After I graduated I had no idea that I would soon emigrate and after I emigrated I had no idea that I would soon make my new life in French, in Montreal. That, though, was exactly what happened. Life is full of surprises, isn’t it?
My journey into French began when, instead of Toronto or Calgary, I settled in a small town in rural Ontario. That happened because a few months beforehand, when on vacation in Canada, I had finagled a job interview there with a firm looking for a chemist. After my vacation, the consulate in Belfast fasted-tracked my visa and off I went. I thought I was so smart but really I wasn't.
When I left Belfast the violence was intense as was life there. Here, in my small town, life wasn’t intense – far from it. On my own, without the comfort of a cinema, café or Irish community, in an era when the internet and DVDs were still science fiction, time could feel long indeed. The five-month winters often seemed like black holes of isolation.
Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t all bad. I adapted, played sports, developed new hobbies, such as sketching, learned about mosquito repellent (how those bugs loved my Irish blood) and met some really kind people.
Four volumes of Winston Churchill’s series on the history of the second World War got me through my first winter and the local library got me through the next two.
After a third Christmas, alone, in my semi-basement apartment, it was time to go home. But then along came a job offer in Montreal and, instead of going home, I took it.
My kind of place
Montreal wasn’t a bolt from the blue. Soon after I had arrived in my small town, two colleagues, native born Quebecers, befriended me. They invited me to their homes for dinners with their families. It was their kindness that led to my interest in Quebec. Then, on business trips to Montreal, I could tell that the city was my kind of place.
Indeed, from my first day in Montreal I was in love with it. Forty years later, I still am. Mind you, it hasn’t always been easy. True love never runs smooth, does it?
Some of the turbulence can be traced to French, which here is more “just a language” just as back home is more than “just another place”. In Quebec, French is holy ground and the heart of the sovereign nation that many Quebecers aspire to.
Into Quebec’s language hothouse, I arrived having achieved only a rusty “D” at O-level GCE. Thankfully, French didn’t terrify me as it did in school where every wrong word could mean the strap. Now, it was something I needed for my job and I just got on with learning it.
To get the ball rolling, my employer provided three weeks of half-day classroom lessons and then I was on my own, learning by osmosis, consuming French TV, movies, music, newspapers and novels. To be immersed in French, I rented in the Francophone east end close to the factory where I worked.
Separation referendum
After two years though – and despite my best efforts – I still struggled. And, with anti-Anglo sentiment hanging in the air after the unsuccessful separation referendum, I felt I should head home. Once more, this was not to be, this time because of a date.
One day I asked a neighbour out for a coffee and to my surprise she accepted. That she understood my broken French was a small miracle to me. Actually, I know now, she most likely just understood what I meant, less so the words I had used.
Even more surprising, the date went wonderfully well, probably because I couldn’t string together more than one or two sentences. Who would have thought silence could be so seductive?
After a second and third date I met her family and suddenly I was on my way to fluency or, as I discovered, to its foothills since casual fluency is to real fluency, what dating is to marriage and kids.
Getting to fluency in the live-fire conditions of life and work at an adult age was more than the myriad and infuriating details of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation; it also involved navigating some unexpected, and decidedly emotional, challenges.
Dumb mistakes
For instance, I worried about sounding like an idiot in professional or social settings. I was embarrassed when I discovered dumb mistakes I’d been making for years.
Then, I railed at the label of “Anglo” (“un Anglais”) “What? Me, English?” Some Anglophones called me a “traitor”. A Belfast philologist friend unhelpfully explained I “sort of” spoke French.
I had my own doubts: would my career go further and faster in English? Would I learn better French in France? Do I even hear or say anything in French that I wouldn’t in English?
Although I worked through these and other obstacles, after nine years in Montreal, alone again and with my job going nowhere, I decided to go home. I left my job, sold my furniture, cancelled my lease, packed my two suitcases and off I went.
The return of this native would be short-lived however.
Back in Belfast, in my Anglophone world, I missed French, at times, terribly. So, when my reverse emigration project blew up, I returned to Montreal, found another job, met someone new, rented an apartment and took up where I’d left off.
I’ve never looked back. I still love Montreal, I’m still working on my French, and I’m still a bilingual being.
