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鈥淢on Voyage Avec Le Fran莽ais鈥�

By Mia N Heredia Rojo

There I sat when Mr. Soderstrom exclaimed, “Good news!” Confused, I smiled and asked why. I had been pulled out of my English class and asked to go to the counselor office during the first week of school. My counselor explained that I tested out of a course and I could pick an elective, specifically requirements I could get out of the way like language. I was presented with three options: Mandarin, Spanish, and French. I decided on French even though I'm a native Spanish speaker because my dad warned me years ago to never take Spanish in high school since it wasn’t our Spanish, it was the European kind. As my easy way out freshman year, I decided on French. It wasn’t until I went home that day and told my mom that I realized I had wanted this all along.

“Mia! You’ve always wanted to learn French!” My mom exclaimed excitedly. I stared at her, blank and confused, asking for clarification.

“Ever since you were a little girl you would always beg me to buy you French books and put you in classes! You don’t remember? You always said you wanted to go to Paris with me and see the Eiffel Tower!”

The next day I showed up to class: French 1, with Mr. Hondstendt in D321. I was a week behind since I entered late and everyone had an advantage when it came to the numbers and alphabet pronunciation, but I slowly made my way up to their same level. My reading in French came a bit easier to me than it did for my peers because of my bilingualism in Spanish and English. There were plenty of cognates (and false cognates) that gave me advantages.

Cognates are words that are spelled or sound similar to another word in another language and mean the same thing. For example decision (duh路si路zhn) in English, is similar to decisi贸n (deh-see-SYOHN) in Spanish, and d茅cision (deh-zee-ZHYON) in French. They may all look the same, with the exception of accent marks, and have the same definition but different pronunciations. False cognates, or faux amis, on the contrary are words that look or sound the same but have a different meaning. For example, in English a bra is an undergarment for women, while in French bras means arm. Very different meanings, but the same sound and spelling.

As a bilingual learner, I had the advantage of understanding more vocabulary and being able to compose my thoughts more clearly. Having a higher vocabulary count compared to my peers gave me confidence and allowed me to experiment with sentences outside of my comfort zone, thus expanding my skills even more.

The year passed quickly, and French 1 was over; it was now the week before summer break. Carmen, a worker for ECI (脡changes Culturels Internationaux), came into our class to give us the opportunity to host an exchange student. By the following week, I met Milla. It was a great opportunity to improve our French and have someone to hang out with for the summer, showing her around Chicagoland and American culture. Milla and I spent the following weeks of June inseparable, going shopping, downtown, to beaches, etc. We felt an instant connection and I knew I had made a lifelong friend.

As a Mexican, she didn’t truly get the American culture at home, but she got to experience what, in my opinion, is the real United States. Diverse cultures from across the globe coming together to form one big community. We learned about each other’s customs, and I learned things I would’ve never learned in class. We shared cultural differences like traditional dances and dishes, and even our culture shocks. She loved Mexican tacos (normal tacos for us in America) because in France, a taco is a burrito with french fries and gravy sauce inside! Slowly, I began to appreciate and understand more of other cultures. It fascinated me to see how different people across the globe do things, and it just ignited my drive to keep learning.

The summer passed by quickly and my years of learning French continued. My junior year French class, though, was the most challenging of all. Though we had been learning bits of grammar throughout the years, French 3 is where you piece it all together, and perfect it.

Each tense has its own set of rules, verb endings, and exceptions, all while every noun carries a gender. It is, essentially, a lot of work! To give a clearer picture, I'll explain both types of past tense, passe compose and imparfait. Choosing which one depends on whether the action was a single specific event or something that occurred continuously without a set start and end point (something you did vs something you used to do). Imparfait expresses continuous or habitual actions, things you used to do or ongoing situations. To form it, you take the nous form of the verb in the present tense, drop the -ons at the end, and add endings like -ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, or -aient. The ending depends on the subject. Passe compose, on the other hand, describes completed actions or events, often tied to a specific point in time. To form it, you need the subject + auxiliary verb (锚tre or avoir) + the past participle of the main verb. Each verb follows its own rules for which auxiliary to use, and the past participle changes accordingly.

As challenging as the grammar was that year, I had the greatest opportunity of my life.

I would have never thought walking into class that morning that my regular school day would shift to be the focus of my following months. Two representatives for a nonprofit organization, CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange), came to talk to us about studying abroad. Instantly, I was hooked and I knew I had to get on the program. I started my application that same day and spent weeks with my English teachers making sure my essays were worthy of being chosen. Every day was filled with hope for the possibility of going to France and furthering my education. My drive then, and still today, is to be a trilingual midwife. To be able to be a healthcare provider for women in a challenging moment, and provide healthcare in the comfort of their own language, like English, Spanish, and French. I knew getting accepted into the program would grow my language skills immensely, and I knew I needed the challenge. I was still the top of my class in French and needed more. Summer school in France was the perfect opportunity.

The application process itself was challenging, especially considering the other things I had on my plate. It was one of my first years with multiple honors and AP courses, and SAT’s were coming up soon. I thankfully made the deadline and awaited my response. One Friday evening, I got it. I immediately ran to my mom, too scared to open the message and handed her my phone. And there it was, not only did I get selected, I got my program of choice. Out of the three areas I could've gone to- Toulouse, Rennes, or Paris- I got my first pick. When deciding which location to pick, I feared choosing Paris would be too competitive and doubted my ability to be chosen. Though my mom reminded me that when you have a goal and a dream, you need to aim for it no matter how far from reach it seems. She told me to do it for my younger self, the one who always dreamed of seeing the Eiffel Tower, and so I did. There I was, February 23rd of 2024, at 9:42PM, marking the moment I found out my dreams could come true. I would be the first of my family to leave the United States and the start of me having bigger dreams for myself. Now I had the opportunity to go to France, something I would’ve never have imagined for myself- not only to learn the language I had grown so fond of, but to immerse myself completely in the culture. From staying with a host family, to learning how to take the Parisian metro, to my 8AM French classes, this experience immensely expanded my literacy in the French language, and culture.

My flight took off on June 1st of 2024. My roommate and I got settled into our rooms and ate dinner as a family, which we looked forward to each night. We would spend hours talking about our cultural differences and language. One of the conversations my roommate, Zarana, and I had was explaining the difference between a bell, a bell pepper (the sweet pepper), a pepper (the spicy pepper), and pepper (the seasoning). We laughed and had heartfelt conversations, feeling connection and learning our differences at the same time.

One big cultural difference I noticed was our lifestyle. Our differences are so deeply rooted in our language that when asked “What do you do?”, in the United States we assume that means work. When in fact, France prioritizes life outside of work like hobbies and travel, that for them “What do you do” has a completely different meaning. Culturally, in the United States we have a career driven identity and work long hours, we live to work. While in France, they work to live, to financially support their lifestyle of hobbies and things that bring them pleasure, like experiences, vacations, and travels. Essentially, my dinner conversations opened my eyes to see multiple cultural differences and made me think beyond the norm, and have bigger dreams for myself.

Besides our dinner conversations and cultural differences, my literacy in language expanded too. Since I was placed in the highest level of French that CIEE offered, I got to review all of the grammar structure, which I really needed. I especially loved that I was being taught by a native French teacher and that the class was completely in French from beginning to end. It felt so rewarding each day after class to walk knowing I had understood everything that was said for the past 2 hours. Everything felt more meaningful, and the immersion allowed my literacy in French to grow.

Aside from my homestay experience, and class engagement, I also grew as a person. I came to understand more about myself and who I wanted to become. I took the opportunity of being unknown in France to “reinvent myself”. Rather than be timid, I stepped out of my comfort zone to make friends and go outside each and explore a new part of the city alone. Because of that, in France, I got to experience so much more and made the best of my time creating lifelong memories: on the steps of the Palais Garnier, I ate gelato and listened to the sounds of the city; I spent hours to roam the Louvre; laughed uncontrollably in the cafe of Musee D’Orsay with my friends; thrifted in Le Marais; went back for ice cream 3 times in a row; and so much more. If I hadn’t taken the initiative to be social and branch out, I would have lost the meaningful friendships and core memories that have shaped the individual that I am today. I came back to America, with a profound outlook on life. I grew to have an open mind and set higher expectations for myself to think outside the box and set goals larger than just my career.

The following month, when I returned home, I hosted my second exchange student, Lou- Anne. Lou-Anne and I clicked on an even deeper level, we had so many things in common and this time around both of our language skills were much better so we were able to communicate more profoundly. Similar to my experience with Milla, Lulu and I spent the summer inseparable and 聽explored many things together, even mundane days resting were filled with uncontrollable laughter. One of the most precious memories I have with Lulu was our trip to Iowa, where we went to celebrate my uncle's inauguration party for a ranch he just bought. It was the most Mexican thing imaginable, from the live bandas, the horses dancing, and the food. Lulu got to see not only the classic American suburban experience, but the Mexican one as well. My mom and I taught her how to dance many styles and she partied like us. Just as my host family was able to expand my horizons, I was able to introduce her to more.

That following summer, Milla and Lou-Anne invited me to their homes, and I spent the summer in the South of France. We planned a month-long itinerary exploring all parts, like Annecy, Chamonix, Montpellier, Marseille, St-Tropez, and much more. I learned something new in every place we went. I got to experience a traditional wedding, how they dance, I ate famous French cuisine, and played family favorite activities, which ranged from board games to playing tag with chosen siblings and grandmothers. They’re my family, and I theirs. It’s surreal to believe that this all began with a simple note from my counselor, asking to meet in D211.

Not only did my French literacy and cultural knowledge expand within a few years, so did I as a person. The old Mia, who sat in the counselors’ office, would have never thought that someone from her background could achieve more than what was conventional. My courage and determination to complete my childhood dream to see the Eiffel Tower, hopefully inspires my younger cousins and siblings to dream big. French didn’t just give me a new language, it gave me a new version of myself who dares to dream bigger. Just as my mom said, when you have a goal you must aim for it no matter how distant it seems. And with that, my next goal is to visit the Eiffel Tower once more, but this time, to the one who pushed me to aim higher, my lovely mom.