HOW I LEARNED FRENCH BY IMMERSION ONLY

I'm reading a novel in French, when suddenly I come across the word cadavre. I know the word, which baffles me a bit in a sense - I mean, 'a corpse'? Where the heck did I learn that? To go back to the context where the word sounds the most familiar, my mind starts forming a word pair: cadavre... brulée. Cadavre brulée.

A burned corpse. Right. Slaying dragons in a video game in French for a year finally paid off.

Three years ago I didn't speak a word in French - well, that's a lie really. I had a beginner's course of French at the age of 16 (i.e. ten years ago), after which I was able to say merci, bonjour and s'il vous plaît. There we had it. All of my French. Then I met a guy who spoke French as his first language and everything was pretty much downhill from there.

So I moved to Québec, the only French-speaking province of Canada, with my vocabulary of merci, bonjour and s'il vous plaît. Again, a lie. I had another beginner's course in French just before crossing the ocean, after which I had added things like Je m'appelle Melissa and au revoir to my vocabulary.

These five phrases were pretty much all I had when I landed on Canada's French-speaking soil, ready to find a job and settle down. As history tells, all that ended well and I managed to work for the world-famous video game company Activision for a year. I went from Bonjour, je m'appelle Melissa to effortlessly reading the book you see on the cover of this post (Pays sans Chapeau by Dany Lafarrière) without ever studying French. How?

1. I PLAYED MY VIDEO GAMES IN FRENCH

As you can guess, someone working for Activision might enjoy playing video games. That's where I started. Whether it was an enormous open-world RPG or Spore, I switched the language to French. Obviously at first I had no idea what was going on, what's my quest, where am I supposed to go. But believe me, after you're told Tu vas mourir! ("You will die!") in the beginning of a battle enough many times, something will click. You start seeing the structure Tu vas in other places, like Tu vas aller là, "You will go there", and little by little you notice how making these links with different contexts in the game will reveal you what it means. After passing many enough STOP signs on the streets of Québec, screaming ARRÊT with capital letters, it wasn't that hard for me to guess what my enemies in the game wanted me to do when shouting Arrêtez! C'est assez! ("Stop! That's enough!")

Video games are pretty straight forward, in the end. They tell you to click a button, talk to a character, pick up an item. Seeing these instructive sentences in a familiar, repetitive context can help you build your vocabulary really fast: there are only so many things the game would like you to do when putting a sugar roll in front of you and telling you to press X to manger. After pressing X, you hear munching, and the sugar roll is gone. Could manger possibly mean "to eat"?

Don't enjoy video games? Try the same with something similar you like - you could start by switching your Facebook in French, or any other familiar website you frequently use. My phone was on French settings for my whole year in Québec, and I swear to god I will never forget the phrase Batterie faible, thanks to my wonderful, ancient phone who reminded me of that every five minutes after it went under a certain battery power percentage. Fun times.

2. I COPIED LOCAL PEOPLE

Every morning I came to work and sat down on my desk, my colleagues would tell me Bon matin! Now, matin is to this day one of the words I hate the most, but when you hear it every morning, you answer to it every morning, you get used to it. Eventually it becomes automatic.

Every lunch break I went to get take out to bring back to the office. The discussions with cashiers are always pretty much the same:

Cashier: Bonjour! Ça va?

Me: Bonjour! Oui, vous? Je vais prendre _________, s'il vous plaît.

Cashier: Manger ici ou pour emporter?

Me: Pour emporter.

... And so on. When you repeat this discussion with a slight variety every day for a year, in the end ordering food in French is the simplest thing. I listened to my colleagues a lot in these situations, trying to see what kind of questions they'd be asked, and what kind of answers they'd give to these questions. Then I went on and repeated the same thing. The same happened when charging my monthly bus card: I learned the phrase, repeated it once a month, and finally the 12th time was actually fairly effortless.

Locals know what they're doing - listen to them and see how they go, and every time you'll learn a new phrase or two. If you have native-speaking friends to help you, you're in good hands: there was this one time when after ordering my sushi the cashier suddenly said something I had never heard before. My colleague saw my desperate face and translated: "She's complimenting your earrings!" There we had it: boucles d'oreilles. Earrings.

3. I READ A BOOK WITH A NATIVE SPEAKER

That's only one of the hundred things I did with Alex to learn more words, but damn it's efficient. We bought me a fairly simple book, and I'd then read it out loud with my native-speaking spouse, stopping at every word I didn't know. He'd tell me the translation to every unfamiliar word, and correct my pronunciation when needed. The things I learned! By repeating, repeating and repeating the same words, getting corrected ten times over the same mispronounced phrase... By staying stubborn and learning from my mistakes I eventually read my first book entirely in French.

Reading a book isn't the only way, of course, and most definitely not the only occasion where I'd harras my French-speaking friends over unfamiliar words: signs I'd see on the street, phrases I'd hear them use often (C'est tellement drôle, "that's so funny" and an impressive cavalcade of swear words are forever burned in my spine), I took every occasion to ask what's going on around me.

Read, ask, repeat: the best possible way to learn a language on the go when school books are out of the question and your boss keeps sending you emails only in French. 

Now, there are a few things we need to recognise in the process of learning a language by immersion only:

First of all, you might not learn how to write. That's the case with me. Remember that boucles d'oreilles a few rows back? Yeah, I had no idea how to write that, I used Google Translate. I know the word like the back of my hand, it's "boucl dorei", but no one has ever asked me to write it down. I can't successfully conjugate verbs in future or past tense on paper, because they all sound pretty much the same. I don't always remember where the accents are when written, unless I can hear it from the word, like in the case of passé composé, where I hear the e and the end of the verb and know it needs an accent to be pronounced: mangé, sauté, aimé.

Secondly, learning a language by immersion brutally beats up any other language you speak while immersing. Want a proof? Check out these terrible inverted sentence structures in this post. Check out how I accidentally used the word "these" in my previous sentence - why? Because that's how it works in French! French is now forever imprinted in my head with such a strong bond that the moment I hear someone speak French on the streets of Dublin, everything I ever knew about English sails away, and I might accidentally answer to my English-speaking friend in French.

BUT: No matter how unstructured, chaotic, messy and tiring experience it might be, I would never give up learning French by immersion for learning it at school. I might not write well, I might not sound like your typical French-speaking girl after learning it with a bunch of guys, but damn right I'm not afraid to speak it. I didn't learn it perfectly, but there's more to it now than merci, bonjour and experct knowledge of passé composé. There's a real life aspect to it.

And about that cadavre brulée.You know that dessert, crème brulée? It's obviously burned from the top, burned "cream", crème. But burned what? Well, cadavre sounds like that death spell from Harry Potter, avada KEDAVRA. Kedavra, cadavre, my mind told me there's a link between these words. Since the spell is about death, it must be--

.... And that, folks, is how my polyglot mind works.

Have you learned a language by immersion? Any tips or tricks to add to my list? I was thinking of filming a small video of myself speaking in French to demonstrate how I sound. Would you like to see it? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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SPEAKING ENGLISH - BUT HOW?!

You know how sometimes when travelling, upon opening your mouth and ordering your food in language X, the waiter looks at you for a while and then proceeds to ask "Where are you from?" or "That's a funny accent, where did you get it?" Well how about when that happens every day?

English and I have been happily married for the past 2 years - it easily deserves the status of my primary language of communication. To anyone who has ever wondered how often I speak Finnish in my everyday life, the answer is never. I somehow never end up skyping with my friends or family, so six months can easily pass without me saying even a word in Finnish out loud (excluding all those awkward moments when a foreign friend wants me to demonstrate how it sounds like, in which case I usually say "hääyöaie" and watch their smile instantly melt away). But as someone who spent her youth watching American TV shows, pursued an exchange semester in the UK, worked for a year in Canada and then studied in Ireland, my English accent is nothing but consistent.

I'm a sponge. A linguistic sponge. I sound like the mutilated lovechild of all my previous homes, and even places that have never been my home (looking at you, USA), and there's nothing more simultaneously entertaining and uncomfortable than a native English-speaker trying to figure where this monstrosity comes from.

So now that I'm back at living in an English-speaking country, I've taken some time to think whether or not I should try and pursue the local accent. Some influence is inevitable, for sure. I already find myself pronouncing certain words with an Irish twist, and the rhythm of my intonation is really going through some growing pains (almost literally - I sound like a teenage boy trying to gain control over their own voice). However, I feel kind of embarrassed of trying to use local words - in Ireland, things are always just grand or just a wee bit weird. Is it too self-righteous to try and sound like an Irish?

There are, of course, some traits of the Irish accent I find hard to mimic:

1. Firstly, the R. For my entire life I've comfortably used the classic British, non-existent R, but suddenly I'm supposed to pronounce them? No effin' way. The worst part is it isn't even like the American soft R - it's something in-between the rolling R and the American R. How on earth do you make that sound?
2. Th. That sound. when you hear an Irish person say "that", you know what I mean. It's like their tongue is stuffed somewhere deep in their throat in the beginning, and then it just kind of emerges like a spring of some kind from the depth of the Irish mouth, and makes this super deep and sharp gzth. Jesus. I don't even know how to describe that.
3. Sometimes the letter E is O, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes U is E, but sometimes it's not. Depending on the accent, I think all Irish have a different interpretation on how to say these letters.
4. The Irish don't pronounce the G at the end of verbs. I'm gettin' a wee bit frustrated with this one. ("one" of course pronounced as something that sounds pretty much like "wune"...)

I love Irish English, and sincerely wanted to believe it would naturally grow on me after a while. Seems like that's not going to happen without some effort after all. I wonder what's different? In the UK it took me two weeks to catch up on the Midlands dialect, but now, after half a year in the Emerald Isle, I still sound like a weird mixture of French-Canadian, Finnish and God knows what else.

Is the accent even important? Should I just go with the flow and let my hybrid English get loose? Getting understood is, above all, the most important thing when speaking a second language - right?

Do you think it's important to adopt local dialects? Or does it come out as a bit pretentious? Should non-native speakers always strive for the local accent? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO IRISH SLANG

Irish people are known for drinking, witty humour and their lovable branch of English. Some have even argued that Irish is the sexiest accent of them all. (Don't believe me? Read THIS article) But when you first land in Ireland and proceed to chat with the local folk, you might find yourself lost in translation: like any other dialect, Irish people have their very own bunch of slang words that might choke you in the midst of conversation. So here we have it: my English-Irish-English key vocabulary cheat list for anyone new to Ireland!

P.S. I live in Dublin. Some words might not work outside of the capital - you've been warned!

"GRAND"

"Grand" is an essential word to learn if you intend to communicate with the Irish. You'll hear things like "It'll be grand" or "That's grand love" in any casual conversation, and the proper answer to the question "How are you?" is of course "Grand" instead of "Fine". For the Irish grand doesn't necessarily refer to anything extraordinary or amazing, as one would easily guess. It's basically a synonym for good. 

"CRAIC"

So what's the craic with "craic"? The Irish might be heard saying things like "I don't get the craic of it" or "It'll be good craic". Craic comes from the Gaelic word, meaning "fun", and is basically an alternative spelling for crack. The Irish craic has multiple levels of intensity, so make sure to refer to the appropriate level of craic!

"DEADLY"

Don't get scared: when an Irish person approaches you and tells you look deadly, things are not getting hostile. "Deadly" is actually a synonym for all things wonderful or stunning. Anything from your hair to your purse to your new sofa complex can be deadly for the Irish.

"ANYWAY" / "ALRIGHT"

Speaking with the Irish is like living in a constant cliffhanger. Why? Because they tend to replace the period with a phrase like "anyway" or "alright". Like this:

"See you on Monday alright!"

"I'll be headin' to Tesco anyway."

"Wow! Your hair looks fabulous alright!"

And the advanced level: "Ya twill alright! I like to write everything down anyway. Tis good to have real copy's of things." (an actual message my Irish friend sent me on Facebook)

I have personally started to believe the Irish are afraid of closure. So don't wait for a proper ending for your discussion: it will most likely never come.

"CHEERS"

Well this is an easy one for those who have lived in the UK Midlands like me! Just like in Leicester, "cheers" is an essential word to add in your Irish quiver. The basic rule is to replace "Thank you" with "Cheers" in every situation. The bartender hands you a pint: cheers. Someone picks up the book you just dropped: cheers. Your friend sneezes: cheers (replaces "Bless you"). You can take this cheering a step further by using it as a goodbye too.

"THE STICKS"

No, not the band. "She's livin' somewhere down the sticks" basically means her friend lives outside of any known civilisation, in the middle of nowhere. Some Dubliners like to refer to anything outside the capital as the sticks.

"THICK"

Not the most flattering way to describe a person: "He's a bit thick" isn't a comment on his weight, but his intellectual abilities. Being called thick means someone is a bit stupid or unintelligent.

"FECK"

You know very well where this comes from. "Feck it", "Feckin hell". This can also be heard in its rounder variant: "Fock". "Well I'll be focked", with a long O, is an essential phrase all around Dublin. This word is especially important in traffic - roll up those windows, because it'll be comin at ya.

Any other words you have found useful or funny in Ireland? Let me know in the comments below! 

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Polyglot's Guide to Learning Languages

If there's one ace up my sleeve to impress people in my wandering life, it's my ability to speak six languages. I've turned from a Silent Sam to a self-functioning polyglot. But how did that happen? Was I bit by a venomous spider? Or was it all just hard work? Read my simple 5-step list to find out how to learn languages quickly and efficiently!

We all have a different set of factors to start with: whether we have a better long-term or short-term memory, what kind of teachers (if any!) we've had in the past, and how motivated we feel to learn a particular language. Even our own mother tongue can play an important role in our ability to master a new language: to this day I haven't been able to decide whether it's a curse or a bliss to have the odd-one-out Finnish as my first language, since it doesn't resemble any other language I've ever wanted to learn. Despite all these variables, speaking six languages has no magic involved - no matter how often they try to tell me so! It's not a gift you're born with. Don't believe me? Well listen to this:

I started studying English at the age of 9. Shy as I was, my first lesson didn't go as expected. We were supposed to introduce ourselves one by one by saying "I am (insert name here)". When my turn came, I choked and started crying. The teacher was merciful enough to let me skip my turn, and thus, I never actually ended up saying a word in English on my very first English lesson. Then life happened, and today, countless of hours (days and nights), years of studying, some English-speaking friends/lovers, months of living in multiple anglophone countries and an infinite amount of frustrations later, I consider myself a fluent speaker of English. It was not magic: it was a carefully harvested project filled with sweat, tears and at least 2 whole hours spent by repeating the word "zucchini" in front of an Australian.

After English a few other languages have tagged along, and now, as a 25-year-old, my linguistic quiver consists of six languages: Finnish, English, Russian, French, German and Swedish. I've also had a beginner's course in Mandarin Chinese, but let's not talk about that - so far the only thing I can still say is Zhè shì wǒ de míngpiàn (这是我的名片, "Here's my business card"). The project continues...

This blog post aims to share my tips on how you can achieve the same. Whether your personal project is to master Spanish as a second language or juggle six languages at once, I hope this list of useful techniques clinically tested on yours truly will turn you from a choking 9-year-old to a linguistic ninja pirate wizard. There will be no concrete advice to help you learn verb conjugation in Portuguese: instead, my list consists mainly on mental training and ways you can improve your own mind-set towards learning a language, since my observations have shown that our own attitude is often what holds us back.

1. LISTEN TO NATIVE SPEAKERS

Native speakers are your key when learning a new language. Read what they read (newspapers, social media, books), listen what they listen to (music, radio and TV shows), and take every chance to talk with them. They usually know how to use their language properly, and even if not professional teachers, they're able to offer you an authentic approach to your target language. They can correct you on the spot if you make a mistake in your grammar or pronunciation.

However, when I specifically advice to listen to them, I mean it. And not only for the pronunciation: by listening to everything you can possibly find from singers to audio books to your Spanish neighbour, training your ear to be comfortable around that language is, in my opinion, a fundamental part of beginning to learn it. You can't magically absorb the language to your brain through your ears, but as someone who moved to a French-speaking country with close to none knowledge of French and who now considers French to be my third strongest foreign language without any systematic studying, I believe the daily exposure plays a crucial role in the learning process. Beginning to understand what is said is where it all starts: if possible, find a text and ask a native speaker to read it out loud for you, or find audiobooks with scripts. Actively bring the actual authentic language along to your studies from the very start so you won't get distanced from it as you advance in your studies. Learning vocabulary by reading is one thing, but learning real, spoken words is another.

I was once approached by a girl after my Russian oral exam carried out by a Moscowian girl. She had listened to me chat about my studies and interest for Russian literature with the examiner, and wanted to know where I had learnt to pronounce so well. Back in the day I had to ask myself the same question, but today I'm fully aware that my frequent trips to St. Petersburg 5 years ago might be to blame. I didn't speak a word in Russian back in the days. What I did, though, was sitting hours upon hours on the benches of Letniy Sad and strolling back and forth Nevskiy Prospekt all the way from the Winter Palace to Neva river. I didn't understand a word spoken or written around me, but I listened to them. And as I finally started my systematic Russian studies a year later, I knew exactly how Russian is supposed to sound like. Later on I added Russian news and music to my training material, and today I can happily listen to Vladimir Putin's annual presidential address to the federal assembly without much struggle!

TL;DR - Listen to everything you can find from radio shows to native speaking friends. Using authentic material to support your systematic grammar and vocabulary studies brings you at ease with being around the language and trains your ear to catch familiar words and phrases. You can start with children's TV shows, as the vocabulary is often fairly simple. Native speaking kids are also the best: merciless and fast to criticize, but sincerely eager to help!

2. REPEAT, THEN REPEAT AGAIN

You'd think this one is stating the obvious. To my experience, however, the importance of routine and repetition just can't be highlighted enough. I'm actively teaching English to a native French-speaker on a daily basis here in Dublin, and man can he be stubborn at times! The same mistakes happen time and time again even after telling him at least five times to put that S at the end of his plurals. Then I tell him ten times, but he still keeps saying "There is many cat in this city". And then, after twenty times and long after crossing the line of my patience, I hear him casually say: "Well luckily there are many restaurants around."

My heart probably missed a beat. I almost had tears in my eyes. He finally got it.

You don't learn a language overnight. You learn it by reading that list of irregular verbs, then re-reading it - and then re-reading it again. There are no shortcuts when it comes to grammar. I personally rely a lot on memorising tricks: as an auditive learner, I create little songs of word lists and then hum them in my head when a missing case is needed.

The thing is this: in order to become a fluent speaker you absolutely have to learn the basics. It's the cold hard truth. I promise you it all gets nice and cozy once you take your time and thoroughly learn those irregular verbs, case lists and whatnot. There will be a day when you wouldn't even question the irregular conjugation of the verb aller in French because it's so deeply burned in your spine that saying anything else but the right form feels like a serious offense.

TL;DR - We can sometimes be extremely impatient when it comes to learning languages. We want it all and we want it right now. However, before mastering a language we have to learn the basics. Take that list of irregular verbs of yours, tape it next to your bathroom mirror and read it through every time you brush your teeth. (And remember to concentrate while reading it!)

3. STOP TRANSLATING IN YOUR HEAD

You know that frustrating moment when you know just the right saying to brighten up an unfortunate event - in your own language? We've all been there. Translating your favourite aphorism word by word for a foreign friend just seems to make it sound even more confusing. (I'm looking at you, Finns: despite your numerous attempts, saying something "took off like from Esther's ass" doesn't make any sense no matter how you're trying to explain it)

I get it: the temptation of doing some on-the-spot interpreting from your inner native voice to your second language is huge. It makes you feel like you have more control over your sentence structures, and it gives you more time to really think what you want to say. It might also be easier for you to remember words if you think of them in your native language first.

Sadly, this is not how any of this works - at least if your goal is to become a fluent speaker of your target language. On-the-spot interpreting isn't only making your speaking much slower and more complicated for no reason, it also does some serious harm to your 2nd language grammar. As we know, not every language follows the same sentence structures. Your own language's peculiar order of words might make sense to you even after you've translated that whole phrase word by word from English to German, but for your target audience, that poor German fellow, that... thing you just said might just be the most confusing moment of the day.

When speaking a foreign language, think in that foreign language. As slow and frustrating as it gets, it's your only way of developing a comfortable relationship with a strong base with your second language. Walk around looking at things and name them in your second language in your head. Memorize phrases. And when the time comes and you're face to face with a native speaker asking about your weekend in French, take a deep breath and start that sentence immediately in French! Don't use any other language in between: by persistently going for your second language right from the beginning you become more at ease with using it, and it also trains you to speak it faster.

TL;DR - I was still translating from Finnish to English in my head when I moved to Leicester, UK. Needless to say, I often stuttered and took pauses when trying to explain my academic thoughts on Shakespeare's Hamlet while trying to translate that long, complicated idea from Finnish to English on the spot. Everything changed after I stopped and concentrated on constructing that academic thought in English from the beginning. I turned into a fluent participant of university-level English Lit discussions in a month.

4. DON'T BE AFRAID OF CONFUSION BETWEEN LANGUAGES

So you have successfully mastered a foreign language, and now it's time for another one? Right. You will soon witness the walls of your carefully nurtured language boxes crumbling down. Your Swedish box gets mixed with your German box. French suddenly starts to look exactly like Russian. Everything you try to say in Italian comes out in Spanish. What's going on? How do I stop this?

You don't. Your brain wants to deliver that message to your foreign opponent in any way possible, whether the words pop into your mind from the correct language box or not. It's highly likely that your first attempts of speaking your third language will end up a fiasco, and it's ok.

There's a fine line between mixing up languages and letting them softly lean on each other for support. At first it may seem like you're never going to learn to keep all these foreign languages in order and you'll be doomed to frequently embarrass yourself, but there's more to that. Knowing multiple languages will actually make learning new ones much easier, and the more you know, the faster you'll master them. My first attempts on speaking French after moving to Québec were a catastrophe, as all that came to my mind was Russian. However, after going on about my life in a French-speaking city I soon noticed how many words Russian has borrowed from French. That bliss! Many signs and warning plates soon made complete sense when I spotted words like étage (етаж, a level/floor) and magasin (магазин, a shop).

It will be a bit tricky at first, but with time you'll learn to keep your foreign languages in their rightful order. It's all about associating new words and phrases with the correct language: I immediately get triggered when I hear someone speak French, and suddenly it becomes immensely hard to continue my ongoing discussion in English. It's like Pavlov's dog.

TL;DR - I was 14 and doing my German exam when my teacher arrived behind me, pointed at my sheet and whispered: "Melissa, you're writing in Swedish." 11 years later I still occasionally mix up these two, but by combining my knowledge of both languages I can actually expand my vocabulary in both German and Swedish. Mix-ups happen - make the most of it!

5. DON'T STRIVE FOR PERFECTION - IF YOU DON'T WANT TO

Language is, above all, a tool of communication for me. It's not as much a part of my identity nor public image as it's a medium I use to get my message through. So next time you feel too self-conscious to open your mouth and speak a foreign language due to your insecurities related to your non-native level pronunciation skills, STOP.

If your goal is to train yourself that perfect BBC-Oxford-David Attenborough British accent, by all means go for it, but not wanting to have that accent is perfectly ok too. Don't keep yourself from speaking a foreign language because you feel like everyone else around you speaks it much better and has an accent much closer to a certain native speaker dialect. Concentrate on coming to comfortable terms with speaking that language at first - and later on, when speaking it starts to feel fluid and natural to you, you can finally take on that challenge and start practicing a consistent style of pronunciation.

Having a native-level accent in your second (or third, or fourth!) language is not a merit in itself. Being able to become fully understood and deliver your message without misunderstandings or confusion is. I'm not saying you shouldn't practice pronunciation - of course you do, it's a fundamental part of learning to speak a foreign language. But remember to stay merciful to yourself. Don't become so self-conscious of those little hints of wrongly rolled R's that it keeps you from trying.

TL;DR - It's perfectly ok to reach an agreeable level of pronunciation and concentrate on becoming a fluid speaker instead of striving for a native-level accent. Too many times I've heard (especially) native speakers bashing a foreigner's accent, saying "He speaks perfect *French* but there's this little hunch of something in his nasal that gives him off..." My message to you is: SO WHAT?

Is there something else you would've added to the list? Or do you need more help with your language project? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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HIS STORY: THE CANADIAN BEHIND THE SCENES

During my blog's history I have been going on and on about myself: my experiences as an immigrant in Canada and as a part of a multicultural couple. But how about the other side of the coin? How does all this work out for the Canadian underdog, the boyfriend - or "un chum" as they say here in Québec? I asked Alex to write me a guest post about his experiences as the receiving side of this multicultural chaos.

~ * ~

Hey, this is Alex. Melissa asked me two things lately. The first thing was to start using her name. So that’s one down right off the bat. The second thing was to write a post for her blog to tell my side of the story. That’s the harder part.

What is it like to have a foreign girlfriend who came to your country to spend your last year of university with you before you both leave for a third country?
At first, it feels absolutely awesome. After all, this girl moved all across the world to your unknown city in your boring country (Melissa arrived before Trudeau made Canada great again), just to spend her time with you, just to wait for you to be ready to leave. Sure there are other reasons, but she chose that specific place on the planet for you. That’s love. It feels good, I felt like a winner.

Under Pressure
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it sours afterwards, but other feelings start taking over. One in particular is pressure and stress. Sure she came for you, but now you have the pressure of making it worth her while, especially after the horror that was the application for the visa. She is not going to spend her whole year on the sofa playing Skyrim, but finding a job in Québec when your French is less than stellar is no easy task. At first I tried to entertain her by playing the tour guide on my days off. But there are only so many things to do in Québec. Plus, she might tire of hearing me speak of Champlain and the British conquest of Canada. Everyday that she said she was bored, everyday that she didn’t think she could find a job, it was on me, or so I felt. I started regretting not choosing Montréal for my studies, hell, I even found myself wishing I was an Ontarian (blasphemy!) just so she could find a job and make friends more easily. And then came that day when she got a call for an interview and nailed the conversation on the phone (in French). And just like that, the pressure left because Melissa can get a job in this French speaking city that won’t raise the finger to integrate its immigrants.

Alex in Suomelinna, Helsinki, Finland

What it is like to speak English at home all the time while living in a French speaking city?
Technically, it is very easy in the sense that speaking English is not a problem for me, it comes quite naturally albeit certain mistakes I might do once in a while. It’s when I have to go back to French that it becomes confusing as I think and even dream in English most of the time. It somehow feels less natural, a little bit wrong as well. I sort of feel like a kid doing something and being super excited and nervous at the thought of getting caught. I have been working in retail and it has happened that I got lost in my train of thoughts and answered to them in English before realizing where I am and putting my brain back in francophone mode. That is what speaking a secondary language all the time does, it makes you get confused when you go out. It also makes me have a very practical relationship with languages, French has lost a bit of its romantic aspect.

Lost in translation
Speaking English in Québec city can be really confusing, but it is still much easier for me than for Melissa as I can switch back to French, even if I have to think about it. I may not have to do it anymore as she understands almost everything, but at first I had to translate absolutely everything. I felt like it was my responsibility to help integrate. So I did my best. I did not mind doing it but if I have to be really honest, I have to admit that it was extremely tiring. It demanded I constantly talk a little over everyone, and that I make sure that I remember everything they say almost word by word.

It somehow felt like I had two brains and that they had to both work at the same time, one listening and transmitting the information to the second one who would then repeat it in English. It took me a lot of energy. The worst part was that I could not really take part in the conversations either as I was too busy repeating everything to formulate a thought of my own. I am happy I did it, as it made Melissa know what was going on and I know how it is to be awkwardly sitting in room filled with people speaking a language you don’t speak, but I now have a much better understanding of the reason why translators have to go through so much more than just language classes. Translation is a completely different way of functioning.

Cultural differences
Melissa already mentioned it: there are quite a few differences between our two countries, even if we are both hockey-loving alcohol-drinking nations from the north. But our roots are extremely different, we are French, English, Native American, American and none of that at the same time. This has caused fights that were only caused by either one or both not understanding the other one, fights that were caused by simple confusions during our relationship. These fights are often solved by the sentence ‘oh, I see now’. But most of the time, I do not really think about those differences, I feel like they are extremely minor, at least their effects on our values and beliefs are minor. I don’t think she agrees with me on that one, but we currently live in my country, so there are a lot of things that she notices, confuse her, bother her, that I won’t think about. Perhaps my vision of this will change once we are living in Dublin, but currently I don’t think cultural differences are an issue, at least not to me.

Québecsplaining and introspection

The Finnish family on a visit in Québec

One thing you don’t always realize as a local is the way minorities are treated. There is a stereotype that Québeckers are super warm and welcoming, and I believed it. But I was sorely disappointed. A lot of my friends made huge efforts to speak in English when she was there so she would understand (and so I wouldn’t have to translate everything) and I was super thankful for them. But then there was all the others, the one who would make a point of not speaking English. The ones who wouldn’t try, the ones who would harass her with the question ‘How’s your French?’. I found myself constantly having to do so much Québecsplaining (I came up with that just there and I’m so proud of it), trying to either excuse the behaviour of everyone, that constant threat that a lot of Québeckers feel for the status of English, and the fact that her English being so damn good was actually a nuisance as most people would just assume she is an English Canadian who never made the effort to learn French (to be fair, there is a lot of them).

Living with someone with a culture that is just slightly different from yours forces you to reflect on a lot of cultural traits of your nation that you never would have thought about questioning. I do question our parliamentarian monarchy as a broken undemocratic system, and other big cultural traits like that, but I would never have thought of questioning the love that we have for our particular brand of French. Nothing makes you realize how ridiculous or weird something is like being asked to explain why you do it. How many times has my answer been ‘uh bah bah uh… I dunno’ when Melissa asked me ‘why does it work like that?’ when trying to teach her French.

You know what they say, travels make you know yourself more. Having a partner from abroad asking questions about your weird habits does the same. I could go into specifics and mention that we have a completely different food culture, from what we eat, to when to how often. But that’s just anecdotes. I feel like what having a partner from abroad does is give you the gift of introspection and self-critique. It gave me a window to Québec’s attitude towards immigrants, towards minorities. I had always been willing to welcome everyone who would want to call themselves Québécois, and I was convinced that was a trait shared by most of us. It’s not. And it’s a damn shame.

The miracle of a waterproof map in Venice, Italy

Nevertheless, it’s not all bad. Like said, a lot of things we do I never would have thought of questioning, because they seem natural to me and they are good. We may not always be welcoming of immigrants, but we are nice and helpful to each other, and once you are accepted, we are likeable. For instance, there was one time when I asked a neighbour if he would lend me his shovel for a couple minutes so I could get my car out of the parking lot. He lent it to me and I did what I had to do. Then I gave it back to him and he said he’d wait to be sure I actually get out. Melissa was amazed. First of all, I just casually asked him to help, he said yes, but even more, he waited because he cared. Melissa asked me why he would do something like that, why he would care about me as we do not know each other. The question baffled me as it never occurred to me that you could not do this naturally. Another time, her parents were there and we were in a restaurant, and they asked me where we learn to be so polite. I just couldn’t answer. It felt like it was just natural, why would we not help if we can and why would we not be polite if we don’t have a reason to be angry? As the late René Lévesque said on the night he became Premier, ‘We are not a small people, maybe we are something like a great people!’

Having a foreign girlfriend living in your country is a lot of things. It is stress and pressure, desire to make her love your city. It is also a lot of efforts, it changes your relation to your language, and causes confusing moments and many weird looks. It makes you question yourself and your culture, makes you see all of your wrong-doings, and it can make you feel like an outsider in your own city - but it can also make you see the nice things about it. Above all, at the end of the day, she still has proven to you how much you mean to her: she went through the personal hell and took a gap-year by choosing to come to live with you. Our relationship is far from a regular one. It faces problems most won’t ever have to face, but that doesn’t mean anything. Our relationship has survived things that would have broken most, and it just goes to show how deep and sincere it is.

What's up?

I'm an immigrant. I live the life of an immigrant, which is, for obvious reasons, rather different to the one I led in my dear old Finland.

Or is it really?

I've reached a point where I feel like my integration to the local society has come to a pretty comfortable state: I have a job, a bank account, a phone number, a bus card, a fidelity card for my nearby grocery store, I even do volunteer work for the local cultural centre every other weekend. I take the same bus 800 to work every day at the same time, at 7:33 from St-C.-Garnier to Univ. du Québec, work 8-16.30 from Monday to Friday, life has gotten really ordinary. There's a certain kind of excitement in living an ordinary life in an unfamiliar place, where your every ordinary day still feels like yet another adventure to the unknown. I step into the bus 800 at 07:33 and say "Bonjour!" to the driver, and everytime I open my mouth I'm afraid of how it will sound this time. Is my pronounciation of my nemesis, the letter "R", even slightly in place? What if my bus card has ran out of trips and I don't have 3,25 dollars to pay for my journey? What if today, when I'm going to the pharmacy to buy myself a new bus card, I forget how to speak French, or what if the cashier tries to small-talk with me again and I'll just look and feel stupid like I do everytime I don't understand the immensely difficult quebecois accent?

But outside of all these questions of my everyday life's little struggles, the life is really ordinary. I've gotten a few frequently repeated questions from people on the other side of the Atlantic, and instead of always answering something short and general to everyone, I'll do my best in answering these questions with a great attention to detail.

1. How's your French? Do you even speak it? I thought you studied Russian.

Now that you brought it up, yes, I miss Russian. Every muscle in my mouth wants me to speak Russian when I go on autopilot on the streets and someone suddenly starts to talk to me (because like said, that's what quebeckers do). Many times I've accidentally answered "Да", as many times as I've wanted to avoid the Rrrr-ed word "Bonjour" by going with the surprisingly more comfortable "Здравствуйте". To me, Russian is my The Foreign Language. It's the language I speak more or less, with occasional struggles though, the language in which I still have to stop and think a little of what I'm saying, but while listening to Putin's annual speech, I'm able to catch the drift. It's not like English, which I use comfortably enough to love in this language, or which I use to talk in my sleep nowadays. (these two aspects became poetically combined in a situation where I tried to stop Alex from going to work in the morning by grabbing his hand in my sleep and saying "Please don't go. I love you".) I'd still love to go and do an exchange semester or an internship in Russia to make sure I'll one day master the language I enjoy the most.

But when it comes to French, things get a little tricky. My love is not as sincere, it's even a little forced. I took 2 courses of French during my last year of uni and that's it - that was my level of French when I landed in Montréal. I've heard all these stories about people learning languages by immersion, and to be honest, I'd like someone to tell me how the fuck these people manage to do that.

I've come to terms with l'accent quebecois. I can handle the jaw that seems to be moving in ways that shouldn't be possible for the human physiology. I listen to them speak and I understand 50% of the things I hear if the said person speaks with a clear voice and loudly enough (i.e. mumbling to your stereotypically Canadian beard is not cool, guys). I'm able to make sentences if forced. I'm more afraid of speaking than actually not being able to speak, and it's impossible to say whether it's because of my own strive for perfection or my prejudice against French-speaking people being compassionate about foreigners trying to rape their language. At this very moment I'm still a little bit afraid to go to the pharmacy and tell the cashier "bonjour, je vais prendre une carte de bus, douze fois s'il te plaît". I often amuse people with my perfect pronounciation of the famous swear "tabarnak", while I still struggle with my favourite word, "aspirateur".

Dear French, I know you're not like Russian and you'll never be, but I want to get to know you. You sound nice but you're a shitty thing to pronounce. Give me some time.

2. Have you found work?

Photo from Activision.com

As a matter of fact, I have - for 2 months at least, since it's a temporary contract for now. I work for Beenox, a videogame company responsible for the development of products from Activision Blizzard. That's pretty much everything I'm allowed to say, since my obligation to confidentiality is close to the one of the FBI (which is also why there is no demonstrative picture). Most of my work happens in English, but my colleagues are native French-speakers (with an admirable level of English, merci my dear fellows). I really love it there. The days are long and at times I'm exhausted from all the concentration that comes with working in an environment with an advanced-level linguistic immersion, but I don't think I've ever enjoyed more being in a job where I have to face clear zero customers per day. Videogames are cool and Activision is cool.

Afterwards? No fucking idea, once again. Life is an adventure.

3. Are you still with Alex?

This is a funny question, and a bit on the private side too, but I'll answer it nevertheless. I understand your concern - I mean, we met on an exchange semester, spent 11 months in a hardcore long-distance relationship, and then I ended up moving halfway across the globe to be with him during the last year of his uni, so we could move together back to Europe next autumn. The odds are always a little against us, BUT. The odds don't overrun the fact that we still ended up being in a long-distance relationship for 11 months, during which the longest time spent apart was 4 solid months between January and May. It also doesn't overrun the fact that I have, after all, moved on the other side of the world.

I wrote a little love letter for him once at the end of our semester in Leicester. The last chapter of this little piece of poetry will serve as my answer to this question, despite the overly cheezy and possibly even a little embarrassing atmosphere I'm about to create by sharing it here. Brace yourselves:

   My life with you is a travel. You take me to an excursion to myself, you make me discover parts of me I didn’t know exist. I might have sat next to you on the rocky wall of that fort in Marseille, staring at the horizon of the Mediterranean Sea, the southern wind in my hair and salt on my skin, but of all the places I have seen with you, the things I find when I stare into your eyes are the most breathtaking of all.

 The answer to this question is Yes, Yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes like Molly on the last page of James Joyce's Ulysses. Yes, I am still with him.

4. Do you miss Finland?

The picture above would suggest that balancing in the nature is what Finland is to me. What Finland is to me, though, is a country that brought me up. I was raised in the Finnish cultural context, I've assimilated Finnish customs, I am a Finn. English might be the language that has been titled as my mother tongue more than once since I arrived to Québec, but I still, regardless of the situation, always count in Finnish in my head.

Before Leicester I thought Finland is boring. The culture is boring, the people are a bit boring too, the weather sucks and there's too much Iittala in every home. I wanted to get out really badly, swearing I'd never miss anything I left behind.

That was, of course, very naive of me. I enjoy the fact that I don't live there at this time, and I don't have any intentions in doing so in the near future. But moving abroad to broaden your own understanding of cultures, customs, people and life in general has never been the binary opposite of appreciating where you come from. I'll share a little concrete example here in the form of a discussion between two approx. 13-year old Finnish girls I once overheard in a tram in Helsinki (I assume they were students from the nearby international secondary school) after I had just returned to Finland from my 8 months in Leicester:

Girl A: So uhh, are you like completely a Finn or are you from somewhere else...?
Girl B: No, I'm not a Finn. I'm 1/16 Finnish-Swedish.
Girl A: Really? That's so cool! So like, do you speak any Swedish?
Girl B: Yeah, I can say "Jag heter...", it's like "My name is". and I can say "Hej!" and "Tack!"
Girl A: That's so awesome!
Girl B: How about you, are you a Finn?
Girl A: No, I'm also 1/16 Estonian.
Girl B: Oh wow! Hey, say something in Estonian!
Girl A: I don't know any Estonian....

My grandfather is a Swedish-speaking Finn. My great aunt is Russian. But I happen to be a Finn and it's cool. It's cool to come from a country with a good reputation abroad - it's a sign of good education, possibly a great skill in languages, awesome "Scandinavian" culture that becomes more and more trendy all the time. Finland has given me enough in this life for me to be able to leave it, knowing that if I ever fall and need a cave to crawl into, Finland is waiting for me with open arms and free healthcare.

I miss Finland at times. I miss the silence. I miss how I can maintain my resting bitchface without getting asked if I'm alright dear. I miss the absolutely amazing public transportation system of Helsinki (there are still things to develop for sure, but in here it's no surprise if the bus is 25 minutes late on a daily basis). I miss my weird-ass language with its weird-ass expressions. But at this very moment of time and space, Finland is not the place for me to be.

5. Do you plan on staying in Canada for good?

Canada is absolutely breathtaking. The nature leaves me in awe everytime I put my foot out of the city and the people are as polite as all the stereotypes make you think. Despite the non-European atmosphere from architecture to city structures I've taken for granted all my life, I feel like I've settled in here rather well. Actually, I'd like to share this piece of artwork with you as a way to sum up my feelings about Canada. (side note: quebeckers don't like the Canadian national anthem. They have their own unofficial anthem "Gens du Pays" by Gilles Vigneault and Gaston Rochon. Listen to it HERE)

But no, I don't intend to stay in here for good. Why? Because I'm participating a mobility program called SWAP Working Holidays, aimed for university students and newly graduates to go and work around the world for a year with a work permit. My SWAP Canada visa is valid until the 23rd of June 2016, after which I'll have to return to Finland at least as a courtesy. My better half has also expressed his desires to leave the country, so who am I to disagree.

Instead I plan on applying for several MA programs for September 2016. Right now my destination seems to be Ireland instead of the UK due to their new, conservative-lead immigration policy which makes it almost impossible for my Canadian companion to study in the country. Besides, we're both in love with Dublin. Sláinte!

Top 3 Cultural Differences Between Finland and Québec

"Oh, you're moving to Canada? So it's basically like another Finland isn't it?"

Here we have a sentence I heard multiple times while informing my Finnish acquintances about my plans for the upcoming year. And who can blame them? When you type "Canada" in Google Image Search, you'll mostly see pictures of mountains, snow, ice hockey, forests and clear waters - excluding the mountains, sounds pretty familiar to me. For a person who's spent the majority of their life living in the Nordic Wonderland with Nordic-Scandinavian culture, surrounded by a nordic landscape and nordic habits, it might be hard to imagine that on the other side of the Atlantic, in seemingly similar settings, a completely different kind of culture goes on a rampage.

What Finns probably mean with "basically like another Finland" is this:
FACT 1: Canada is in the North - Finland is in the North
FACT 2: Canada has snow - Finland has snow
FACT 3: Canada has forests - Finland has forests
FACT 4: Canada likes ice hockey - Finland likes ice hockey
====> Canadians live in the cold, dark north, drink vodka to keep themselves warm, hate social interaction because you can't see anyone in the dark anyway, wear plaid shirts all year round and hate their over-social neighbours (USA) who always think a bit too high of themselves.

NO!

So what is it then?
Québec is the rebellious emo-kid of Canada. The province has a very unique culture which might differ slightly from the general "Canadian" culture (which is, to be honest, quite a wide term taking into account Canada as a country is wider that the whole of Europe), having influences from the French culture and combining them with the English-Canadian customs. The result is something that might put the "basically like another Finland" into a weird light. My self-ironic list loves generalisations and could actually be titled "Where can a Finn go wrong in Québec". So here goes:

TOP 3 CULTURAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FINLAND AND QUÉBEC

1. Social Interaction

When Finns meet each other for the first time in an official situation, they might shake hands quickly. In other occasions they're more likely to just wave hands from a distance and say "hi". Or not say anything at all. Actually we might just suspiciously stare at each other in silence. The truth is, Finns are a bit reserved when it comes to social interaction. We might be surprised if someone touches us and we most definitely won't get too close without a reason. The personal space for a typical Finn is quite big and we might make people from more physical cultures (e.g. Italian or Spanish) a bit uncomfortable with this distance. We don't do small talk - actually, we don't really do talk. Silence is golden and if we have nothing important to say, we're more likely to stay silent (unless we're drunk - in that case, everyone's our best friend). And rule number one: You don't talk to strangers in Finland. You just don't. People will think you're a crazy person.

BUT: When you come to Québec, a quebecois(e) grabs you softly from one arm, pulls you closer, gives you kisses on both cheeks and asks "Ça va?"
When a quebecker goes to a grocery store, he or she has a short small talkish conversation with the clerk while waiting for the groceries (which are, by the way, packed for you). Actually, they have small talk with everyone. I was walking down the street with my ice cream cone the other day and I was stopped by three people to ask where I found a cone that big. People easily comment out loud on the things they see, and discussions from one balcony to another in an apartment block is not uncommon at all. Quebeckers love to talk - and they talk loud. If I stop on the traffic lights, stand still for 5 seconds in a grocery store or even breathe in a public place, someone will most likely come and e.g. ask where the fries are, tell me my bag is super cool or just comment on life in general. Which, of course, could make a typical Finn absolutely terrified.

Conclusion: If a Finn in Québec looks a bit awkward when talked to in public or given a kiss when greeted, it's not necessarily because we don't like it - it's because we forget to expect it. Sorry everyone.

2. Alcohol

Finns drink. We drink a lot. Our alcohol culture could be described as "anything goes". Finns tend to get smashed with vodka and the idea of drinking just for the sake of getting wasted is really common. Sitting on a front porch on a Friday night sipping your wine responsibly really isn't a typical Finnish thing. Instead, we're more likely to lie naked in a fountain wrapped into a Finnish flag, hugging a bottle of Finlandia vodka. Not referring to any 2011 events here.

BUT: If Finns thought we drink a lot of beer, we don't. Because quebeckers do. I have 7 12-packs of beer in my kitchen at this very moment, and we buy more every week. Beer is mostly sold in boxes in here, and no one really buys individual bottles. Beer is cheap and beer is good. Quebeckers are crazy about their microbreweries, and every town seems to have at least one. It's a hipster's dream in here, really. If a quebecker wants to get drunk, they do it with beer or, in some cases, cocktails. People seem to be able to drink ridiculous amounts of beer without their bellies looking like beach balls, which is the case with yours truly after c.a. 3 bottles. It wobbles.

Conclusion: Quebeckers drink more beer than I ever could. On the contrary, when I served bottles of vodka and Salmari on my very Finnish birthday party, I was the only one waking up without a hangover the following morning.

3. Language

The people of Québec consist of 80% Francophones. Vaguely 8% of the rest are speaking English as their mother tongue, and the last 12% are either immigrants with a diverse set of different native languages, or Native Americans.
People in Finland speak mostly Finnish with approx. 5% of the population falling into minority categories, most notable ones being two other official languages, Swedish and Sami. As a Finnish speaking Finn surrounded by 99% people with French as their mother tongue, the third section of my list concentrates on comparing the way our cultures differ in their ways of dealing with their own language without going into details or political questions, since this entry is already huge.

When a tourist arrives to Finland, they'll get by perfectly without ever even trying to say a word in Finnish. In case you'd decide to try, the clerk from whom you tried to order a beer in broken dictionary-Finnish is most likely to immediately switch to English without even offering you a chance to continue the discussion in Finnish. We might actually even find it a little weird of you to try - because no one speaks Finnish. There are a little over 5 million of us in this world and so far I know 3 people who've decided to study our language on their freetime just for fun. I'm not expecting it. I can go around Québec and when people find out my mother tongue is Finnish, they might request me to say a sentence or two just for them to catch up on how it sounds like. No one has ever even heard my mother tongue.

BUT: Quebeckers are really jealous of their language - and one might say, for a reason. French is an official language of Canada, spoken by approximately 7 million people out of c.a. 35 million inhabitants. So when you come to Québec, the first question is "do you speak French?" If the answer is no, the next question is "Are you planning on learning?"
People of Québec want you to speak French, and they do all they can to help you with that. You might ask for a word and they'll give you at least 7 different variations and expressions where you might be able to use the word. They're more than happy to tell you everything they can about the ethymology of a certain phrase and all the dialectical differences of it around the province. They tell you all the swear words and their origins even if you forget to ask. You might go to a counter and try an embarrassed "Hello", and they'll immediately continue with "Bonjour".

Conclusion: Even if your pronounciation of French sounds like a reindeer driven over by a pick-up truck filled with angry beavers, it's better to say that Finnish-seasoned "merrrrsiiiii", just for the sake of showing respect.

BONUS: The famous ice cream cone.