Arriving in Nice for a summer holiday several years ago, I realised my voice had gone completely. My husband's French being almost as bad as mine, he rang our daughter, who is fluent in several languages. 'Your mum's got a sore throat - she can't speak at all,' he told her. 'What should I say to the chemist?'
'Yipeeeee....' came the quickfire reply.
Which brings me to my new year's resolution - I'm going to talk less (in English) and learn how to speak fluently in French. Don't get me wrong, I can read French pretty well, and understand it (if spoken slowly) but my accent is so bad that when I try to make conversation, the natives always reply in English.
At senior school in the Midlands, I often talked of my Guernsey roots - my maternal grandmother was born in Brittany, just a few miles across the English Channel. One day the French teacher, who was also my form mistress, hauled me out to the front of the class, and made me read a piece of Gallic prose.
'Marilyn likes to boast about her French ancestry,' the teacher observed tartly, 'but she has the worst accent in the entire school. Let that be a lesson to you all.'
Last year I met a Guernsey ex-pat on line who is married to a Frenchman and now lives in a the Loire Valley. We've already corresponded and I'm hoping soon we can chat on the phone - in French, of course. At least it will spare my blushes, and after a few months, you never know, she might even understand what I'm saying...
It's time now for my second new year's resolution - to write at least 1,000 words every day. In English, of course!
