Courtesy

12TH ARRONDISSEMENT, PARIS—I’m at a dinner party in Paris; I am, in fact, the reason for the dinner party, the guest of honor, the visiting American. Five of us sit around a table, eating, drinking wine, and chatting, amiably and aimlessly, about the world situation, music, theatre, travel, and whatever else arises. My hosts are a French sociologist—whose research brings her from time to time to the United States, which is how I met her—and her student-son. The other two guests are a scholar in the slightly rarefied field of Southeast Asian tourism, and her husband, the director of international relations for a town just outside Paris. (His specialty is also Southeast Asia.)

Among them, the four speak several languages: French, of course, Spanish, Portuguese, German, I think, Indonesian, and smatterings of other Asian languages. And English. Everyone here speaks English, mostly as a third or fourth or fifth language rather than as a second, and mostly less than perfectly. But tonight, they’re all speaking English—

Because the American in the room is competent in only one language: her own. I speak enough French for shopping, but not enough to be comfortable conversing in it.

If any of my companions are equally self-conscious about their less-than-perfect English, it doesn’t show. All evening, as a courtesy to me, they speak my language. Sometimes they fall into French for a moment, but after a couple of sentences, the conversation stops, one of them checks to see if I understood, and they go back to English.

During one such moment, I wonder if I’ve ever seen this happen in reverse. Have I ever been in a room in the United States in which everyone present was speaking a language not their own—that they didn’t even use in their work—to accommodate a non-English-speaking visitor?

My companions stop and explain the last two sentences to me, and I lose the thought. Half an hour later, during another French moment, I come back to it, this time with the answer: Never. I’ve never been at a U.S. party at which everyone spoke a visitor’s language instead of English.

Are the French, then—by custom or nature—more courteous than the people of the United States? Possibly. Could there be another explanation for this particular act of kindness, one that doesn’t involve ethnic or cultural stereotypes?

Well, Europe and the United States are almost exactly the same size—Europe’s area is 3.9 million square miles, the United States’ 3.79 million. But Europe’s population is more than double the U.S. population—700 million to some 300 million. And while the United States has one national language, Europe has dozens. As one corollary among many, Europeans are far more likely to learn multiple languages, to speak some better than others, and to be used to a world in which people speak multiple languages—some better than others.

I find the thought—that these four Parisians are less uncomfortable speaking imperfect English than I am speaking imperfect French—more comforting than credible. They may simply be more willing to get past their discomfort in order to make me comfortable—that is, they may, after all, simply be more deeply courteous than I am.

Either way, the evening is lovely and memorable. I leave wishing to acquire at least a bit of my hosts’ language habit, to speak French more while in France—and perhaps someday, in the company of another visitor to a country not her own, to return the courtesy shown to me tonight.

© Judith Mahoney Pasternak 2009