When I was younger I was quite proficient in the French language. I read a lot and studied both in Sweden and France. I was passionate about the language and the culture and could have imagined myself living in France one day. Then other things happened and French came to occupy a smaller and smaller part of my life, I stopped studying, only occasionally spoke, but I kept listening to French music a lot and if I come across some French somewhere I can still to this day pick up a lot of it.
But why am I out of the blue suddenly writing a blog post about the French language? Well, for me it is not suddenly nor out of the blue, I have been meaning to do that for quite some time and just not come around to it. Every time I listen to French music I think to myself that I should share my reflections on how French and Japanese interact in me, and when I found myself the past week day in day out humming the same French song that I love, I thought this is the sign that it is time to share my reflections.
Since starting to learn Japanese I am experiencing something interesting – it almost feels like the Japanese language is physically inserting itself over the French in my brain. I remember a French song, start to sing along and so far so good. But when I then try to speak French, out come Japanese words. Swedish and English have their own very well separated areas of residence inside of me but French and Japanese are fighting a battle that Japanese is winning at the moment. My knowledge of French is much deeper but Japanese has become like a new civilization building its foundation on top of the old one. I believe I could get back much of my French with a renewed immersion, but right now Japanese is taking over.
I have been wondering about this experience. Is there something similar between France and Japan that is causing this confusion in me? Is it my feelings of love towards both languages that competes for attention? Or is it just that while English is so deeply rooted in me, French was not and so is easily pushed aside when trying to add one more language to my repertoire. I do have come to feel the same warm feelings regarding Japan and Japanese that I did towards France and French. And I do find some resemblances, especially in the French and Japanese music from a few decades back, that I wonder if they make it easier for me to mix the two. And there is where I will pick up this language thread next week.
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