My experience feeling tried in translation
“Elle est très belle aujourd’hui,” I heard as I turned to leave my French class.
I laughed mindlessly as my professor repeatedly urged my classmate, “No? You don’t think so?” I remember repeating “What?” as I doubted my translation of the phrase. The blood rushed to my face as I managed to translate “She…is pretty?” and I was absolutely embarrassed by the grin that appeared on his face when he said “Oui.”
I recall looking out the small window, itching to leave the room as my classmate chuckled uncomfortably. It was really hot for 10 PM in December.
I have no doubt I would’ve spoken up if that comment was in English, but at that moment and for the following hours, I was too confused, embarrassed, and self-doubting to draw a conclusion.
Language instructors occupy a unique position of power over their students. Not only do they teach us what words to say, but also how to say them. They have the power to twist our words and in this case, make us doubt what we heard.
When you don’t know the language, there are infinite possibilities. Infinite excuses for the professor. Maybe I heard wrong. Maybe the phrase has another meaning. Maybe I said something that gave off the wrong impression.
Ears still ringing, I beelined straight to my best friend’s room, where it took over half an hour for me to spit out why I had been banging on her door at that hour. As I tried to recount what had happened, I found myself questioning my recollection of the event. “Were those the exact words he said?” she asked.
“I think so. I’m pretty sure. Wait, you say it so I can see if it sounds the same.”
She asked if anything like this had happened before, and I couldn’t even be sure.
If I think hard enough, I can recall sly glances when discussing the word “copine,” and times when I responded “oui” without knowing what I was agreeing to. Even knowing logically that this situation was not my fault was not enough to quell my embarrassment.
I know that my experience is not unique. Over the past weeks, I’ve been exchanging stories like this one with nearly all of my friends. Sometimes, it’s an offhand comment, but a lot of times it’s just a huge flurry of words or a joke that nobody understood.
My roommate’s first reaction was to look up the university’s complaint process. But as we tried to explore the limited options we had, all of which would require me to recount these events to multiple people, I felt like we had hit a dead end. It was too late to transfer out of the class, as the final was only a couple of weeks away and any of my retellings of this event would inevitably be inconsistent.
I knew that a simple “That’s not what I said” from the professor who taught French would carry much more weight than a student just starting to learn French. Unless we teach students and language instructors alike about the power imbalance inherent in language learning, we can not claim to have or begin to establish a safe learning environment.
“Elle est très belle aujourd’hui” I heard. Or at least I think I did. I can’t be sure.
