I’m thankful that I have a good French teacher who has a
pleasant sense of humor. He speaks French, Zarma, Hausa and English, and he’s
been teaching for many years. But there are some sociolinguistic things that I have
to teach him about American English. Like today, I taught him about the art of
the “mic drop.”
Each day Ibro will ask me to tell him 2 Bible stories, with
as much detail as I can remember, and then he’ll ask me questions about them.
Today I told him the creation story and the tale of original sin. After peppering
me with questions for a few minutes, he then asked me how I would sum up
everything I had told him. I said, “Le peché est grand, mais Dieu est plus
grand” (Sin is great but God is bigger)
and dropped my pen. Then he laughed and I had to explain how Americans will
make a joke (or a profound statement) and then drop the microphone. He loved
it.
One of the first English idioms I had to explain was “it
will cost your firstborn child,” in the context of American students attending
university. Ibro asked, in surprise, if it was normal for a student to pay
their own tuition (versus their parents paying for them) and I told him that in
my experience, it was very rare for parents to have enough money to pay for the
university tuition, so there’s a big problem of student debt in America.
Anyway,
he knew the expression “it will cost an arm and a leg” (il coute la bra et le pie) and I explained that this expression
meant it was even more expensive. Then I recounted the story of Rumpelstiltskin
to give him further context.
Other discussions about translation have arisen around
Biblical terms. For example, I said I would pray, “I will bless the name of the
Lord” and he thought I had mixed up the sentence, meaning to say God would do
the blessing. We do get into our theology! Last week I tried transliterating a
passage of Scripture from English to French, and Ibro was confused by the
context. I said that God instructed us to make a joyful noise (in worship,
celebration, etc—see Psalms 95, 98, 100) and he said noise couldn’t be joyful. Apparently
“le bruit” has a negative connotation in French. So the French Bible I have
reads, “Venez, crions notre joie en l’honneur de l’Eternel!” (Come, we are shouting our joy in honor of
God, the Eternal!)- Psalm 95:1a.
I make plenty of mistakes when we’re in lessons,
but I think the funniest was when I meant to say “she fed the baby” but I said “she
ate the baby” (in the context of the story of Moses…oops!!). It just makes me
think of the famous line… “You keep using that word. I don’t think it means
what you think it means.” I'll push through the blunders, though. I won't give up on French--that would be
