It was during family dinner with my host parents that I had my first true communication breakdown since arriving in Paris three weeks ago.
After a conversation about the difficulties of making it to early morning classes in the city, I explained to my host parents and roommate that I'm no stranger to early mornings, as work days at the Cape Eleuthera Island School last summer began at 7AM and I've taken multiple 8AM courses at Iowa State. My host parents, Marie Christine and Robert, are two of the smartest and well-read people that I've ever met, so they were quick to start asking me about my time at the Island School. I was happy to use some of my maritime vocabulary to talk about my experiences as an intern, but it was as I began a story about tagging stingrays that I realised I had run out of French. Frantically waving my arms about and desperately trying to explain what I was talking about, I realised that this would be my first true failure in communicating with someone else during my time in France. Eventually, I described a stingray as something along the lines of "a pancake-like fish with a dangerous sword," and my host parents, who know very little English, finally seemed to understand. Though this was my first failure, I'm confident that it will not be my last.
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AuthorHi! My name is Megan Gilbert, and I am studying abroad in Paris during the spring 2017 semester. Follow along! Archives
May 2017
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