Essay – B
Me talk pretty one day – David Sedaris

”Me talk pretty one day” is a story about how David Sedaris started to learn French. He moves to Paris after taking a one-month French course in New York.
Throughout his essay he explains how his ability to speak French is developing, and how his fellow students and teachers are affecting his learning. He brings up many aspects of good and bad things that contribute to your learning. It is clear that he wants to use his own story as a representative story of how learning languages is a process that takes time and effort.

“And it struck me that, for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every word that someone was saying.
Understanding doesn’t mean that you can suddenly speak the language. Far from it. It’s a small step, nothing more, yet its rewards are intoxicating and deceptive.” Page 3 line 120-124

This quote is from the absolute ending of the essay. This is where his entire point with the essay becomes clear. Basically the first two and a half pages is a short story with a 1st person narrator. I think this structure is his way to make sure that we can identify ourselves with his situation. Most people have tried to learn a new language, and know how hard it is to remember grammar and regular everyday words.
It is frustrating if you can’t remember a certain word or phrase that you need. I think that this is why David Sedaris in general has a negative attitude to his learning process. It’s not because he thinks it’s boring, but more likely because he is insecure and it’s hard. I myself can relate to the insecure feeling and the fear of saying something completely wrong.

“That’s the way they do it here – it’s everybody into the language pool, sink or swim”
Page 1 Line 16

I think this phrase describe his situation very well. He is at a whole new school and he knows no one. It’s more or less the same feeling I had, when I started at Nærum Gymnasium. I knew one or two in my class and I started in a language class with Spanish at the highest level with no experience whatsoever.
As he enters his class it becomes clear to him that everyone else is in the same position as him. Their teacher forbids them to speak anything but French while in class. Their teacher is very strict and she doesn’t seem very kind. She only speaks French to the students, also when responding or criticising something they just said. As Sedaris empathizes with his strange words like kfdtinvfm, palicmkrexis etc. it is perhaps not the best academic response if you don’t understand a single word of it. Her way of teaching affects him negatively both in and out of class.

“My fear and discomfort crept beyond the borders of the classroom and accompanied me out onto the wide boulevards. Stopping for coffee, asking directions, depositing money in my bank account: these things were out of the question, as they involved having to speak.” Page 3 Line 98-100

Even though he ends his essay by saying that he suddenly understood when his teacher was talking French to him. This still seem as a bit harsh way of teaching. If the teaching methods is so demanding, that the students don’t even dare to say a word in French when outside of their classroom it’s perhaps a bit too extreme. I think the point of learning a language is that you can use it in your everyday life. Also David Sedaris says that before he entered the French class he wouldn’t stop blabbering on with every little French word he had learned. It seems like the teacher had the opposite affect on her students. But just as he is about to give up when his teacher is scolding him, he realizes that he actually understands what she is saying to him. He becomes so happy that he is cherishing the nagging which is why he says: “I know the thing that you speak exact now. Talk me more, you, plus, please, plus. “ Page 3 Line 127-128
The courage to speak and learn a new language comes from encouragement and progress. David Sedaris last quote is what makes the essay special. It takes his negativity and insecurity and turns it into a favourable development to empathize how you learn a language the best way.

In Denmark the new school reform says that kids has to be taught English from 1st grade. In Denmark kids in that grade would be around 7 years old. Science has shown that your learning is better when you are a kid, but another reason for this reform is because it is the fewest kids who think about making a mistake. Learning a foreign language is fun to them and therefore they can learn faster and better because of their not yet fully developed emotional understanding.

According to David Sedaris it’s important to put a lot of effort into learning a new language. It takes time and hard work, but the most important factor is the progress. When you can feel that you are getting better and step-by-step developing your vocabulary and grammatical understanding. Of course you need an interest in learning a foreign language. But it is an individual process that takes time if you want to be fluent in the written and spoken part of a foreign language, and then perhaps you may “talk pretty one day.”