#also my professor tends to direct us instead of teaching but anyways there are rarely any volunteers for participation

[mittelfrank-divas]

Dance of the Black Heron chapter 3

In which Dorothea attempts to sort out how to teach Hubert to dance and words are exchanged. 

AO3 link here!

===

"No, no, no." Dorothea dropped the spoon that she'd been using to tap out a steady rhythm on the side of an overturned crate, letting it clatter onto the sun-bleached wood. "Are you dancing, or are you attempting to recite chapter five of our tactics textbook to Professor Byleth?"

Hubert dropped his stance to fold his arms together. Twenty-five minutes into their dance lesson, and he already felt sweaty and overly warm in his uniform. The afternoon sun beat down on them despite the mid-autumn season, making him regret his preference for black. His long hair was already starting to stick to his cheek on one side, and he was pretending not to notice this. "I do not understand the question."

Dorothea advanced on him across the small room. Well… "room" was a generous term for the location of their private lesson. Hubert had spent weeks sniffing out the more abandoned corners of Garreg Mach when they first arrived at school. The monastery grounds were a maze of ruins, both above ground and below, and many of the abandoned locations appeared to never be included on the guards' regular rounds. Of course, he had always imagined that when he utilized such hidden spaces, it would be for much more nefarious purposes than practicing for a dance competition.

The size and dimensions of this particular building were reminiscent of the knights' hall, but whatever use it had seen in centuries past was long since lost. The wood roof had long ago rotted and caved in, and no door remained in the doorframe. But the tile floor, once cleared of debris, made for a smooth enough surface to dance on without risk of tripping, despite weeds pushing up between a few of the cracks, and the brick walls offered some amount of privacy while they practiced. The open door faced away from the monastery, and the path here was overgrown enough to dissuade anyone from choosing to wander in this direction, so he could be confident that none would be nearby to witness his humiliation. In essence, they had their own private courtyard in which to stage their lessons.

Dorothea took him by the shoulders and gave him a shake, even though she had to reach up to do so. "You're too stiff! You look like a waiter in one of those fancy Enbarr restaurants where they fold the napkins to look like doves."

Strictly speaking, Hubert had hardly visited any restaurant, in Enbarr or anywhere else. Restaurants existed for those who were socializing or traveling, or who did not already dine in the actual Adrestian Palace, served by the royal family's own chefs. But he had a vague impression of what she was describing. "And I am to understand that that is a bad thing."

Dorothea's hands flew to her head in a dramatic fashion. "Yes! The point of dancing is movement! You cannot move and be rigid as stone at the same time. The scowling doesn't help, either."

Hubert felt himself flush. "I was merely concentrating."

Dorothea pursed her lips sympathetically, but her voice retained some of its impatient edge. "Concentration is important, but you'll need to learn not to let that show on your face. The judges want to see a smile. Can you do that, Hubie? Do you know how to smile?"

With some effort, Hubert conjured the most pleasant smile his face could allow.

Dorothea visibly recoiled, her hands leaving Hubert's shoulders so she could step back. "Never mind. You look like you intend to flay me alive. Don't smile like that at the judges, alright?"

Hubert tried to ignore the sting that her comment induced. "I was not intending to be sinister." Not at this exact moment, anyway.

"I've never met someone who could be threatening by accident, but somehow you manage it." Dorothea threw herself back onto her seat and took up her spoon again. "Fine! Let's start from the top!" With that, she began drumming out a beat for him. With a groan, he went back to it.

It surprised Hubert how quickly the dance came back to him. He had not even thought about waltzing for years, let alone put it into practice. His feet still remembered the steps, his shoulders still remembered how to set themselves as though preparing to cradle another in his arms. The basic mechanics of it were really quite straightforward.

And yet he could feel Dorothea's eyes on him, evaluating his every movement. The steady drumming of her spoon on the crate provided a simple enough beat for him to keep time to, but it was a grating sound, one that reminded him with every strike that he was not simply one dancer among a crowd. He was alone on an empty floor, foolishly dancing along to cutlery. Could the entire school hear the noise? Would a face appear in that open doorway any moment? He felt horribly foolish and woefully exposed.

"Augh, just stop!" Dorothea suddenly snapped, the spoon slamming down on the crate. "Honestly, could you look any more miserable? You act like you don't even want to be here."

Hubert bent over to catch his breath, hands on his thighs. There was a reason that he devoted most of his energy toward magic, something that allowed him to stand perfectly still while still fighting with deadly force. "This may come as some shock, but no part of this experience delights me. I am here for my duty, nothing else."

"Really? You think I love being here, pretending to be happy about you getting chosen over me?" Something in Dorothea's voice broke. Hubert tilted his head up to look at her through the sweaty bangs hanging in his face, and realized that she was on her feet, hands clenched at her sides.

He stood upright, hands still clutching at the stitch in his side. Hellfire, was he out of shape. "Is that what you think this situation is?"

Dorothea snorted. "At least have the decency to be honest with me. You and Edie just couldn't have your class represented by a commoner, could you?"

Hubert would have laughed, if he had the breath for it. Instead he merely stared at her in confusion. "Where in Cichol's cursed name did you get that idea?"

"Come on, Hubie. We both know I'm the best dancer in our class. And you come to me with the flimsiest of excuses for why I wasn't chosen? That you need me to concentrate on learning magic? Dancing is a magic class! There is no reason I couldn't do both." Furious tears were pooling in her eyes, threatening to spill. "I'm not an idiot, Hubie. I know there are plenty of people who think I don't deserve to be here. And maybe that would be enough to sully our house's reputation, having someone like me represent us. I just thought you and Edie were above that sort of thing."

Hubert tried to work out where exactly this situation had gone horribly wrong and saw that he'd mishandled it from the start. He should have seen how this would look to her. He straightened his jacket and laced his hands behind his back, feeling that he owed her at least some proper manners. "On the contrary, the thought of watching you outmatch those pitiful nobles and inflict upon them the shame of failure that they have too rarely encountered in their wretched lives fills me with a joy that I rarely know. Yes, you are in every sense the ideal candidate for this competition, and the Black Eagles would be proud to have you represent us. Not despite your origins. Your unique experience is exactly what makes you so adept at what you do. You know what it is to hone your skill for professional use, not as some parlor trick. It was not I who argued against your candidacy, nor was it Lady Edelgard. It was the professor's preference."

Dorothea processed this quietly, her green eyes fixed on something behind him, her arms crossed defensively. "I really thought they believed in me more than that."

"They do," Hubert said flatly, not wishing to obscure the message with what might seem to be insincere reassurance. "Enough to ensure that you do not deviate from your aspirations. Dorothea, why exactly did you come to the officer's academy? Gaining admission while working full time as a Songstress could not have been an easy task."

Dorothea sniffled, giving a dismissive shrug. "Oh, you know. A school filled with Fodlan's wealthiest young noble bachelors? How could I pass up an opportunity like that?"

Hubert rested his chin on his palm, letting his gaze drift to the tall, sun-dappled grass outside the door. "If that is your goal, then it's certainly not the worst plan for going about it. In fact, I would call it downright shrewd. But of course, the fact that you would also be learning skills here that could be used in any number of positions in the future must have crossed your mind. A backup plan, as it were."

Dorothea snorted, though it came out more as a sniffle. "I mean, what gal wouldn't want to learn how to strike a guy with lightning whenever he gets a bit handsy?"

"Indeed, but you could have learned that in Enbarr. There are other schools, easier schools to access." Dorothea said nothing, impulsively reaching to fix her long hair, as if it were ever anything less than perfectly coiled about her shoulders. Hubert persisted. "I have read your application."

Her gaze snapped back to him, wide-eyed. "But that's--"

"Highly confidential, of course. I don't trust just anyone to have such free access to Lady Edelgard. I need to know just who is sitting behind her chair every day." It had not, in fact, been a remotely easy task to gain access to the academy's records. Hubert was still trying to puzzle out where the bishops hid their archives. Fortunately, Professor Byleth was not quite so paranoid about the files they were given, and so he had managed to leaf through the documentation on the Black Eagles. Would that the other two professors could give him such ready access to their own classes.

"It's also very rude," Dorothea muttered.

"I do not tend to concern myself with what is polite." Hubert felt a faint smirk tug at his lips. "Quite an impressive application, actually. Your test scores were average, but your essays were most engaging. You have a practicality that many others lack. You do not allow the big picture, as it were, to blind you to facts. You have valuable insights that our class needs."

Dorothea flushed, looking away from him. For someone who seemed to thrive on attention, she did not seem to know what to do with this sort of praise. She sighed impatiently. "Is there a point to all of this, or are you just heaping compliments on me so I'll drop it?"

"My point, Dorothea, is that you did not come to the officer's academy just to be a Songstress by a different name. The professor fears that making you a Dancer would send a signal that you are valued only for your appearance. That it would lead you to limit yourself. Frankly, I would be inclined to disagree, had I not seen you in action."

"They said that?" Her voice hitched a bit when she said it.

"That is what they told me. That they want to see you succeed as a gremory, a class that very few ever manage to achieve. Though I do not agree with our professor on every front, their instincts on our class composition have been largely accurate. Do not think I haven't noticed you studying the chapter on Meteor, a spell so complex that I doubt even Linhardt would be bothered to learn it."

She gave him a startled glance, but did not deny it.

Hubert nodded to her. "So I ask you again: why did you come to the officer's academy? If you are happy remaining as a Songstress, if you would be satisfied only to become a Dancer and nothing else, then I will gladly end this farce and accompany you to persuade Professor Byleth to change their mind. But if you came here to prove something, as I suspect you did, then I would be remiss to allow you to make such a sacrifice."

Her eyebrows arched disbelievingly. "Hubie, that almost sounded generous of you."

He chuckled. "Lest you mistake my actions for kindness, allow me to remind you that I seek only to ensure that Lady Edelgard's people are maximizing their potential."

"Right, of course. You could not possibly be trying to help your friends achieve their dreams the way you're always talking about helping Edie with hers." She was smiling now, even as she wiped at the corner of her eye with her sleeve. "To answer your question, I... I don't know if I have just one answer for you. But I do know that I have been around simpering nobles my whole life. And I would give just about anything for the chance to wipe the smile off their faces. And beating them at their own game? Learning the spells that all their fancy tutors and expensive libraries couldn't teach them? I'd like that very much."

Hubert smirked in triumph, and offered her a low bow. A proper bow, the likes of which he normally reserved only for Edelgard. "Then, Miss Arnault, I suggest a trade. I will help you reach your goal if you help me reach mine. Teach me to survive this blasted competition and I promise that all I know of magic is at your disposal."

Dorothea laughed. "Okay, okay, no need to turn this into the opening of an epic drama. Though... hmm. I think I have an idea of how we're going to present you now. You are actually quite charming in your own way, Hubie. There's no reason to try to cover it up with a fake smile."

Now it was Hubert's turn for skepticism. "Somehow I doubt there is much charm for you to find."

Dorothea waved him off. "Oh hush, you'll see what I mean soon enough. Anyway, we're focusing on your stance right now. Here, take my hand." She stepped forward and placed a hand on his shoulder and held out the other for him to hold.

He surveyed her in confusion. "Does the contest not require each contestant to be performing alone?"

Dorothea huffed. "Yes, despite the waltz being a couple's dance. It's a silly requirement, really. But right now you're letting your nerves get in the way of your movement. You need to stop being so embarrassed about me watching you. So let's take out the audience factor entirely. There is nobody left to watch if we're both participating, right?"

Hubert sighed as his gloved hand took hers, the other resting lightly on her waist. "Perceptive, as ever."

She grinned up at him. "That's why I'm your teacher. Now, you lead. Teach me to waltz as though it's my first time. I'm a lowly commoner who's never been allowed to join in on such a high class dance before."

Hubert chuckled at her, pulling them into a slow, steady rhythm. Dorothea followed smoothly, exposing her lie for what it was. "Does that work on the brainless nobles you seduce? Pretending to be clueless?"

"Some of them." She smirked, unapologetic. It was harder to match each other's steps without music, but Dorothea was a professional. She adjusted to Hubert's pace, reading his body language well enough to anticipate his steps. "Good. Loosen your grip on my hand a bit. You're directing me, not pulling me like a dog on a leash."

"Quite the analogy."

Her head quirked in an approximation of a shrug. "You'd be surprised how necessary that comparison is. Far too many noblemen can't tell the difference."

"Not as surprised as you might think." He complied with her instruction, letting her hand simply rest in his rather than gripping it.

"Better, but you're still too rigid. You're worrying too much about what I'm doing. Dancing with someone is about trust. Which I know is in short supply with you."

"What gave you that impression?" Hubert tried not to stare down at her feet, certain that he was about to tread on her toes.

"I can't believe I have to tell you this, but my eyes are up here." She laughed at his startled look. "Trust, Hubie! You need to trust me that I know how to keep up with you. And you need to trust yourself. You know these steps, right?"

Hubert studiously kept his eyes on hers, realized his hand had tightened around hers again, and pointedly loosened it. "Knowing and doing are not the same."

Dorothea sighed. "Alright, stop. New plan. I'm cashing in that magic lesson right now."

Hubert let his hands fall away from hers as she stepped back, and tried very hard to keep pace with Dorothea's shifting moods. "I did not realize you were in such a hurry to learn."

"I am now. The wall makes a good enough target, right?" She moved to stand beside him so that they both faced the same direction, with only a wall of bare brickwork ahead of them. "So? What's the most basic Dark magic you know? What's the spell you can cast in your sleep?"

Hubert regarded her. "You are aware that Dark magic and Black magic are quite different, I'm sure. Black magic utilizes the elements, while Dark magic draws on something more internal and primal."

Dorothea sighed impatiently. "I have read chapter one of the textbook, yes, thank you Hubert. Show me anyway."

Hubert puffed out a breath. At least this would be a respite from his stumbling around. "Alright. The simplest Dark attack is Miasma Δ. It goes like this." It was easy. So easy to gather the dark magic in his chest. To draw his hand across his body as he muttered the incantation, feeling the cold sting of power spreading its tendrils down the length of his arm. To flick his fingers outward just as the magic reached them, casually lobbing a sphere of crackling darkness at the bare wall. The impact resonated with the magic's hollow sound, leaving a blackened scorch mark on the bricks. How strange that trying to dance had felt like wading through waist-deep mud, but casting this spell felt like stepping back onto dry land, as light and easy as walking on a summer day.

"Hmm." Dorothea experimentally moved her hand across her chest. "Like this?"

"Palm inward. Arm parallel with the floor." He reached over and tilted her elbow up a few degrees. "You want to draw the magic in toward your hand before you expel it. If you allow your arm to droop, you risk casting at the floor rather than at your target."

Dorothea imitated his movements, right down to a small flourish in her wrist that, strictly speaking, was not a necessary addition to the spell, but that Hubert habitually added on principle. "And your feet? Do you step forward with your right or your left?"

"Always lead with your casting side."

"Right. Of course." She practiced the motions again. Hand across the chest, elbow out, step forward, flick of the wrist. Again and again she repeated the steps, imitating him perfectly without the actual orb of magical darkness firing from her hand. And then she tried it again using the other hand.

"Dorothea, what are you doing?"

Dorothea flicked one hand in front of herself and then another. "What's it look like?"

Hubert crossed his arms. "It looks like you are being very smug."

She grinned, but did not stop her impromptu dance routine, working in much more hip sway than the original spell called for. "Don't I have a right to be? I'm finding all your secrets, Hubie."

He could not help the amused smirk that crossed his face. "I very much doubt that."

"Well I've found one, anyway. You are a good dancer when you're not getting in the way of yourself. We just have to draw it out of you. What is spellcasting other than a very precise dance routine with a purpose?" She did a careless twirl, her hair fanning out around her. It looked so effortless.

"Ah yes, deadly magical force is naught but prancing about." Hubert watched as Dorothea spun the movements he had taught her into an intricate routine that grew with each new iteration. Here he was, betrayed by his own lesson.

She came to a standstill, grinning in triumph. Whereas Hubert felt bedraggled and exhausted by dance, she looked invigorated, her peach skin glistening radiantly. "From now on, we'll warm up our sessions with a magic lesson. It's something you're already confident in, so it'll get you into the mindset you need. Come on now, let's get back to it. We've got lots of time yet before the sun goes down."

Hubert groaned, casting his eyes up at the treacherously clear blue sky, still shining bright with the low evening sun. If only he believed in the Goddess, he might be tempted to beg her to nudge it towards the horizon just a bit faster.

[everydayanth]

Let’s talk about talking about politics! Yay! Everyone’s favorite!

Over the past few weeks/months/years, I have had this strange insider seat to a bunch of criminal justice/poly sci professionals (as in, they get paid as professors or scientists or compliance officers, etc.) as they talk about politics and get angry at the general public for our lack of understanding, without having the patience to teach or explain. 

Two problems: 1. the ivory tower issue of watching and not actively engaging in the social part of social science, but as their friend, I will note much of this comes from burnout through negative engagement and attacks; 2. expecting others to have had an adequate education to even know many of these tools exist in order to discuss things beyond our average public school education that cuts out Fridays and makes random half days because we can’t afford teachers or textbooks. 

As an awkward observer, here are some things I never talked about in school, despite having a better political/civil/economics education included in my curriculum than many of my friends:

1. When we vote for someone, we are voting on a trend in politics. Not as a result, but a direction to move, and most voters vote for the candidate who is closest to their current values already, rather than following the trend of voting for who would move policy to match their needs. 

2. Our values change far more than we think they do and they almost always align with a problem we require a solution to or a fear we would like to stabilize or go away, such as property taxes. Because we need to trust the person to solve our problems, especially if we are projecting large fears, candidates who are most likable. We don’t like to stir the pot, we just want it to go where we want, fighting for something is exhausting for everyone.

3. We consider political agendas to be moral agendas but do not agree on obligations. Many feel powerless, others are powerless, we talk about responsibility, but without acknowledging those first two things, it sounds more like blame. We also imagine many things to be wishful thinking that are enacted successfully elsewhere and fail to understand or use logical reasoning to really discuss issues. Anything will be an experiment because the US is so huge, but it is a scalable experiment working in other places, often we don’t understand that until we’re abroad and sick.

4. We’re not sure how to translate policy, and our country was built by and for lawyers. There are very little areas where we agree as a society on black/white right/wrong, and in many ways that’s good, but when it comes to discussing policy, it can be very confusing.

To account for these aspects, people use charts and grids. Much like personality tests, these are useful for creating a foundation upon which to debate and discuss, but are ultimately made by humans in order to generalize and will have errors and discrepancies. But the political spectrum has rarely been the single line most of us were taught. Instead, it is often a grid used to navigate the direction and preference of trends. Most people are much more moderate than they think, but have problems that need cooperative solutions, like the water crisis and fires on the west coast, disaster relief in the south, crop failure in the midwest, and ticks and diseases in the northeast. We all have huge problems and some areas are insulated from them for now, but they will come. How we navigate and demand solutions for those problems is what creates policy and the policies we agree with because of our value is what dictates our vote. 

So here’s some charts that human people made to talk about these things with and they have helped ground a lot of engaging conversations with people as I watch them argue but not get angry, because there’s a visual thing to talk around. Those kinds of tools should be everywhere. 

The political compass:

via Wikipedia: political spectrum

^

^A generalization of what different areas might look like. I’ve seen so many versions of this, but I liked the way this one because it gave me a better understanding of words I’m more familiar with and where they fall within the broad concepts. I couldn’t find the source. 

^ Here is another one from Google that took me to a shady site, so I didn’t link it, but the goal is to just be familiar with the different ways people structuralize and use definitions and terms to divide them up, in the end, the general understanding is all that matters, and our goal is to be functional, for the government to be usable by the people. Hamilton, the musical, was/is so important for many reasons, but one of the big ones is that it reminded us that this fight of trends and moving around the board has been going on since the very first election of a president to America. It’s always about one group pulling another, creating a tug-of-war that keeps us near the middle, hopefully.

This is a graph showing the individual party ideologies of past presidents by a site called Fact Myth. It is showing the party split between individuals and while we could argue and speculate about accuracies and meanings, whether a president was pushed to make a decision as a person, etc. in the end, they represent the will of the people and the trends we with to follow to solve problems at the time. 

^An outline someone made of 2020 candidates on Reddit that has been going around for a while. Jake showed this to me and while he was perfectly receptive to me saying that yeah, but a person made this and they can have agendas and just put people places, he also had some really great points on how Americans often think we’re moderates, but what we perceive to be in the middle is often skewed by capitalism. That’s not to say it’s bad, simply that if we’re talking trends and problems and solutions, we have to understand where we are on the real scale, not just our own. We will also tend to vote for those who are closest to us, rather than moving in the direction of us, so, say someone sits right where Ryan is, Ryan drops out; now, despite their personal political preference being on the edge of the middle moderate square, they move to Biden rather than Warren or Sanders because Biden is closer to their original place, even if, coming from Trump, moving to Warren/Sanders would pull the political trend back toward their moderate preference. 

Not everyone does this, obviously, but I’m fascinated by how our individual personalities affect how we decide politics. Are you a “next best thing” kind of person? Are you a “obsess relentlessly until it’s done” kind of person? Are you a “don’t fix it if it ain’t broke? Or what about “out of sight out of mind, doesn’t bother me, I don’t care” kind of person? So many of the ways we solve our daily problems are reflected in the ways we move our own political affiliations during voting times. I just think that’s interesting because I’m a social science nerd though. 

A friend from Brown who is much older than us (also a social science nerd <3) pointed out that she grew up with such antagonizing propaganda during the cold war and beginnings of technological boom and peak oil, and it all said the same thing, anything outside the blue is morally wrong and heavily corrupt. I thought that was an interesting point about exposure and remembering past problems, how voting ages overlap to find new solutions or rely on old ones, and what it would cost us to see American politics on a global scale. 

^This is a global scale of values (not politics) from the wikipedia page on political spectrums, and I thought it tied into the conversation in interesting ways, especially when we look at American generation differences in individualism and social cooperation and how they are viewed by each other to both be equally negative. There’s a whole world of solutions and different ways things our done, but we’ve been taught from birth that some are bad and others are exceptions and ours is good. 

Vox has an interesting tool to figure out where abouts you would lie on the compass. I think debating it with others is a better way, since it’s a primarily relative scale (unless you prefer those structuralist ones, but keep in mind that it’s a preference, not a requirement). But I thought I’d include it for those who may not have access to that kind of conversation. 

In the end, consider your morals and how they are different from your current values, and how your current values are affected by your current problems, and how you want the world to look, how you want trends to move, and how your biases of experience or ignorance might play a role in that. I honestly didn’t really think about healthcare until I was in Ireland and saw how simple an alternative was and how freeing it felt. My parents can’t even imagine it (and they are of the class who should most desire those changes), they don’t have enough of a base knowledge to understand how it works, it’s electricity after gaslamps. 

Anyway, just thought I’d share some of those tools. As a skeptical person, I want to remind everyone that these are tools, not documented facts, and fighting about where people are on the graph and where we might be is part of how we come to conclusions about rights and wants and solutions and needs and what we actually value. Most of us, in the end, value comfort and hope, and we vote for the people we think provide that to us. The problem often lies in people misunderstanding their own comfort and relying on ignorance rather than hope. I found these graphs useful in grounding my talks with overwhelming professionals and finding some semblance of peace in what I wanted to hope for and I hope maybe for some of you they can provide that as well. ❤️

If, like me, you reached your 20s and realized a gaping hole in your education, I also recommend the Crash Course series on US Politics. It helped me understand a lot of things that were skimmed over in textbooks or left as multiple choice answers on a standardized test. Politics are a series of solutions to the problems we face as a social group, and knowing how to talk about them completely changed my own feelings of helplessness when communicating to others. 

[perdudanslesbenedictions]

Learning to speak French and its challenges for myself and other learners

Speaking/learning a second language requires a certain level of patience and the ability to take constructive criticism. SOMETHING I AM VERY BAD AT TAKING!!! I feel so bad for people who are learning English in the States. Why? Because I have seen people correct foreigners or ‘New’ Americans for using British English or saying something even slightly incorrectly, when more than half of us can’t even use the word supposedly correctly. Soon I will be flying to Europe a lot for work and I am going to have to deal with one of my least favourite group of Francophones... Americans. Not all of them are horrendous... Just 90% of them MDR. Nothing irritates me more than someone nit-picking my pronunciation than a group of people who think they know it all because they learned from a textbook, or that one French guy from Paris that they dated 4 years ago. Not that I have issues with one particular group of speakers like the Parisians, but there are so many words in French and so many different accents and dialects. My French is a bit bizarre to be honest; however, it is not incomprehensible. How does ones second language qualify as bizarre??? When your interests, culture, practical experience, and instructors don’t align. Like stated previously, I started learning French from my family, some members who moved there when I was very young, followed by some in middle school from a French/American woman who taught us text book French. So I had a little background before I began speaking airport French to Quebecois and French passengers on Lufthansa and Air Canada, as a contracted agent. 50% of my Francophone passengers were Quebecois, a good 20% were French. The rest were Swiss, Belgian, or of African origin. My ear became fine tuned to different types of French, but my tongue and my interests went with the Canadians. It already conflicted with my Senegalese Friends who worked at the airport who were trying to teach me a more international French. Their French stuck with me too. Their grammar was impeccable!!! When they helped me correct my papers, they taught me worldly phrases to describe my own life. At the time, for example, I was une préposée aux bagages. Not a phrase you learn in beginners French. My college instructor was one of the best French speakers in the nation. In my opinion, à mon avis, there is French from a certain region, and then there exists textbook French. This is the same French you might hear in Franco media. It is without a distinct accent, it is perfect grammar,and you will not hear this French at the bar in Marseilles or on the streets of Paris. Ange, my instructor, spoke this perfect French while he taught us pronunciation and other grammar aspects. Ange knew that I had a profound love for Quebec. He also knew that our class textbook taught a lot of Quebec French. To me, it only makes sense that we could be getting our books from Montreal and not Paris, as Canada is closer. Ange chose not to teach some of the grammar, the stuff he found peculiar. Some of it is different, but it’s not inaccurate information. This goes to show that second/ third/ fourth languages can be formed by perspective and the cultures you are exposed to. People who understand or learned one dialect/ accent, and speak negatively about another tend to be more difficult for me to speak with. They correct you with something you learned and try to replace it with their version. This is why I do not speak with a lot of American speakers. Nothing irritates me more than an American girl who fucked some French guy and criticizes me for saying “gilet de sauvetage” without emphasizing every fucking syllable. Her version “geelay deh sow-ve-tahge” and my version “geelay deh sowvetage”. Of course it was a flight attendant. I CANNOT! I also had a tutor who insisted I speak like a Parisian. Chui fucking NORTH AMERICAN putain! Then the lady talked shit about my instructor and I lost all trust... Different issue. I stopped seeing the woman for help because of her biased views on how I should say things (of course she was American). I also have a friend in Montreal who I have become quite timid with my French. I need to have a spine and just speak. She just drives me a little crazy because she has a tendency to correct me and not tell me what I should say instead. I have had a tendency to mix doing the dishes, faire la vaisselle, and doing the laundry faire la lessive in French. I made the mistake of trying to say I will do the dishes and she never told me the correct way. She also speaks extremely fast and doesn’t give a moment to process before speaking English. Therefore, I have begun to speak English to her instead of French. It’s discouraging to have someone dog you after they speak to quickly or you have only been in town for less than a week. My French is like riding a bike, I have to get used to it again. One of my best teachers was my mentor Leila. A perfect person to speak with! She wasn’t super impressed with Quebec French, but was willing to accept that it has become a part of my reality. She understood that I had learned from different sources. She spoke to me like I knew what she was saying at all times whether I did or not and eventually it built my confidence and I realized that I did understand 90% of what she said. She pushed me without discomfort. We had a very interesting situation together, which reminded me how different and not standard my French actually is... We worked with an old Congolese woman who depended on both of us for translation and other daily tasks. We worked at a full immersion school for Spanish, French, English, and Chinese. Of course I helped with French as much as possible. Her French was standard, not anglicized, and very conservative. It was so hard, but it helped me improve my French become more professional in the workplace. There is no question... When it comes to work... You must be standardized in your speaking! Accent and different pronunciation are not a big deal; however, the French needs to be clear and polite for all speakers! It may have also helped to research some vocabulary specific to educational development. At staff meetings we constantly spoke about child growth and development... A subject I missed out on dancing the night away in the Quebecois discotheque MDR. Madame Nkombo was a pain or casse-couilles becuase at times she just didn’t want to know what we were talking about... But she forced me to be more specific and clear in my translation than I ever had been. There was no switching to English, there was no idiomatic expression I could use... It had to be a direct translation sometimes explained 3 or 4 different ways before I could get through to her. There was one day I was forced into a medical emergency with her. Her daughter dropped her off at work shaking and almost incomprehensible. We were sure she was having some kind of stroke. Her tongue was flickering and everything. It was a mess! I had to ask Si elle a eu une histoire des problemes avec son couer... and other questions I barely knew how to ask. Thank Jesus Leila was at school this day and could go to the hospital while I covered our class. We were a great team, but sometimes things got scary if Leila or I couldn’t help our friend Nkombo. We worried about emergency situations and bullying/ other behavioural issues in the class. You did need some working knowledge of English in the school and it was awkward at times with parents who did not understand the situation, and struggling to translate correctly. At times I even had to sit in for parent teacher conferences when Leila was not available. We got through it, but it pushed the French side of my brain to work harder than ever. Why I didn’t study for my DELF until now... Je ne sais pas. I should have done it while I was constantly speaking every day of my life. Long story short... my French evolved again. My French experience is diverse as is my tongue. So next time you want to criticize someone for a petty issue of pronunciation or mixing up the order... even though you understood what they said:

1. try to understand where they come from with their French... It might be different than how you learned.

2. Ask them where or how they learned a certain phrase... If they can’t back it up they will probably ask you how you say it.

3. If you learned to say it differently or it is different in your dialect, politely explain that the word/ phrase they learned isn’t so functional in your region.

4. If it is really that bad of a mistake... repeat what they said the correct way. Do not ridicule and embarrass them.

5. LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS!!! Do not be a picky perfectionist with someone who is learning. If you are a teacher... You should know better, but if what they are trying to say is not comprehensible at all, ask what they are trying to say and go back to step 2.

6. Learn the difference between accent and mispronouncing. Don’t correct them if they still sound like Peggy Hill, when they used correct semantics and vocabulary.

7. Was that syllable so important that you should correct them? We all know that Francophones skip several parts of pronunciation in certain anyway... Maybe their speaking isn’t academic and they shouldn’t be a lectrice... But are they trying to learn to be that precise??? YOU DON’T KNOW AND YOU PROBABLY DIDN”T CARE TO ASK. When is the last time you said the le in the end of spectacle, incroyable? I rarely say it if I rarely hear it.

8. Know the purpose of their French learning. Where are they trying to go? For what purpose? Are they moving to a region that speaks a little differently? Do they want to talk shit at the bar? Do they want to become a professor? All of the above??? It might be important, particularly if you are trying to teach someone French, to know what their goal is. If they are not learning for an academic/ professional purpose... il/elle ne s'en fou. It’s unfortunate for your academic agenda... But it’s true... THEY DON’T CARE.

9. Ne and Pas... I’m not trying to butcher the language... But Je trouve ça ridicule when someone tells me to use both. Written... maybe. Spoken though... Seriously? What do you think?

10. Stick with French please. Reformulate before you just translate to English... It can be a little degrading and no one learns anything when you just make it easy. It is appreciated and very appropriate in some circumstances (taking a coffee order with a line of 1 000 people behind them)... But in a social setting, just keep speaking French. How will someone ever learn if they are just babied and brought back to English constantly. Also, I get it! We are all trying to learn each others language and see each other as a perfect opportunity to practice... So let them do your language and you do theirs. Voila.

11. Be a humble learner/ teacher. I have gotten to teach some Quebecois words to my African/ French colleagues who speak French natively. In return they teach me some phrases they use instead. Make it an exchange of knowledge!!! Don’t act like you know everything... Language is constantly changing! Even if you have spoken French for 20+ years... There are new technologies and concepts that didn’t exist in French during that time... The ones a non-native speaker could be learning right now!

12. French is French. Do they speak differently in Paris compared to someone in Lafayette, Louisiana? OUAIS BIEN SUR! Sorry no accent marks on my keyboard! Even in English I have to get people to reformulate sometimes because they talk different... It doesn’t mean we can’t communicate and it doesn’t mean they are wrong in the way they speak.

13. Be a little passive aggressive... Recommend a book or a website instead of correcting everything someone says in the moment. Sometimes it’s rude and uncalled for... It makes me want to stop speaking.

So maybe i’m wrong or right in my observation of the language learning process... Maybe I’m too sensitive... What do you find important in teaching someone your native or other fluent languages? Do you think being a grammar nazi is always appropriate? How do/ did you feel as a learner? Do you have similar circumstances or frustrations? I am open to all questions and comments... given they are PRODUCTIVE.