Living in A Second Language: Guest Post
The following is a guest post written by Nicole Miller of Living in A Second Language. She’s my American born friend currently living in France. We hope she’ll join us here at Sharing Circle when she can. Let her know your thoughts!
The After
Living in a second language and a foreign culture is an endless approximation. A mathematical formula I can’t quite get right, despite years of trying. I have navigated, negotiated, and narrated my life through the structured flow chart of French, la forme, for the past 11 years. Le fond, the depth – the guts – all of that remains American.
The good news is, on a daily basis, I fit in. I am not identified on the street as American and my accent is rarely heard. The bad (or is it?) news is, I am still foreign here, other. There are moments, both for them and for me, when it is clear, on the surface at least, that we simply cannot understand each other, despite accurate syntax and appropriate vocabulary.
