« Being able to follow conversations in a Parisian café is such a plea- sure! »

Alumni

In a city as cosmopolitan as Paris, it is nearly possible to develop professionally by speaking only English. But when it comes to social life, that's a whole other story. A story that Qi Kong, originally from Shanghai, remembers with a laugh.

Qi Kong thought she knew France pretty well. After all, wasn’t the young Shanghai girl working for a French company, meeting French friends in the many bistros and restau- rants in the megalopolis, and even living a love story with a Frenchman? So when she decided to take the plunge and come to Paris, she felt culturally ready. But she had left out one small detail: in France, we speak... French.

« The only thing I knew how to say in French was "bonjour", "au-revoir", "bisou" and "tchin". With my boyfriend, we speak English, because it's easier, more efficient. Again, I enrolled at ESSEC* to study finance - until then I had studied Chinese literature - and the classes are taught in English. So that's not where I was going to make progress, and I felt a bit lost in everyday life. I even thought that I was the only one in the whole of Paris who didn't speak French! ».

Intensive courses for immediate progress

Qi then began to doubt herself. « I even saw a report that said French is the 10th most difficult language to learn, and Chinese is the 1st. If I could speak Chinese, normally I should have been able to learn French, easily ».

As if to reinforce this feeling, the Chinese students Qi meets in Paris all express themselves very well in French. « I asked them how they learned French and they were the ones telling me about the Alliance française de Paris ».

At last, the secret was revealed! Immediately, Qi enrolled for a month of intensive courses during the summer of 2020.

 « And thanks to the teachers, who are really great, I made incredible progress! After a month, I settled down in a Parisian café and was able to have conversations with people. What a pleasure! ».

All these sounds that speak or themselves

Qi’s progress in French come with a renewed self-confidence. « At the Alliance, I met many people who were in the same situation as me, or even were struggling more than I was. I have an advantage: I am not afraid to make a mistake, I dare to try more than others. Besides that, my experience at the Alliance has allowed me to widen my social circle, to organize cultural outings with friends I met there. It’s a real opportunity for ex- patriates such as us ».

Finally reassured as to her ability to master French, Qi goes even further and embarks on a very personal sociolinguistic study: these strange onomatopoeias that punctuate the French conversations. « I noticed that you use a lot of sounds, like "pff", "mouais", "bof". I told myself that to really speak like a French person, I had to use them. But my boyfriend once heard me using such sounds over the phone, during an interview, and he told me I mustn’t! ».

An identical accent from north to south

Indeed, certain French subtleties are really just for the friendly circle. But in doing so, Qi Kong emphasized the small linguistic shortcomings which are gently mocked by fran- cophones from other horizons.

Speaking of horizons, has Qi noted the regionalisms which also make the salt of the French language? « I've heard a lot about the different accents in France, the Parisian accent, the southern accent, the central accent. I had the chance to travel a bit, to Nice, Antibes, and if I noticed that the flora was different, that people's attitudes were also changing, to me, you all have the same accent: the French accent! ».

*École supérieure des sciences économiques et commerciales.