Flirting with French: How a Language Charmed Me, Seduced Me, and Nearly Broke My Heart

To me, French is the most beautiful language ever. I often laugh that if someone wants to say that they hate you in French, it sounds ever so romantic and sweet, whereas in some other languages (I can think of two), when they want to say that they love you, it sounds quite the opposite !Mr. Alexander describes the challenges of becoming fluent in a foreign language in one’s fifties. I can relate to that. Growing up and through most of college, French was a walk in the park for me. It only got a bit tough for me when we started studying French Literature.I’ve recently started brushing up on it after more than twenty-five years. I’m in my late forties and yes, sadly, I am finding it more and more difficult to retain it the way I used to. It’s really annoying actually, since it was so easy before! Mr. Alexander describes all the things he tries: classes, software, bilingual books, a French pen pal via email, even two weeks at an immersion retreat in Provence.He not only wants to learn French, he wants to be French. One of my favorite descriptions:“Sitting at the counter of an astoundingly good restaurant alongside an elderly Frenchman and his white miniature poodle, for whom he has ordered a bifteck, rare. The server, who speaks no English, is practically begging me to order an off-the-menu special, which, as far as I can make out with my mostly forgotten high school French, is either young milk-fed pig or young pig marinated in milk, or both. The server prevails, and it is, as he knew it would be, the best meal I have ever eaten.”All in all, this was a fun and delightful read. If you’ve studied French or if you’re into French culture, you may like this entertaining memoir. You may also like it if you’re interested in learning languages overall.

Anyone who's tried to learn French will sympathize with the trials and travails of the middle aged (fiftyish) author.He describes the stress of trying to learn French, interspersed with details of a heart problem that occurred at the same time. I’ll quote a few passages to give the flavor:“...my attempts to speak the language resulted in largely unintelligible exchanges with taxi drivers and waiters, during which I would say things like, “It sleeps very cold in the soup.”When asked his age: “I can’t state my age partly because the pressure has made the word for ‘fifty’ fly out of my head and partly because French has a numbering system that is only slightly less complicated than the Babylonian calendar.”Discussing a two-week immersion program in France: “Looking back, I’d say that whatever you come in doing, you leave doing a little better. Students who arrive speaking a little French leave after two weeks speaking a little more French. Those who come in speaking excellent French, leave speaking even more excellent French. As for me, when I came to school, I didn’t speak French. I still don’t speak French, only now I don’t speak it better.”His heart problems: “It’s bizarre,” Dr. Chinitz says of the arrhythmias I get only while lying down, a phenomenon I’d just reproduced in his exam room. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” There are not comforting words, especially coming from a man who’s done, by his count, ten thousand cardiac ablations.”

I loved it! Just the right combination of travel, language learning, humor, and real life struggles. I, too, studied French in High School and always wanted to pick it up again. I consider myself a life long learner and was encouraged by the authors passion and perseverance to press on. Also, just a very entertaining read!

This is a realistic, but at the same time a tongue-in-cheek, portrayal of a fiftyish adult's travails in trying to master a foreign language which in this case is French. Ah, the seduction of that language! So many victims. So many scarred survivors. It seems that the author attained a relatively limited amount of language skills enhancement, by his own admission, despite going all the way to France for a language immersion type experience. Age apparently is the critical factor. No amount of input seems able to fully surmount that barrier, that is, if I understood the author's analysis correctly, it seems unable to create appropriate neuronal connections in the brain for heavy duty tasks like fluent mastery of a foreign language if one didn't have some degree of fluency rather early on in life. Reading the details of all that is, well, a trifle disheartening. But there is a silver lining of sorts. Namely, that any serious attempt to acquire foreign language skills may increase cognitive skills despite the barrier posed by aging. I am beginning to think that studying a foreign language is about on par with doing crosswords or Sudoku. It can and does help, at least a little, if one wants to stay sharp. But try not to harbor unrealistic expectations. ;)

This book provides some cultural and language insights. It's fun to read about the adventures and struggles of learning a second language later in life. I've been studying French for about three years, making the author's experience completely relatable.

William Alexander has a great way of describing how he learns French. All the effort he is putting into it. It's very similar to how I go about too. And then to top it of by "going to Orleans", I knew exactly where he was having been to the same place only a few months ago. Loved the book, loved going back to Orleans and will definitely keep on learning French <3

J'ai aimé this book very much. Le writer est très funny. Il est americain. Les writers americains sont plus funnier que les writers anglais parce que they have un très relaxed style et ils n'overwork pas their jokes. Je learned beaucoup et je sympathised avec lui as je tried to learn l'italien et l'espagnol and je suis much older than him. Je didn't get anywhere either. Ah non - merde! J'ai revealed la fin. Pas de worries. La fin est très happy and je enjoyed spending du temps avec cet guy. Vous will enjoy aussi. C'est si bon!

As an English expat desperately trying to improve my schoolgirl French after 40 years of neglect, I found this book heartening and true-to-life. The author gives a warts-and-all description of his struggle to learn French in middle age. His attempts are interesting and very amusingly recounted and I found his experience reassuring: maybe I am not quite as slow/lazy/stupid as I had feared!

Redolent of my own unending flirtation and that of countless other francophiles, with la Langue Française! I especially enjoyed the numerous surprising educational elements related to both language learning and la belle France and meeting M. Alexander!Je vous remercie !

A very enjoyable tome about the trials and the rewards of learning a second language. The author goes into lots of fascinating side trips, such as the perils of machine translation or the genetics of language learning. The book is a love letter to France and to the French language and will be enjoyed by anyone who's ever thrown themselves into learning another language.The ending surprised me no end - I'll say no more.