The Language Barrier: An Eye Opening Experience

One of the most difficult things about my trip so far has been the fact that I don't speak French. I took Spanish in high school, so before coming to Paris I only knew a few key phrases like "Je ne parle pas français" which means "I don't speak French" and "Où sont les toilettes?" for "Where is the bathroom?" Although we had one French survival class where we were taught key phrases and were able to ask how to say specific things we had run into, an hour of French class is obviously not enough. I'm consistently lost when trying to do simple things such as a make a purchase. Just recently when trying to buy bananas, the employee ringing me up held up the bananas and spoke quickly in French. Because of the language barrier, I had no idea what was wrong. After awhile with a lot of hand motions, I figured out she was trying to say that I was supposed to weigh the bananas. When at a cafe, I tried to use my credit card to pay for a croissant. After a few minutes of attempted communication with the employee, I realized that my total purchase must equal a certain amount to use a card and I had to use cash.

Another time, I experienced difficulties while grocery shopping. Since many of the brands are different from the brands I'm used to at home, I've had to read the labels to figure out what the product is. However, I can't understand the labels either! Grocery shopping took me about 3 times as long as it should have because of this problem. I've also had problems at restaurants- I waited for about ten minutes at the table before the waiter had to use hand motions to convey that I was supposed to pay at the register.

I anticipated my lack of French knowledge would be a problem, but I didn't anticipate having this much difficulty when trying to complete everyday tasks like grocery shopping. This experience has opened my eyes to people in America who do not speak English or are not completely fluent- being in an area where you don't speak the language is hard! Oftentimes at home I would get frustrated if I tried to interact with someone who didn't speak English. Because of this experience, I am now prepared to have more patience with non-native English speakers.