Melissa’s Review: When in French by Lauren Collins

When in French  
written by Lauren Collins
published by Penguin Press, 2016

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, iBooks, Book Depository, Goodreads

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Did I enjoy this book: It’s one of those books that makes me wish I had a photographic memory. I’d be that woman at the party who casually tosses funny, quirky book quotes into the conversation, causing everyone to be secretly annoyed at my cleverness. Luckily, I have a terrible memory (and I go to very few parties), so I settled for filling up my phone memory with pictures of Collins’s thoughts.

Anyway. You should read this book. It’s funny and lovely and true.

 

GOLDEN LINE

“We don’t call an arm an arm because it’s an arm; it’s an arm because we call it one.”

 

Would I recommend it: Absolutely.

 

 

About the book – from Goodreads: A language barrier is no match for love. Lauren Collins discovered this firsthand when, in her early thirties, she moved to London and fell for a Frenchman named Olivier—a surprising turn of events for someone who didn’t have a passport until she was in college. But what does it mean to love someone in a second language? Collins wonders, as her relationship with Olivier continues to grow entirely in English. Are there things she doesn’t understand about Olivier, having never spoken to him in his native tongue? Does “I love you” even mean the same thing as “Je t’aime”? When the couple, newly married, relocates to Francophone Geneva, Collins—fearful of one day becoming “a Borat of a mother” who doesn’t understand her own kids—decides to answer her questions for herself by learning French.

When in French is a laugh-out-loud funny and surprising memoir about the lengths we go to for love, as well as an exploration across culture and history into how we learn languages—and what they say about who we are. Collins grapples with the complexities of the French language, enduring excruciating role-playing games with her classmates at a Swiss language school and accidentally telling her mother-in-law that she’s given birth to a coffee machine. In learning French, Collins must wrestle with the very nature of French identity and society—which, it turns out, is a far cry from life back home in North Carolina. Plumbing the mysterious depths of humanity’s many forms of language, Collins describes with great style and wicked humor the frustrations, embarrassments, surprises, and, finally, joys of learning—and living in—French.