I Must To Do This

Approximately 2 years ago, everyone urged me to start speaking English with the H. "You have an unfair advantage," said MIL, "so now you can speak in English with my son and then he can be bilingual too." Admittedly, I resisted for awhile, though not out of meanness. It's just that there are very few Frenchies with whom I am comfortable conversing in English. And also, once you get started in one language with someone, it suddenly gets a little weird to switch languages. Finally, I relented. "Yes," said the H, "it would be good for me to practice my English. It won't be weird. You will see, my English is not so bad, I am just a little rusty."

So the day we decided to try speaking English this is more or less what happened:
H: So now we speak in Eenlgish?
Me: Okay. What's up?
H: Mmm. Eh. Tomorrow I must to go to work and I must to go to zhere, ze labo.
Me:.....Um....What?
H: I say to you, tomorrow I must to go to work and zen I must to go to zhere. Ze labo.
Me: Okay, I think we have a problem....

So that went on for a couple of weeks. The H invariably always started his sentences with "I must to..." The first day this happened, I was all, "You don't must to. You must. I must go to work. I don't must to go to work. I don't must to see this movie." The next day: "So", says the H, "I must to see if I ave light for ze lamp." "I MUST SEE" I said loudly. "Ah, uh, yes, I must to see..." "NO!!!!!" I screamed. "WHAT DID I JUST SAY?????" Then I tried a different tactic: "Forget about must. It's awfully restrictive and official. As in "Welcome to JFK International Airport! You must present this form to a U.S. Customs Officer!" Try saying "I have to go...", I suggested.

That tactic did not work. H continued with the must to be doing things, which was slowly driving me crazy. I mean, did he even HEAR me correcting him?

Then we went to New York for Christmas. H and I had given up on the speaking to each other in English because my patience had been completely drained and it always ended up with me shouting "NO!!! WHAT DID I JUST SAY??" Which admittedly was not very nice of me, but it had been a good 6 months and it was the same mistakes EVERY TIME. Plus, it was totally weird switching to English from French. So H was very excited as it would be his first trip to New York ever all by himself, and hopefully, some more patient English speakers with whom he could converse.

Now, a trip home to New York always includes a stop at Barnes & Noble. I spent the better part of an hour trying to decide which books to purchase. Of course, the H quickly got bored and I found him an hour and a half later in the Foreign Languages section. He was looking at the grammar books. "Hey," he said, "so I think maybe I should buy a book to improve my English," he said. "Well, I think that is an EXCELLENT idea," I said, plopping down on the floor. I browsed the titles and picked up a Beginner English book. "How about this one?" I suggested. "Oooh, look, it even has pictures!!!" H looked over my shoulder. "That's a beginners book!" he said accusingly. "Yeah. What's your point?" I asked. "My point," he said coldly, "is that that is a beginner book. I am not a beginner." "Um, yeah you are," I said. "No!" said H, flipping through the book. "Look, it is stuff like "what is your name?" and "where do you live?". I already know all this," he said pointedly. "Well, I don't think it would hurt for you to start at the beginning. I mean, your grammar is a huge mess. All those prepositions flying everywhere. I think you should forget everything you learned at school and start all over from the very beginning. Get off on a good start. Relearn the basics. It will give you more confidence, and it will help you with your grammar." The H scoffed at me. "I think this book is much better," he said, showing me an Advanced English book. "Mmm, okay," I said, "but the problem is, this is a book for high school seniors preparing for the SATs. I think this is going to be way too hard for you."

To be continued....