Francophone or not?

I learned how to speak French when I was 8 years old. My father did a post doc at the university in Poitiers, France for a year. He brought the family along. I was in grade 4 and my brother was in grade 1. I have no idea how quickly I learned to speak French. I remember, in the fall, not realizing I needed to memorize a poem. My teacher had to look up in a French English dictionary how to say, "By heart." However, at some point, it became more common place for my brother and I to communicate with each other in French than in English. We were bilingual by the end of the school year.

I eventually lost my ability to speak French fluently and with ease. By the time I was in university, my grammar was suffering, my accent had anglicized, and I was not able to follow conversations as easily. My brother completely lost his French, and never regained it. He had a traumatic experience upon our return to Canada and was punished in his grade 2 class for speaking French. In our school, core French started in grade 3. Unfortunately, we did not have access to a French immersion program.

I was still able to secure jobs requiring bilingualism even though my French was not up to par. Like with everything, I got better with practice, and a lot of things came back to me. Phrases would sound right or wrong to me, so somewhere in my brain I had the residual memories of being a Francophone. Learning how to speak Spanish actually improved my French a little, but it also confused me. I learned Spanish in Uruguay, and the following summer went to France for a holiday. I kept inserting spanish words into my french conversations. Quite frustrating.

What truly improved my ability to speak the language was making the decision to speak to my children only in French. Because I wanted them to have proper grammar, I would have to remember or look up the correct way to say things. We usually read to our children in French and the majority of the television and movies they watch have french language tracks. I also learn new vocabulary from my kids, especially my daughter who is in Senior Kindergarten.

I know I still make silly mistakes, and I mix up the articles (le, la, un, une) sometimes. My accent is a cross between France and Sudbury. It depends on who you ask. I like to think it is not as anglicized as it used to be. I hear some of the locals speak, and it sounds so much like they are speaking English. I prefer my accent to that.

I do have some issues understanding locals if they talk too quickly or use slang. I learned my French in France and I still have some residual vocabulary from that experience. I have adapted, and I try to use local expressions. You have to go with the flow. My Spanish changed when I lived in Mexico for a year. I started off with a lovely Castellano accent, but it eventually started sounding more like the Mexicans.

Still, I am sometimes hesitant to say I speak French or label myself as a Francophone. The word means someone who speaks French. That is me. However, I am not part of the Francophone culture. I am not sure if it would have mattered if we had grown up in an environment where we could have been able to speak French more often. My mom is from Trinidad and my dad is German (but he grew up in Canada). We probably would have still created the same family culture we ended up with.

My children are experiencing a franco-Ontarian upbringing. Their cultural experiences will be quite different from my own and different from their father's as well. We are not religious, so that aspect of the francophone community will not be a part of their lives. Just recently, I was thinking how both of my children were born in Sudbury. They are from here. They were born in a different place from me, as I was born in a different place from my parents. It will be interesting to see if they settle here, or move away and continue the trend.

 

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