I was at the checkout at Darty the other day.  On the counter was one of those "last minute" buy-me trinkets-a little matchbox Darty delivery truck.  I read the packaging-Le camion de livraison de Darty.  My brain said "Oh, look, the little truck of delivery of Darty". 

Yeah, I cringed, too. 

Is my brain structure changing?  

I've often heard that learning a foreign language opens your mind.  You learn not only the language, but also a new culture.  How they think.  View the world.  What motivates them.  Their paradigm for how they understand everything, digest everything.  Even though they're Gallic, French people (for the most part) look like Anglo-Saxons.  We may have more freckles, smaller noses and be taller, but we generally appear to be from similar stock.  We can, if wearing the proper shoes, walk along the streets of Paris undetected.  Like Canadians in the U.S.  So it's deceiving when you first move here and you're surrounded by people who, on the surface, look like they could be your cousins. 

Then you start to learn their language. 

And you find out the French are completely backwards. 

The incidence of culture shock in Paris is high among Western foreigners.  We have an easier time moving to places like Senegal or Tokyo, where we're expecting something so completely different that we know there's not a snowball's chance in hell that we're ever going to fit in.  The pressure is off.  We'll never become Japanese so we have the luxury of ignoring seemingly crazy cultural traditions (such as group floral arranging or self-inflicted harm when you screw up at the office). 

But in France, it's different.  Hordes of Francophile Westerners move to Paris and want to be a part of it.  We want to wake up in the morning and put a bit of confiture on our fresh baguette baked by our quaint little neighborhood boulangère.  We may be able to learn how to tie a scarf properly after a year or so of trying.  We may get to the point where we buy clothes only during the soldes.  We may even learn that "no" actually means "yes" and it's merely a conversational form of foreplay.  We may (eventually) learn that when you buy a television, you give your enemy's name and address to the cashier so they get the annual TV tax bill instead of you.    

But no matter how much you learn how to speak, dress or carry yourself like the French, I don't think it's possible to learn how to think like them.  To think backwards.   

In the U.S., we grow up with an American flag flapping outside of your school.  Its colors?  Unless you were raised in Mississippi or South Carolina, you know it's red, white and blue.  My children call it blue, white and red.  Why?  Because it has the same colors as the French flag, which are blue, white and red.  This really, really bothers me.  This is downright un-American.  I am on the verge of reporting my children to the House Committee on un-American Activities. 

The French chant "Allez les Blues" at sporting events because their flag starts with blue.  Otherwise, it would be allez les rouges and they'd be outright admitting that they're all a bunch of commies.  I don't care what the flag actually looks like, hearing someone say "blue, white and red" makes me cringe.  People, it doesn't flow right! 

Someone once told me that the best way to learn French is to take on a French lover.  Actually, more than one person has told me this.  I don't think they were suggesting that I give it a try.  Hmm.  Maybe they were.  Nah, I think they were treating me like a priest in confessional in a guilty, middle school sort of way.  "I have this . . . friend and she said the best way to learn French is . . ."  I don't have firsthand knowledge of this, but I do know a lot of American women who have French lovers and the only language they have in common is body.  Me?  I've learned my French from my kids. 

When they speak English, they do it by translating French word-for-word into English.  Like a courtroom translator forced to translate verbatim so the defendant is not given the death penalty thanks to the language barrier.  The words may be in English (some of the time), but the grammar stays French. 

Which means they always assign an article to each noun: I would like the cup of the juice of the orange. 

Which means they always say things backwards:  The thing green is what?  It is what, the thing green? 

Which means they put nouns before adjectives: You me give the balloon purple light. 

Which means they always try to assign gender to inanimate objects:  The computer, he is making the sound.  She is too small, the shirt.

Which means they start virtually every sentence with Me-I:  Me, I want to go to the park.  Me, I want to see the TV. 

Which means they're little pessimists:  No, that's not possible!  You can't do that!  That no exist not! 

So as it stands, my French is at a first-grade level, which means I can only express myself oh so much. 

It's like that cab driver we once pissed off in D.C. when he was trying to overcharge us and we challenged his math-mapping skills.  He kicked us out of his cab yelling "Een my koontry, mee eez brrane surjun!"  Dude, it does not cost 50 bucks to get from AU down to Farragut Square.  While I may not completely believe him (perhaps he knew a brain surgeon), I now understand his frustration.