When in French: Love in a Second Language

Written by Lauren Collins

Narrated by Laurel Lefkow

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

‘Talking to you in English’, he said, ‘is like touching you with gloves.’

A language barrier is no match for love. New Yorker journalist Lauren Collins discovers this first-hand when, in her early thirties, she moves to London and falls for Olivier, a Frenchman. As their relationship begins to grow, Lauren senses that there are things she doesn’t understand about Olivier, having never spoken to him in his mother tongue. (Does ‘I love you’ even mean the same thing as ‘je t’aime’?) And when they move to French-speaking Geneva, Lauren suddenly finds herself no longer able to talk to the local handymen or shop owners, let alone her husband’s parents.

Fearful of one day finding herself unable to communicate with her own children, Lauren decides to learn French. Along the way, she faces a series of challenges, from awkward role-playing games at her Swiss language school, to accidentally telling her mother-in-law that she’s given birth to a coffee machine. But there are also unexpected pleasures: the delights of learning French words that have no English equivalent and the joys of winning her first argument against Olivier in his native tongue.

A funny, thoughtful memoir, When in French considers how language shapes our lives, from how we think, to how we fall in love, and what happens when two languages, and two very different cultures, collide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Release date: Sep 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9780008100612

Lauren Collins

Lauren Collins is a staff writer for The New Yorker. A native North Carolinian, she lives in Paris with her family.

Reviews for When in French

[cindywho-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

More of a fantasy of wild privilege with asides about language and history than a memoir...

[bobbieharv · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A delightful book for anyone interested in language and linguistic theory; made even more readable by the personal story of the author falling in love with a Frenchman and moving to Geneva.

[pennymck_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting, in-depth look at language and expressing one's personality from a unilingual American woman who married a French man and gradually became bilingual

[jlafleur_12 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Not bad, but not at all as advertised. At least half, if not more, of this short book is focused on linguistic theory about many languages (other than French), and the author's early family life (not in France). The author's travails learning to speak French like a native and her relationship to her French born husband seem like an afterthought, not the main story.

[gayla.bassham · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really liked this book and found that a lot of the things Collins has to say about cross-cultural marriages resonated with me. (My husband and I speak the same native language, but I was raised Southern Baptist and he was raised Jewish, and I found that many of the frustrations Collins describes apply.)

It's very well-written, as one would expect of a New Yorker writer. I think it could have been a little tighter, but it's a pretty short book so I suppose she felt the need to stretch. Perfect Yom Kippur afternoon reading -- interesting but light enough that it didn't tax my tired, hungry brain.