2: L'oiseau affamé

The Duolingo bird reminds me every morning. Time to study French!

I rise. I read. I’m still for a moment. Then it’s time.

Fueled with strong stove-top coffee and whatever sustenance finds its way into a bowl (muesli today, unfortunately), I sit down to a feed the bird the 30 XP that he craves. At first, it was easy. Le garçon, la fille, la pomme, le cochon, une cafe- s’il vous plaît! But the bird persists. Don’t lose your streak! Conjugations, inversions, irregular plurals? Why can’t this language be simple like English?!

Jokes aside. There is plenty of reason to panic. Michel, one of my hosts at La Terroir de Familles and the caretaker of the farm, speaks French and Italian - not English. And unless he plans on keeping our communication within Doulingo’s French: Level 7 vocabulary, we in for some trouble.

What’s the French word for electrified fence?

I’m told that as long as you attempt to speak French to Parisians, most will laugh and gladly speak English when serving you your third croissant. But Rick Steve’s travel tips run out of gas around the dinner table where there is little to talk about when you possess the vocabulary of a 4 year old and none of the poise.

All this self-deprecation is not to say that there is no hope. I’ll get by. But one thing is for sure. It will be uncomfortable. The language barrier will be uncomfortable. Being without the comforts of home, without my possessions, without inside jokes, without a steady flow of familiar faces throughout day will be uncomfortable. And it will be necessary.

So, to prepare myself for and to ease the inevitable discomfort of being alone in a foreign country, I will continue to feed the bird.