French vs Japanese

Even French class, my last refuge in this troubled world, is going slightly crazy. At the beginning of the lesson, our teacher came in and greeted us, as is her wont. Here is how the conversation went:

TEACHER (T): Bonjour. Comment ca va?

CLASS: [a variety of indistinct murmurs, some of them sounding like 'Ca va bien, merci', some of them not]

T: I said 'Comment ca va?' You know, 'How are you?'

CLASS: [more indistinct murmurs, but most of them generally approximating the French language]

STUDENT: [who was clearly having trouble coping with both the sleep-inducing temperature of the classroom and the concept of the language itself]: Si!

NB: Due to the extreme heating in our French classroom, it is extremely easy to drift off, and we frequently do. Later in the same lesson, I myself was thinking vaguely about the numerous similarities between Magnus Bane, from 'The Mortal Instruments' series, and the actor Julian Clary. I've put a picture of Julian Clary below. 

Julian Clary is flamboyantly gay, dresses in unusual and garish costumes, and puts coloured glitter in his hair when performing on stage. Magnus Bane is flamboyantly gay, dresses in unusual and garish costumes, and puts coloured glitter in his hair when performing complex spells. Yes, Lala and Ariane, that one was for you. Hope you found the blog all right. Well, obviously you did, if you're reading it. Anyway, I was dreaming vaguely in French when I was jolted awake to realise I was being asked something. I think I got away with it, though. Basically, none of us are at our sharpest in this particular lesson. On with the anecdote.

Anyway, it didn't really improve after that.

T: You should all know the basic animals right now. Tell me, does anyone here know the word for 'skunk'?

CLASS: No. [Well, we didn't actually say no, but our bemused silence conveyed this answer accurately enough.]

T: It's 'mouffette'.

STUDENT: Wait - skunks actually exist? I always thought they were made up!

Three years of the French language - not to mention between fifteen and sixteen years of life, it varies between us - and this is how far we've come.

Luckily, we were feeling a little quicker by the end of the lesson. This was proved when we were asked to translate some sentences about a spaceship ride at Le Futuroscope (a French theme park).

T: Right. [Picks a student randomly.] Can you read the first sentence, please?

STUDENT (S): Well, actually, I have a problem with the first sentence. It says here that on the ride, it will seem like you are moving faster than the speed of light.

T: And what's wrong with that?

S: Well, if you moved faster than the speed of light you'd vaporise and turn into energy. How about 'On this ride, it will seem like you are moving at exactly the speed of light'. I think that's close enough.

One can say many things for the French language. I'd always assumed, however, that one of the things you couldn't say about it was that it was easy to confuse with Physics. Boy, was I wrong.

Of my friends, the only other one to study French is Giuseppe - Peanut speaks pretty much perfect French, thanks to spending parts of her childhood in Vietnam and Burma, but doesn't study it at school. Peanut's pretty interesting, actually, she's got a kind of pseudo-American accent after years at international schools, although she hates it if you imply she's American. Anyway, I often wonder if I'd have been better off taking Japanese, the other language the school offers. Except I'd be up against some pretty fierce competition. Chinny tops the year in it, which is quite unfair, considering her Maths skills. Not to mention her Grade 8 piano, or wherever she's up to. How does she find the time? Gwen does Jap as well, and by all accounts she's pretty good (although I do better in French than she does in Jap. Yes, it's not even the same subject, but please let me count this as a win. She beats me in everything else. We had our first Physics test today, and I assure you, there is no way I'm going to beat her in the subject after that). Marie-Clare and Ness also take the subject, although I think one of the reasons Marie-Clare likes it is because her Year 11 love, the one she has never spoken to, the one we shall call 25, studies it.

I'd like to take a moment now to deviate from the subject of languages. No, Marie-Clare has never spoken to 25. We have been supportive friends and given her ample opportunity. Well, not opportunity as such. Ness has tried to introduce them - by yelling 25's name when he, Marie-Clare, and her are the only ones there, then hiding when he looks around, so he only sees MC. Giuseppe has gone decided to go down the route of chance meetings. She is attempting to engineer one between the persons in question by pushing Marie-Clare into 25's path whenever he passes. Frankly, it's not working. She tried it three times once, in the same day, and Marie-Clare missed him each time. Perhaps they're charged, like magnets, so they can never go near each other. Anyway, as I was saying, supportive friends all the way.

Actually, as you may have gathered from this, we're not being terribly supportive at all. It's very easy to knock, as Stephen Fry once said. As in, it's easy to make fun of people: the hard work lies in sympathising with them.

And those words are as true now as they day they were first said (somewhere back in the early 1990s). It is incredibly, ridiculously easy to knock Marie-Clare's affection. Fun, too. But where was I?

Oh, right. Apart from anything else, I doubt I could be a Jap student. There is almost a silent war going on between the two language courses. They go to Japan and visit Hello Kitty World. We go to France and see Chateau Chenonceau (not that I was there, but some of the students did). We get croissants, they get sushi. We make crepes. They make strange pork dumplings. The rift in the lute grows wider with each passing day.

And so, to we devoted language students, people like Falcon are really pushing it.

(Note: to anyone who actually knows Falcon, and knows what his real name is, I will explain the nickname another time. If I explained it now I'd have to tell you his real name, which would totally defeat the point.)

Falcon managed a trip all through France and England - without seeing any of the comedians, which to my mind, almost defeats the point of visiting England - without knowing any more French than 'Ici, garcon!' to call waiters. I quite like Falcon. I once made a bet with him. He offered up a Zappo, and I, having troubling thinking of anything that would be equal value, offered up an invisible hat. I won. I let him keep the hat anyway. He wore it all day, and later assured me he was disappointed nobody complimented him on it. Anyway, Falcon managed this fantastic trip, with nothing worse happening to him than contracting food poisoning on the flight back home (actually, come to think of it, that is pretty bad. He seemed optimistic, though). His only advice to me regarding his trip was not to eat noodles in the Hong Kong airport lounge. Also, make sure French people know you're Australian. Otherwise they'll assume you're English. And with their history of painful inter-country wars, they're never thrilled to offer hospitality to the English. Apparently they're charmed by Australians, though.

Still, it's basically a kick in the teeth to us language students. He got back and, I swear, actually knew less French than when he'd begun. Which makes a point, really. Why learn a language at school when you can get by without one, and get through school itself without a bitter rivalry forming between you and other language students?

And, having considered all the available arguments, there's really only one decision I can make. Sure, French may be less useful than other subjects. You'd learn more in Food Studies, or Commerce, or Music, or Media (which is my other elective). But considering all of this, one final, rhetorical question really decides my answer:

If I stop doing French, where will I be able to sleep?