"Bonjour"" doesn't always mean just "hello"

Quintessential Canada

Two weeks in Canada!    My mind is still whirling, thinking about the hospitable people that we met, the beautiful locales, and the language experiences that kept my brain well entertained.

If you have been following this blog, you may know that I had been trying to breathe some life into my knowledge of the French language before visiting Quebec and Nova Scotia.  My study of French has stretched over a lifetime, but it has been spotty and irregular, and never put to the acid test - actually communicating with a French speaking person.  So you may be asking the logical question, "Well, did you use any French on your trip?"

The answer is Yes and No. I understood quite a bit of French, but I spoke very little.  But isn't that what the language learning experts say we should do-spend a long period comprehending before we speak?   And my introverted personality feels very comfortable with that philosophy.

Stephen Krashen, noted language acquisition expert, describes a phenomenon that he labeled the "din in the head."  It is the sensation when you are comprehending enough input in the new language that you start to hear it in your own mind.  Beginning with the conversations of passengers lining up for the flight from Dallas-Ft. Worth to Montreal, I felt a change in atmosphere from monolingual English to bilingual English-French. Upon arrival, the Montreal Airport was a model of bilingualism, with announcements, signs, and conversations in two languages.  So many French learning opportunities, there for the asking.  Before long, the "din in my head" in French began.

Welcome/Bienvenue to Halifax

It was fascinating to see official bilingualism at work in Canada.  People who deal with tourists have a quick way of determining which language, French or English, you want to speak. They greet you in two languages ("Bonjour, Good morning") , and the one you respond in is what they use.

I always have to remind myself in foreign countries that I can't treat tourist situations like my own personal classroom. Those busy making a living are focused on getting their jobs done, not listening to my attempts to use their language or giving me a free grammar lesson. But how I longed to at least utter a few memorized phrases in French before I left Canada.  Surely I could say "Bonjour," "Merci beaucoup," or "De rien" to indicate that I am a language lover.  I must have been carrying that thought around in my subconscious.

It was 4:30 am and very dark on the train between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Quebec City.  The sleeping car attendant had given us specific instructions the night before.  He would wake us by knocking lightly on our door.  If we knocked back, he would know we were awake.  Our special stop at Charny was scheduled for 5:20 am. I responded confidently to the polite tapping on the door.

Early morning ablutions were a bit hectic (in a sleeper with a tiny bathroom- see below) when there was another knock on the door.

The train all purpose bathroom

Hey, wait a minute, my foggy brain said.  There wasn't supposed to be a second knock. Murder on the Orient Express came to mind.  Should I open the door?  I made a split second decision to do so.  

The polite sleeping car attendant said "Bonjour, Good Morning." I made the fatal mistake of answering "Bonjour," which meant I was given rapid fire very important instructions IN FRENCH that our train was arriving early and that we needed to proceed to an exit several cars down .  I caught the gist, but not the details. My husband Wayne would kill me if I didn't get the information right!  I had to eat humble pie and request the information in English.

But I am not deterred.  We have bilingual Canadian friends visiting us in El Paso in several months. I had better get to work on that French MOOC that I am halfway through.  À bientôt!

Oops!  Better know some basic French at this stop sign!

Siri goes cosmopolitan

Maybe Siri has always been cosmopolitan, but I just recently found out that the wise Siri not only knows all, but knows it in various languages as well.  In case you haven't met her, Siri is the virtual, personal, digital assistant available on Apple devices.

My family is the proud owner of a latest generation iPad (a present from my technology-talented son who said he wanted to  "keep the old folks in the technology loop").  The iPad has been in the family about 18 months now, and we are still trying to develop a friendly relationship with it.

Before I discovered the oral language talents of Siri, I learned that to write in a foreign language was a piece of cake on the iPad.  The keyboard is already set up with diacritical markings for various languages, like accent marks in Spanish.  If I need to write the Spanish surname Gómez, for example, the 'o' with an acute accent can be located by holding down the 'o' key and then tapping on one of nine 'o' choices with different markings. For the English writer who wants to throw in an occasional word in a foreign language, Apple has made it super easy to spell correctly.

Now you can use your iPad to complain that a linguistic term is recherché, brag about your new recipe for pâté de fois gras, or describe your vacation in São Paulo with complete confidence that you are showing the world you are a literate person.

Up to this point, I have not used Siri very often.  My husband Wayne talks to her all of the time, although  he gets really annoyed when she doesn't understand his Texas accent  Maybe me not using Siri is a gender thing.  Did I hear that the new iPhone 5S has a choice of male or female voices?   That brings us some interesting possibilities.

Recently I read that Siri speaks and understands several different languages.  My mind started whirling. How could I use Siri's cosmopolitan outlook not especially to get information but as part of my foreign language learning hobby?

Step 1 was to see which languages Siri knows.  I went to Settings, General, Siri, and Language to find the answer.  Nineteen languages are listed, some of which are dialects of the same language.  I was pleased to find, in addition to my native language English,  that Siri is conversant in French, which I have been brushing up on, and Spanish, which was my first foreign language. I didn't find Portuguese, which I used to teach. Too bad, because Portuguese is really fun to speak.

Map of Spanish-speaking countries

What caught my eye was that Spanish was listed with three dialects, Mexico, Spain, and United States.  I understood the separation of Mexican Spanish and Peninsular Spanish, but I didn't know that there were enough common identifying features of Spanish spoken in the US to warrant a separate setting.  Spanish in the US differs considerably from location to location.  Spanish spoken in New York City, for example, may differ considerably from that spoken in Los Angeles. And New Mexican Spanish may differ considerably from Spanish spoken in Colorado.  How did the Apple software engineers decide on which features to include in the Spanish-United States setting?

I also notice that Siri speaks French from Canada and French from France.  I'm not sophisticated enough in that language to hear the difference in the two dialects.  As a matter of fact, if I can get Siri to understand anything I ask in French, I will feel quite accomplished.  I hope she isn't secretly smiling at my unauthentic French 'r'.

Now I am intrigued with Siri and her language ability.  I'm going to try some simple experiments that I will be writing about in coming weeks.  Do you have a story about Siri and languages? Please share.

PLEASE NOTE:  Language Lover's Blog is going on vacation and will return on October 28.  See you then!