I made a fool of myself attempting the local language overseas

On a visit to the delightful city of Rouen in France, I sit down to lunch with friends who happen to be there at the same time as me. With them is a woman who works at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. She’s Italian, and in addition to speaking her native tongue and English fluently, she has mastered seven other languages, including Arabic. I am beyond impressed and also a bit bummed out.

Credit: Jamie Brown

Europeans have it all over Australians in this regard. We aren’t brought up to speak multiple languages as a rule, at least those of my generation; various diasporas are changing that.

But I am hugely envious of anyone with even a second language and wish with obsessive regularity that I had done something about becoming such a person. I’ve started to learn various languages and abandoned my efforts due to perceived time shortages and fundamental laziness.

Unfortunately, what this has left me with is a dangerous arsenal of language fragments and an over-enthusiasm for deploying them, combined with an uncanny knack for accents.

As the meal in Rouen goes on, I tell the multilingual woman about my penchant for buying Christmas decorations as souvenirs when in Europe, and she tells me about a dedicated Christmas shop she knows nearby.

It’s not a great feeling when a waiter responds to your attempt to order in the local language by talking to you in English.Credit: Alamy

That afternoon, I’m out on my own trying to find this shop in the area she suggested. I’m having no luck. Then I have the thought: I did some French at school and university last century. Surely, I can ask someone.

My mind rifles through the words I remember as I enter a small boutique and say to the person there, “Excusez-moi, ou est le magasin du Noel?” I use my best French intonations, probably sounding like a bit player in ’80s UK comedy ’Allo, ’Allo.

I have just asked, I believe, where the Christmas shop is, and I am hugely proud of myself, until the woman answers in a flurry of French words and hand gestures, which I gather comprise a set of directions. Of these I do not understand a single word other than “gauche” and “droit”, left and right, but with no context.

“Ah, oui, oui. Bon. Merci,” I say with an expression that says I am taking it all in as she continues. She finishes with a look of satisfaction.

That’s my cue. “Merci! Au revoir, merci,” I sing, and exit quickly before she has time to ask me any questions, thus ruining my ruse. She’s none the wiser, but neither am I. I never find the magasin du Noel.

You’d think I would have learnt my lesson.

I haven’t. At a market in Italy, I attempt to buy a €5 item with a €50 note.

“Mi dispiaci, non cambio,” I tell the vendor with my best lilt d’Italiano. He looks at me in puzzlement, then explains in English what the problem is. I have told him I do not change, not that I don’t have any change. I mean, based on the evidence the statement has merit – but this is neither the time nor place for existential confessions.

In a small restaurant off Piazza della Signoria in Florence, I’m feeling all the Italian feels and decide I shall order from the Italian-language menu in Italian. I’ve done a bit of preparation and have the words down for “May I have”.

“Buona sera, potrei avere il vitello per favore?”

“You want the veal,” he says snippily, whipping the menu from me. “It is better if you speak English.”

“Can I have a green salad too?” I bleat as he strides off, my Italian bubble popped.

I still think a little language goes a long way, though. It’s better to try than to just perpetuate the arrogance of the English speaker who believes the whole world should be one too, right? Except it can make us look a little, shall we say, foolish?

On a recent trip to Manila, I enter the breakfast buffet restaurant every morning saying a cheery “Salamat po” to any staff member that crosses my path, thinking I am saying “good morning”.

It’s when one of the servers says it to me as I sign the bill that I realise I have actually been saying “thank you”, misled by my own brain that has latched onto the phrase and mixed it up with the Indonesian morning greeting “selamat pagi”.

So I have been entering the restaurant waving and smiling, saying “thank you, thank you” left and right, as if I am being applauded by all and sundry, a delusional diva.

At least, unlike the Florentine restaurateur, the Filipinos were too polite to embarrass me.