games at her Swiss language school, to accidentally telling her mother-in-law that she’s given birth to a coffee machine. But there are also unexpected pleasures: the delights of learning French words that have no English equivalent and the joys of winning her first argument against Olivier in his native tongue.A funny, thoughtful memoir, When in French considers how language shapes our lives, from how we think, to how we fall in love, and what happens when two languages, and two very different cultures, collide.

Copyright (#ulink_e7d08d77-cbba-5db5-88de-a3938a796f74)

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk (http://www.4thestate.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2016

First published in the US by Penguin Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC in 2016

Copyright © Lauren Collins 2016

Cover illustration © Jessie Kanelos Weiner

Lettering © Christopher Brian King

The right of Lauren Collins to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Excerpt from ‘FOR ME … FOR-MI-DA-BLE’ by Charles Aznavour, Jacques Plante,

Gene Lees © 1963 & 1974 Editions Charles Aznavour, Paris, France

assigned to TRO Essex Music Ltd of Suite 2.07,

Plaza 535, King’s Road, London, SW10 0SZ

International Copyright Secured.

All rights reserved. Used by Permission.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008100629

Ebook Edition © September 2016 ISBN: 9780008221621

Version: 2017-06-28

Dedication (#ulink_c4745104-c0bd-52aa-b901-ba5b040257f2)

For Olivier

Epigraph (#ulink_be9d2037-76d4-557b-87f0-0ccbf9167867)

You are the one for me, for me, for me, formidable

But how can you

See me, see me, see me, si minable

Je ferais mieux d’aller choisir mon vocabulaire

Pour te plaire

Dans la langue de Molière

—Charles Aznavour, “For Me, For-mi-da-ble”

Contents

Cover (#ubfe6cac6-61b4-55f0-8797-0fb853415ce9)

Title Page (#uf4de343d-ba10-5f81-b933-888cb24a41d9)

Copyright (#ufc95eda2-a335-554f-a1fc-10a2c56f811a)

Dedication (#ue1cb32d8-6ae6-5ac0-871d-6b9410d55a5e)

Epigraph (#u5a1b1bcb-c1c0-5929-9a90-de601f04d870)

One: THE PAST PERFECT – Le Plus-que-parfait (#u78779afb-52ef-51c0-8596-97949812264f)

Two: THE IMPERFECT – L’Imparfait (#u47419221-dabf-50df-9436-7cf32a660ba6)

Three: THE PAST – Le Passé composé (#litres_trial_promo)

Four: THE PRESENT – Le Présent (#litres_trial_promo)

Five: THE CONDITIONAL – Le Conditionnel (#litres_trial_promo)

Six: THE SUBJUNCTIVE – Le Subjonctif (#litres_trial_promo)

Seven: THE FUTURE – Le Futur (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)