Rozhovor s Australankou - Francouzskou Madeleine o tom, jak se vyrůstá v bilingvní rodině, kde táta mluví anglicky a mamka francouzsky. V jakém jazyce se jí zdají sny, v jakém si ráda zanadává, v jakém raději čte, co má nejraději na Austrálii a co zase nesnáší na Francii.
Rozhovor s Australankou - Francouzskou Madeleine o tom, jak se vyrůstá v bilingvní rodině, kde táta mluví anglicky a mamka francouzsky. V jakém jazyce se jí zdají sny, v jakém si ráda zanadává, v jakém raději čte, co má nejraději na Austrálii a co zase nesnáší na Francii.
Welcome to the English-speaking group with Kudrunat Holko. My name is Pavlina and every week I will talk to my parents from all over the English-speaking world about various interesting topics. I would also like to mention one thing If you really want to practice and improve your English, on my page on patreonpatrioncom you will find a complete list of the following conversations, with meanings, phrases and everything else that is worth knowing. Thank you very much for the channel we can start.
Speaker 3:Thank you for my lockdown activity Perfect.
Speaker 2:So well. Today, the topic is crazy interesting because we're going to talk about being 100% bilingual. And that's what you are, right? Yep, okay, yes, the correct term I actually googled that would be simultaneous bilingualism, which is a form of bilingualism which happens when a child becomes bilingual by learning two languages from birth. So we have to say before we start that your mum is French and your dad is British, yep, and then you were born in Australia, correct? And then you came back to France, right? Yep, I came to France when I was five. Okay, so you do have triple citizenship.
Speaker 3:Exactly, I have French Australian and then I was granted British when I moved to England sorry, through my father.
Speaker 2:Really good now, in the times of Brexit. I got it in 2016, in June, coincidentally, Well, how does it feel to be this kind of you know, world citizen?
Speaker 3:I think when I was younger it was really cool. I was stoked that I could speak two languages and it was kind of like people would see you a bit exotic. I think nowadays everyone's a bit global in my way and it's going to keep going that way. Like with people travelling and living more often abroad than not, like these kind of like family multicultural connections are quite frequent. I would say so when I talk about it with my little brother and sister who were 10 years younger than me, they're like oh yeah, like we can all speak two languages, like we're all multicultural, like you're not special.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I mean, you were like, for example, you know, in my case, like I did have to learn everything, whereas like it's a completely different thing to your case because you were, you know, like you were taught French and English right from birth. Yeah, so my first question would be an important one In what language do you dream?
Speaker 3:I get that one a lot and I dream in both and it entirely depends on who's in my dream and what I'm doing. I would never naturally speak English in a dream if I'm with my French friends. Yeah, I think it just happens organically that my dreams kind of manifest themselves as if it was reality. So I would only ever speak a language with whom, the language that I share with the person in my dream. If I happen to not know people in my dream and it's just all made up, I think it would probably be English. But honestly, these are so hard to remember.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You forget your dream the second you wake up. But I assume it's English because, although I'm bilingual English was my very, very first language.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it makes sense. So do you use each one of the languages for different type of activities, or you just don't care? I mean, do you prefer, for example, reading or writing in French or in English, or you just don't mind?
Speaker 3:I don't mind those, because I was educated throughout my whole life, until university, in both languages. So on an academic scale I had to read and write essays, and all of that in both English and French. So I would say they're on an equal level for me.
Speaker 2:I'm jealous just a tiny bit, but your English is spot on, but it will never, ever be the same as your English.
Speaker 3:If I can make you feel any better. I went to university in France for my bachelor's and I was considered. I was enrolled with French citizenship, as a French person, so everyone was obliged to do a Cambridge test too. It was just part of the university course and because I wasn't considered Australian because of what's down on paper, I had to do this exam and I didn't even get top grades. And it's my mother tongue. So don't beat yourself up. A lot of it has to do with my Australian slang, like I think maybe my examiner thought that I was making a little bit up, but I even failed my mother tongue test, so don't beat yourself up.
Speaker 2:That's hilarious, though, and so if you were to watch, let's say, a Czech movie, what subtitles would you put? Whichever were available?
Speaker 3:Okay, it's likely that it's English too. Most of the time, the English would always be available, so I'd naturally turn to that, but if there was French, I think it would have mattered. It would depend to where I'm watching the movie with. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you ever start a sentence in French and finish in English, or vice versa?
Speaker 3:Well, I would only do that if I was with someone who understood French and English as well. I think it would be a bit tricky if I was conversing with someone who was English and I just started speaking French, then I think they would be a bit put off by that. But I was raised in an international background, so I don't just mean like my family, but I went to an international school from primary school through high school. So all my friends in my class were in some shape or form kind of like me, like half Canadian, half French or half, you know, american, half French. So we all were in the same boat, so we could just switch back and forth constantly in the middle of sentences.
Speaker 3:Because the misconception with people who are bilingual is that people are like, wow, they're so good at both languages and they're 100% this and they're 100% that and it's so impressive. But the fact is that bilingual kids can either speak perfectly one language or the other, because they simultaneously agree and suck at the language at the same time. Like I don't know all words in English and I don't know all words in French, and that's what forces me to have to slot in French words in the middle of an English sentence and vice versa, and I do it sometimes with my boyfriend, but he also doesn't understand, so it ends up just blocking a conversation instead of ennobling it.
Speaker 2:Oh good, so you say that you don't maybe know all the words, but then I do remember I met your ex-boyfriend and he was this nice guy at Ward from Paris, and you spoke obviously French to him because he was French in your half French. And I remember vividly asking him, I was like, so you know, when you speak in French, does she have, you know, a tiny bit of, maybe, an English accent in her French? And he was like no, no, not at all, she sounds 100% French. And I was like, maybe he said I remember he said it maybe there's a tiny bit of Southern French in your French that's a regional accent, because I'm from Germany.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but he said that you sound fully French and I was just like it's so impressive and I'm so jealous because I can just see myself with all those English grammar and vocab books.
Speaker 3:It makes you feel better. He used to mock me a lot about my accent, because I have an accent from Toulouse, which is the South, and it's really not. I mean to lose people. If anyone from Toulouse is listening to this, they won't be happy to hear this, but it's really a non-sophisticated accent. I'm not proud of it, is it?
Speaker 3:like a redneck French or it's not redneck French, I would say that would maybe be like Marseille. It's slightly like unsophisticated, like it's a bit more rural, if that makes sense, a little less like a fancy posh French that maybe Parisians would have or people from Bordeaux.
Speaker 2:But obviously a guy from Paris would mock anyone.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think Parisians just like to mock. In general, I think it was a mess. Of course it would be something else.
Speaker 2:Well, and also like you once told me this story that you really like to use the phrase at the end of the day in English, meaning like you know, when everything is taken into consideration, like at the end of the day, I managed to succeed, or whatever. Yeah, do you maybe want to finish the story how it was?
Speaker 3:We call these fours and in French it means false friends. When you literally translate something that makes sense in one language into the other and it has a completely different meaning in the other language. And I always do that with at the end of the day. I don't know why I love saying that it's not even that nice in the sentence, but I'll always play at the end of the day it worked out, or at the end of the day like it's not a big deal. And so I literally translate that in French to à la fin de la journée, which word for word is at the end of the day, like during night or yeah, like I'm literally talking about the end of the day, but like it'll be like I don't know 2am or something like that. And I'm like at the end of the day and all my friends like what are you saying? Like it really does not. They're like what day are you talking about? What end is this? I don't understand what you're saying and I'm like ah shit.
Speaker 2:Has there ever been a different example, when you just completely mix things up?
Speaker 3:Yeah, another one that I do, I would say, almost daily, is I mix up the word eventually and I say eventually in French, and they have two different meanings. So I think eventually kind of has the same as at the end of the day, vibe. It's kind of like it eventually worked out, like at the end of the day it worked out. And in French eventually means like perhaps it doesn't. It's kind of like, oh it's, we had planned to go to the park today but it's raining, and then you would say eventually we could go to the movies instead, or something like that. And I say it not in the correct way.
Speaker 3:I'm like oh, eventually, things worked out, or at the end of the day and my friends are like I really think that it doesn't mean what you think it means and I know it and I know that I'm wrong and I've been pointed that out all the time, but it's so ingrained in my like my way of speaking that I just think I'm never gonna grasp that I have to let that one go.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's so funny and also like we have a mutual friend ID and we actually recorded an episode some time ago. So she was born into Hong Kong parents in Canada, but then she was raised in New Zealand, so she sees herself as a Kiwi, as a person coming from New Zealand. So when people ask you where you from, you tend to say you're a French, australian, right? Yep. So does it mean that you see yourself a bit more French than Australian?
Speaker 3:Honestly, I that's a question I just don't know like I have. I've always been a foreigner in each country, so I identify as both, in the sense that in France I was always the Australian and in Australia I'm always the French girl. So I'm never fully one or the other, and I think that stems a lot from how people see me rather than how I feel. I think a lot of your identity is like well, mine at least is I'm French Australian, because no one's accepted me as fully one or the other, even if I don't like push anything. They just make their assumptions and I tend to go along with it.
Speaker 3:And at the beginning I was kind of like oh, I don't know where my roots are and I don't know where to ground myself. And now it's just like oh, it's kind of cool, I guess, like you get used to it and like it's not like. I used to see it as like I want to belong to something and I want to be seen as a full, like to be a part of something fully, and then actually like, with some hindsight, as an adult I'm like actually, no, it's a, it's a privileged position to be in, absolutely so yeah, I mean you just responded to my next question because I wanted to say, like you know, for me it's just easy.
Speaker 2:You know, parents are Czech, I was born in the Czech Republic, my first language is Czech, so obviously I have to identify myself as a Czech. So I do understand what you're saying and I mean it is very cool. And, like you know, you're a passport holder of three different countries. For goodness sake.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I definitely don't identify as British, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:And what do you like and hate most about Australia and France?
Speaker 3:I don't love that Australia is so far from everything. I do love Australia and I think that there's something really great about how Really I know it's like a like a super big stereotype about Australians that they're just so chill, but they really is a beautiful balance between your professional life in your private life that works and like this really nice symbiosis, and you're surrounded by so much nature and that's beautiful. But you are on the other end of the world on an island.
Speaker 3:Yeah so you go there and then you can't really leave unless you've got lots of money. Yeah, traveling and mobility is really tricky. That's what I love about being in Europe Is that you could literally just drive two hours and or four hours or whatever, in any direction and potentially cross a border in France. Oh I, I don't know. I think maybe it's more specifically Parisian thing, like what we were saying when we were talking about Edouard. But like I didn't love being in Paris, I.
Speaker 3:Think it's a very individualistic city. It's very Prenetic and people aren't really looking out for each other. I would say Um, and I know it's a also a stereotype, but I do think that I have enjoyed Cities like London and Berlin mall, because it's more of a community, even amongst a big city, whereas Paris is really like no one looks up, no one smiles, no one's looking around them.
Speaker 2:What do you like about France? And we have to say, your mom lives in Paris, so you, you know Paris by heart.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know Paris quite well and my friends from university also all move there. It's kind of the natural thing that you move towards the capital after studying Sure, I do. What I love about France is the province. I mean. It's a really diverse country with, like, the sea and the mountains, and it's like and I grew up in the south, right next to the mountains and right next to the sea.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, and did you find it easier to learn a third language German?
Speaker 3:It was a tricky experience, but it was. I think it might be the same for you with Swedish is that when you're learning the language, a language when you're actually living In the country that speaks that language, you can immediately put into practice what you learn, and I think that that really was helpful for me. I can imagine learning German if I had done it from like England or something, I wouldn't have had the same positive outcome and I have. I mean, it's its own language, german, but a lot of the roots Kind of resemble English roots, so you can kind of like figure things out even though you're not a hundred percent sure what something means, and At the same time there's a lot of French influence in In German. So I feel like both of these languages have helped pronunciation and understanding.
Speaker 3:And in what language would you want to talk to your kids one day? It's such a tricky one because my boyfriend's Latvian. So in the hypothetical that we have children, I would want, on my end, my kids to learn English and French because it's important to my identity. He evidently would want our kid to learn Latvian and hypothetically we would be living in Germany. So that's a bit of a tough ask for a child Just a tiny bit to juggle all of that. I think it's the same for a lot of countries, not just Germany. But I think that, like you can kind of set English aside, I feel like it's a given that a lot of people in at least in Western countries would just learn English anyway. I think the schools teach it. Tv movies, they're all like they're not all obviously, but like the mainstream ones are mostly English spoken. I think like eventually my kid would just learn English anyway. So I wouldn't really put a huge focus on that. I think I would maybe try and push French a little more than English?
Speaker 2:And have you noticed that being bilingual actually helps you with other things like, I don't know, multitasking or problem solving? That's your brain word double.
Speaker 3:With multitasking and stuff. I don't know that it's ever come in handy, or at least not in a way that I've noticed it. It's definitely helped in terms of like communicating with people that don't share a language with me. I think that, yeah, we were in Italy and I don't speak Italian at all, but like I just kind of made it up along the way, taking from French and stuff like that, and you kind of figure things out and we share the same kind of hand gestures and like physical way of communication, and that's always turned out handy. But for actual practical things like work or whatever, I can't say that it's really helped in a way that I have noticed.
Speaker 2:And does your personality stay the same in both languages or, like, do you turn into like a sexy French woman when you speak French and then into like this really cool, you know, and relaxed Australian chick when you speak English?
Speaker 3:I actually have a different voice in both languages, so it actually like you're not far off. It's quite true that my Australian accent is I have a low voice in general, it's quite, yeah, quite low, and so my English accent's like really like ugh, yeah, like kind of low, kind of low, kind of all that. But my French accent's a little more high pitch and softer, so I sound of what would be traditionally more feminine, I think, and so I take I think, because of the way I sound, I take on a bit of a softer, like softer comma, like identity, and with English it's a bit more like oh, whatever, I don't care, like say what comes to my mind, and one day you'll you're going to read a bedtime story for us in French, even though we want to understand.
Speaker 2:And well, I remember asking you, right before I gave birth to my son here in Sweden, that if you ever felt there was any sort of like confusion in you, because obviously we are both, like both me and my husband were Czech and like he was born in Sweden, so I just wanted to know if there was. But we spoke about a tiny bit about the identity and stuff, but like, do you remember what you, what you told me?
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, about learning two languages as an infant. What you mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, more no more like like the, because she said something really nice about like the confusion in like within you. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I I don't know if that's what I said back then, but I do think that children are incredibly. They're like sponges I think that the earlier you start, the easier it is and really like babies and toddlers brains, they just like they're so malleable they'll take in anything you give them, and so I think that that kind of confusion I mean I don't remember a lot of my toddlerhood but I don't remember there ever being a struggle I think that just sort of happened organically and I think that it just gets harder the older you get. So I would, I would definitely want to start really early with my kids, because I feel like they wouldn't notice the hardship of learning languages at that age.
Speaker 2:And also you said something I'm like I'm not quoting you here, but you said something like that. You know we live in a world where it's just like beautiful to be open-minded and open-hearted. So you know it's, it's a nice thing to have right from the start.
Speaker 3:Oh, how nice with me.
Speaker 2:And do you think that having two cultures within you has, like, broadened your horizons?
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely yeah, I think that it's definitely made me. I mean just purely the fact that my whole family is on either side of both international as well. Like my, I'm half-half, but my dad is also half-half and my mum is half-half something else. So my mum is French, algerian, my dad is German, british.
Speaker 3:So they both also grew up with a family spread around the world with two cultures. So I've always had family to visit everywhere. I've had the ability to watch movies in different languages and learn languages a bit easier and be exposed to a little bit more of the world at an early age than I think. Maybe someone maybe someone like you who was who chose actively to leave Czech Republic because that's your interest and that was your personal goal, but not, it wasn't imposed on you by your parents. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:no, I'm just laughing here because, like, my dad lives in Prague and my mum lives in the south of the Czech Republic, so that's like.
Speaker 3:that's how I saw the world Exactly, and I think, I think that, like your, your desire to live in England and Sweden and all these things they stem from, from you and they weren't, like, influenced by your upbringing, I guess.
Speaker 2:Anyways, one last question, an important one also, is in what language do you swear and curse Both, both Okay?
Speaker 3:When I, when I play games and stuff like that, I'm kind of a sore loser and I get very competitive and in those contexts I swear in French. Okay, I think, if I'm just talking about something annoying in general, or if I'm just like I may be having an argument or something, I would flow towards English, but in game context my vulgar French side comes out.
Speaker 2:That's hilarious. Okay, well, thank you so much. Thanks for having me. No, absolutely. This has been impressively informative as well. So, thank you so much and well, I hope to see you soon when this whole craziness is over. Yes, me too. Let's hope for 2021. Absolutely, and thank you so much to you as well. And well, I hope to see you next week. Bye.