Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
When in French
When in French: Love in a Second Language | Lauren Collins
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 Oliviera surprising turn of events for someone who didnt 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 doesnt understand about Olivier, having never spoken to him in his native tongue? Does I love you even mean the same thing as je taime? When the couple, newly married, relocates to Francophone Geneva, Collinsfearful of one day becoming "a Borat of a mother" who doesnt understand her own kidsdecides 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 languagesand 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 accidently telling her mother-in-law that shes given birth to a coffee machine. In learning French, Collins must wrestle with the very nature of French identity and societywhich, it turns out, is a far cry from life back home in North Carolina. Plumbing the mysterious depths of humanitys many forms of language, Collins describes with great style and wicked humor the frustrations, embarrassments, surprises, and, finally, joys of learningand living inFrench. From the Hardcover edition.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
quote
keithmalek
post image

She goes on to write: We think of foreign languages as extremely hard to learn, but we're incensed when immigrants don't speak English perfectly.

quote
keithmalek
post image

Here's a little bit of motivation for anyone who is trying to learn a foreign language, but is frustrated with their progress and wants to quit--if you do, you're no better than Hitler. (You're welcome).

quote
keithmalek
post image

I was always curious about this.

Suet624 Me too! 3y
Leftcoastzen Thanks ! Always curious about that! 3y
8 likes2 comments
quote
keithmalek
post image

quote
keithmalek
post image

quote
keithmalek

I kept telling waiters I was dead--je suis finie--when I meant to say that I had finished my salad.

review
MeatPiie
post image
Pickpick

I loved this book!
You need to at least have some notions in French in order to get the jokes and/or get why they are funny, but it depicts the struggle of living in a foreign country pretty well (specially when you don't speak the local language!).
(Finished on 03/2020)

blurb
RamsFan1963
post image

I always loved Bonnie Tyler's voice. I'm not familiar with this album, I'll have to go searching on ebay.

#WanderingJune #LostInFrance @cinfhen @BarbaraBB

BarbaraBB She had (has?) a voice full of smoke! Loved her too in the 80s but don‘t know this album either. 5y
47 likes1 comment
review
ARoseByAnyOtherName
post image
Mehso-so

The first half is a brilliant, accurate and amusing anecdote about expat life in Switzerland. The second is a dry yet informative history of the French language....with some memoirs thrown in for good measure. Took me forever to finish it because the end was so dry.

quote
ARoseByAnyOtherName
post image

Expat life in Switzerland.....in a nutshell 😍🇨🇭😂

review
LilithHomer
post image
Pickpick

Combines a personal narrative about an American living in Switzerland with her French husband with reflections and factual tidbits about bilingualism and xenophobia. It works.

3 likes1 stack add
quote
UrsulaMonarch
post image

Fun words! 💚 #useful #kummerspeck

tournevis Knullrufs is the name of my next band. 7y
UrsulaMonarch @tournevis 😂💚💚 7y
4 likes2 comments
review
UrsulaMonarch
Pickpick

Loved this book! I found it to be much more about language than relationships, despite its packaging! I was chuckling every few pages and learning something just as often.

blurb
UrsulaMonarch
post image

More #dinerreading! So glad this book is #overdue, which prompted me to actually read it. Loving it! #library #SFPL #coffee

quote
UrsulaMonarch
post image

I'm enjoying this book so much! Tons of great language information 💚🤓

Lindy 20-minute work shifts - that IS fascinating. 😮 7y
UrsulaMonarch @Lindy agreed! 😂 the previous section of the book went over famous errors in interpretation, from the amusing to the more grave. 7y
Lindy @Lkelly Stacked! 7y
UrsulaMonarch @Lindy yay! 😁I'm sure I'll write more about this but I feel like this is a book about language that got packaged as being about relationships?? Anyway hope you like it like I do! 👍 7y
7 likes2 stack adds4 comments
review
Dolly
post image
Bailedbailed

Mostly about linguistics (?) and languages. Audio got tedious and uninteresting with no plot to follow just chopped up strands of story .⭐️⭐️

review
Nomad_Student
Mehso-so

I enjoyed parts of this book & found others extremely irritating. Linguistically, there were both over- & under-explanations. On the whole, the entire book needed a much firmer hand in the editing department- it skips around between subjects & timelines & is a little too focused on navel-gazing for my taste, even for a memoir. I did, however, enjoy the parts that dealt more directly with developing an identity & relationships in a second language.

blurb
BookishMarginalia
post image

Seems like a good pairing! 💜❤️💜

Zelma Very nice. 👍☕️ 8y
kspenmoll 📚☕️ 8y
152 likes8 stack adds2 comments
blurb
MrBook
post image

#TBRtemptation post! A hilarious and endearing memoir with high ratings. Lauren moved to London in her early 30s, and fell in love with Olivier, a Frenchman. The fact that they speak 2 different languages exacerbated when they moved to francophone Geneva. Determined to communicate better, she learns French, with hilarious effect. For example, she tells her mother-in-law she's given birth to a coffee machine. 😂👏🏻 #blameLitsy #blameMrBook 😎

BookishMarginalia Want this one! 8y
WanderingBookaneer We had this in our hands yesterday… And today. 8y
Ellen I read The New Yorker excerpt; it's really good, gets into a lot of the subtle misses of loving across languages http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/08/lauren-collins-learns-to-love-in-fr... 8y
SaraFair Love all english / french crossovers! Fiction or non fiction! 8y
LitsyGoesPostal 😊👍🏻 8y
86 likes19 stack adds5 comments
blurb
PutnamKatie
post image

In-flight reading! ✈️

20 likes1 stack add
blurb
BookNAround
post image

Was going to try reading something festive but pulled this out instead. It's sucked me right in.

7 likes1 stack add
review
Twocougs
post image
Bailedbailed

I usually love books about France/French but this one just didn't grab. Got half way through but can't go on.

HardcoverHearts I heard an interview with the author, and I suspected that the book itself wouldn't be as good as the interview about the book was to listen to. Good for you for bailing. Life's too short. 8y
47 likes1 stack add1 comment
review
bermudaonion
post image
Pickpick

A great memoir for those who love language. I could relate to the feeling of not fitting in where you live. The audio of this book didn't work for me - I didn't enjoy it until I switched to print.

BethFishReads Good to know -- I'll read not listen 8y
23 likes1 comment
blurb
Rhondareads
post image

Part of today's BookMail also received the novelThe Patriots by Sana Krasikov both look fantastic,

24 likes1 stack add
blurb
Jenwillread
post image

Chilly first night of October = perfect night for reading in bed 🇫🇷📚🍁#wheninfrench

3 likes1 stack add
review
JacintaMCarter
post image
Panpan

This book started out as a memoir about Collins attempting to learn French after marrying a Frenchman and moving to France. Then it became a history of the French language. Then back to memoir. This switching back and forth continued throughout. While both the memoir and the history were interesting, she needed to focus on one aspect or the other so we could get a full story, rather than just snippets of two different ideas.

blurb
raelaschoenherr
post image

This book sounds SO right up my alley! A memoir about an expat in England who falls in love with a Frenchman and is trying to learn the language? Sign me up.

Leelee08 ❤️ 8y
14 likes2 stack adds1 comment
blurb
JacintaMCarter
post image

I always feel so important when I get a new ARC in the mail.

MrBook 😎👍🏻 Me too. 8y
12 likes1 stack add1 comment
blurb
Penguinpress
post image

blurb
Kiley
post image

I am LOVING this so far. It broke me out of my reading lull completely - it is funny, sweet, and utterly charming.

4 likes1 stack add
review
jcgoody
post image
Pickpick

The best memoirs are just as much histories as they are stories of people. Collins explores the languages of French and English, and the the transition of growing up in America to living in Europe. Fantastic non-fiction from a longtime New Yorker staff writer.

5 likes2 stack adds