Flirting with French: How a Language Charmed Me, Seduced Me, and Nearly Broke My Heart / William Alexander

Not since David Sedaris’s Me Talk Pretty One Day have I read such a humorous and entertaining chronicle of an adult attempting to learn French.

There are many funny language situations, made all the more amusing by the author’s apparent linguistic tone deafness. Can a 58-year-old pick up a language like French? He discusses this proposition with some experts and cites some linguistic theory behind the mechanism of language learning, interspersed with his dogged (and frequently laughable) attempts to master French. Alexander seems to eschew the traditional approach of memorizing verb forms and vocabulary (forever scarred by a battle axe school teacher), and instead embraces the purportedly effortless newfangled approaches of products like Rosetta Stone and social media with native speakers. All of this is complicated with recurring medical drama he has with his heart (alluded to in the subtitle), problems that he speculates may be stress-induced due to his attempts at tackling French. In the end he seems to reach détente with his target language. A scan of his brain seems to prove that he recognizes French prosody, but still can’t understand much. Oh well, at least he can negotiate a taxi ride at the airport during a bomb scare and has learned never to order rognons de veau. Can a 58-year-old learn French? In this case he can (sort of), as long as he keeps a sense of humor.

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