A "Romance" Language

French, along with Spanish, Italian and Portuguese (among others), is known as a "romance" language because it traces to its origins to Latin, the language of the Romans. Of course, French also has the reputation for being the language of romance. Thus, French is both a "romance" language and a "romantic" language. These cultural points were not lost on me when I started my journey into the French language more than half a life ago. And despite years of toiling with subjonctif vs. infinitif or masculin vs. feminin or de vs. à vs. nothing at all, the language somehow retained its romance -- spoken always in hushed whispers and never with an open jaw.

Until I moved to Paris. Living among the French has successfully excised any romance that had existed despite years of graded exams and disapproving French teachers with a belief in corporal punishment. Through the daily interactions and mis-interactions of life, the language has become, at best, quotidien, and at worse, a source of stress. A language somehow loses its sex appeal when:

• it is the language I struggle through as I try to explain to the sales people at the store that, in fact, the internet is not connected and neither is the television.

• it is the language used by the hag at the boulangerie to scream at me because I mistook a 50 centimes piece for a 1 Euro piece.

• it is the language that the salesperson at the electronics store uses to tell me that he can't refund the 40 Euros for the warranty that I never asked for simply because of the incontestable reason that "it's already done."

• it is the language used to dub over such American gems as the Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park (you decide whether I'm being ironic here).

• it is the language you use to conduct banking -- is there anything less romantic?

• it is the language that you use to apologize and excuse yourself constantly

• it is the language used to tell you "no" in a thousand different ways in a thousand different places every day

• it is the language used on every French form to describe every French form you need but don't have

• it is a language that accompanies a body language of sighs, puffs, rolling eyes, shrugged shoulders, crossed arms, and raised eyebrows that are just as incomprehensible as the language itself

I am still in love in Paris -- and waiting for it to fall in love with me -- but I'm afraid that my romance with the French language is gone for good.