Echoes and Entry Points: Learning to Listen in France
Notes on Language, Culture, and Finding Meaning in the Small, Strange Things
How to leave - and how to stay
Sometimes the shape of a sentence says more than the words do. There are layers of assumed meaning that happen when you communicate in any culture: shared meanings, experiences, songs, visuals, all kinds of metadata we swap back and forth with one another. When you’re somewhere new, each one of them can be confusing, but also all of them can be a means of connection, of seeing each other, of sharing something.
It’s what I think I am trying to do here - collect a series of food and culture and experiences that help unlock those assumptions, connect ideas to things I know, and maybe to be a bit funny about it.
Because you have to maintain a sense of humor - or it all juts sucks.
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sentence variety
I’ve written tidy, direct sentences for clients for years - but other cultures don’t always do that.
French doesn’t.
Cultures unfold slowly, with layers and detours. Following those detours helps me listen and maybe to connect.
And to stay patient, but to keep learning.
I’m attracted to things that have been left behind, discarded, hidden. There’s history there: alternatives.
In other words
Tight, direct styles, pyramid-shaped journalism is all very businessy and very American. A lot of the news pieces I write need this format or the editor sends them back.
It doesn’t always translate well. In many cultures - including France - directness feels blunt or tone-deaf.
Many rely on nuance and what's left unsaid.
Knowing what is unsaid takes a lot more learning than just the words. That’s what I try to write about here.
Accidental Lessons
People don’t learn well when their guard’s up. But if something’s funny, or a little weird, you might stay open.
Teachers call it lowering affective filter or expanding ZPD - though no one says it like that unless they’re in a meeting. Or weird. Likely both.
This isn’t a grammar course. It’s a trail of small clues - bits of French culture, my own American habits, ways to rethink both.
Understanding culture isn’t just about language: it’s the rhythm, the pauses, the things no one explains.
Each odd little thing can be an obstacle, but it can also be an entryway.
Frère Jacques Mundwerk a capella 2011
the throat singing was a real surprise.
I Know the words but not the meaning
Like many kids my age, I learned Frère Jacques early—freh-ruh zhah-kuh, not real French, but close enough. Nursery rhymes are like that. Simple on the surface, with meanings that were hidden to speak to power.
Frère Jacques might have been a dig at sleepy monks in France centuries back. Maybe. It showed up in the U.S. somehow.
I still don’t really know what it means. But the melody? Instant recall.
Now it’s something else: a shared memory, a bit of my childhood and maybe yours. Every culture has these: songs, phrases, bits of history everyone half-remembers.
Follow the thread, and sometimes you find something familiar.
Maybe even something that feels like home.
Small Openings
Little things like bakery smells, misheard words, accidental jokes, these connect, they open doors. One moment leads to another.
Curiosity works better than certainty, even if it’s uncomfortable. When you’re a stranger in a strange places, sometimes you just have to sit with the strange, to follow it, even.
I try to find weird and curious things about a place. I tend to read books about any place I travel to. Stories of the place become stories of my own.
I love discovering new things about my own country here—I never knew that Frère Jacques was famous abroad (and in French!).
I completely agree with your analysis. These subtleties really are what make languages and cultures so fascinating.
As a French speaker, I’ve always been intrigued by the way English uses “you want to…” to give advice—like in “you want to keep it in the fridge.” It sounds so natural and friendly in English, but this kind of phrasing doesn’t exist in French at all. If you said “tu veux…” in the same context, it would sound completely off—as if you’re guessing someone’s desires rather than giving advice. Fascinating how language shapes tone!
I concur with you about the contrast between the American style of communication and the French style. In fact, in many parts of the world, the style is less direct than the American one, with the exception of the Dutch and perhaps the German. The Chinese way of communication is definitely very different and often indirect. That makes language learning a challenge but also a joy! I very much enjoyed your exploration in this essay, and also the Capella video--amazing!