Has traveling to a new place every had you wishing that you spoke another language? You can find language schools in nearly every country and city if you’re really keen on picking up some useful words and phrases. However, not everyone has the time, or even wants to spend their vacation sitting inside the confines of a language school. How about a French language tour in Montreal?
I know that I certainly didn’t want to go back to school during my week long visit to Canada. But, on the other hand, I was seriously in love with the French language…and we would be visiting Montreal, a city where the majority of residents are bilingual. Was I missing an opportunity by not learning some French? After all, I’m pretty fortunate that I can drive up to a French influenced country when the Francophile spirit moves me, and not have to hop on a plain to Paris.
Was I wasting an opportunity to learn? (My biggest fear.)
Enter — the French language walking tour!
Our French language tour in Montreal departed from a beautiful vantage point that was already a plus in my book. Our tour guide, as well as five other friendly faces were gathered around and soon we were ready to hit the streets. The awesome thing about our guide is that she had actual experience in teaching ESL, so that is to say she has a lot of experience with people who have NO idea what they’re doing which made my husband and I, who were both a bit apprehensive, feel a lot better.
We started with walking through a market and learning how to introduce ourselves, where we live, and what we do for a living. Surprisingly, I found the shift in pronouns to be quite easy (Je m’appelle = My name is; Il s’appelle = his name, etc.) However, everything else was kind of difficult.
SO many details!
The nuances were tough to get down. For instance, an American man would say, “Je suis Ameri-KEN” whereas a woman would say, “Je suis Ameri-CAN.” However, our teacher was so very kind and didn’t mind repeating herself over and over — she seemed happy to do so.
Every so often we would stop to learn about a cultural spot in the city, and learn a new phrase. Everyone in the group would have to repeat the phrase, but change it so that it matched their true life experience. It might seem like people watching you speak a new language would be hell on earth. HOWEVER, everyone was new to French, so it wound up being really fun. There were a lot of laughs and complimenting each other. Letting our guard down and being vulnerable made it impressively easy to make friends quickly and feel close to each other. We all wound up exchanging contact information at the end of the tour.
The end
Speaking of the end of the tour, the last part is a ‘final exam’ of sorts. We all sat down in a BEAUTIFUL outdoor cafe and had to order a drink in French. I tried to order an iced tea (so freaking simple) and still got tongue tied. The waiter, who probably deals with this every day, was nice about it and even tried to help me with my pronunciation.
If you ever have the opportunity – I’d highly suggest a language walking tour in general and a French language tour in Montreal. It was a great way to make friends, see the city, and feel an instant connection to the culture. Plus, I had a huge surge of confidence afterwards! It was kind of like, “OK — I just did something that kind of made me uncomfortable and had the potential to be very embarrassing and I survived. What CAN’T I do?!”
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