Kicking down language barriers has become my cause of the moment. I won’t let anything stop me from talking your ear off — not even the fact that I know maybe ten words of French. 

I find myself doing everything I mocked my mother for doing: talking louder and slower, intentionally speaking in broken English, and turning everything into a game of charades. I’m embarrassed by it all.

It’s not that I think anyone here is less intelligent because they don’t speak perfect English; it’s more of a lack of confidence in myself. I haven’t been here long enough to discover all the cultural discrepancies between France and America, and I worry about crucial words getting lost in translation and, in turn, offending someone.

Originally, I thought the way to avoid offending anyone with my linguistic and cultural ineptness is to be extremely self-deprecating. But, either I am surrounded by exceptional people, or everything Americans have told me about the French hating Americans is false.

When I enter one of the many boulangeries (bakeries) and  (pastry shops), the cashier quickly discovers that I’m not from here. I’m not sure what gives it away, but my best guess is the fact that I walk in the door and immediately blurt out, “I DON’T SPEAK FRENCH.” Instead of denying me service, though, or watching me violently flip through my French phrasebook, the employees decide to struggle with me as we begin our game of charades.

Sometimes, I like to complicate life by asking, “what’s your favorite flavor of macaroon?”

My friends groan as the charades begin again, because, well, how do you describe chocolate using hand gestures?

I have yet to meet anyone who brushes me off just because I can’t speak French very well. (I guess I’m used to the “this is ‘Merica. We speak ‘Merican” deal we’ve got going in the United States.)

In fact, every time I try to exercise my limited knowledge of the language, people ask me to speak in English because they want to practice their skills.

I am even volunteering at the Anglophone Bibliothèque (English Language Library) where I am paired up with children, teens, families, even members of the French press, to help them learn English. I’m in France — why isn’t anyone helping me learn French?!

I think that’s the part that has astounded me the most. Here I am, a foreigner, a minority, and yet, somehow the natives prefer to speak my language. Just another one of my many privileges as an American.