Baguette Magique

Episode 1: AK Agunbiade talks about his whimsical and fun experience learning French. 

Transcript

Cold Open And The Baguette Joke

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I took uh I took French in high school as well. And there's a show the other day, and this is uh guy from uh Quebec who came up and he's like, Oh, I'm from Quebec. Uh I speak French, the sexy language, right? And I was like, I went up after him and I'm like, you know what? I actually used to think French is a pretty sexy and sophisticated language until I learned the word for wand in French is baguette magique.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Welcome to Pit to Punchlines, everybody.

Setting The Episode’s Focus

SPEAKER_01 0:26

All right, y'all. You guessed it. On this episode of Pit to Punchlines, we are going to be talking about baguettes. All right, maybe not actually baguettes, but the point of this episode is me talking about my French learning experience, which was a doozy, uh, but a lot of fun. So I wanted to share that with you guys. All right, guys, you're probably wondering what is this joke you did at the very beginning? What does it mean? I want to kind of start off with that essentially like why I started doing what I did to

Why Harry Potter In French

SPEAKER_01 1:03

learn French. Um, the reason why I know that baguette magique means wand in French is because with any type of language, it's kind of a use it or lose it game. So at some point, I started trying to read something in French. Initially started trying to learn, or rather, listen to uh French news, which I was like, okay, this kind of sucks and it's boring, uh, or read it too, and it wasn't really that interesting. Uh, so I decided to maybe read something that I already read before that I was really interested in. What did I read? But Harry Potter. Like, I honestly still remember the first time that I read Harry Potter in The Sorcerer's Stone, which is the first book, obviously. And I read it and I burst into laughter because for English speakers like myself, the word baguette essentially just means baguette like the breadstick. But in French, baguette magique is just a wand because baguette can mean the breadstick or just the stick. So then I started thinking, wait, is baguette magique a magic stick? Okay, French, you nasty. Uh the French can be nasty, you know. Anyway, but essentially, I don't know. I started thinking, wait, are are French people just like sending each other baguettes as opposed to like plants? I don't know. I don't we're gonna come back to that question. Anyways, one interesting thing, too, that I think about is that French is a very particular language.

French Nuance And Culture Shock

SPEAKER_01 2:29

And for me, compared to when I was learning Spanish, French was much more difficult. And I think the reason why that is is a little bit of the language and the nuance and all like their exceptions upon exceptions. But part of it also, too, is the attitude of French speakers. If you ever speak to a native French speaker, they're very particular about correcting you when you're not speaking correctly, and they will correct you, believe me, not as chill about it. As opposed to Spanish speakers when I was learning Spanish, which was when I was in residency in Chicago, a lot more chill, a lot more forgiving. I still remember the abuelos and abuelos who were definitely encouraging me to speak Spanish, even though I made a lot of mistakes initially. Whereas I feel like French speakers, if you're not speaking very well, you make a lot of mistakes. Or if you're in Paris and your accent just sounds bad, they'll just start speaking English because they don't want to hear your French. Through all that, I still kind of power through it. I will say though that I am Nigerian and I look very West African. And often people may not be surprised that I speak French until they realize that I'm not from Niger or any of the other African West African countries that speak French because they were French colonies. My country, Niger, was fortunate enough to be colonized by the British. Yeah, they suck. But at home, whenever uh anyone who's Nigerian, you will speak probably English, but also whatever other native language

Identity, Assumptions, And Language

SPEAKER_01 3:58

that you speak as well. All right, guys, let's get into this journey and how it started. So it started in high school with my French teacher named Mr. P. Mr. P was an excellent French speaker. As a teacher, not so great. He kind of sucked. And it kind of hurts me a little bit to say that he sucked, but he did suck, but not because of not because of him not having the capabilities to be a good teacher. He just had a lot of life happen in a very short period of time once he started teaching. He had family members who were sick, uh, and he had to call off a lot to be able to take care of them. And the thing is that Mr. P was this tall, buff

High School French And Mr. P

SPEAKER_01 4:38

black dude he played college back in the day. And when you see him walking down the street, you'd be like, okay, brother. But then when he starts speaking French, you'd be like, What in the name of Pierre is going on? Right? He spent many years in France, like spoke French so well. But because of all the things that were going on in his life, he was not able to be the French teacher that I and other people in my class who were super, super nerdy, really, really wanted. And even though I didn't really learn much French in high school, I remember at the end of high school, he apologized to me and the other people in our class, being like, hey, I really feel like I failed you guys, because for him, he just started teaching when we came in. And uh yeah, it kind of sucked. But you know, it is what it is. Um, it is what it is. Moved on. So I ditched French after um high school. Honestly, didn't really take it in college, started medical school, and essentially the first year was medical school, didn't really have much time for anything but medical school. So essentially, I didn't pick up French again until I took a year off after my third year of medical school because I needed a break and moved to DC for a year while I was doing research. And I had a lot more time on my hands. Now in DC, I picked up speaking French again and I used two different uh avenues. One, I used this language software called Fluenz. We'll get back to that later on. And after, in addition to Fluence, I ended up finding a speaking partner, one of these websites that you use to find a language exchange partner. My French-speaking partner, who ended up becoming a good friend, her name is Jocelyn. She lived in uh Europe at the time. She grew up speaking French because she's West African, but also grew up in France. Uh, she was excellent. She was already a doctor at the time, whereas I was a medical student. She was trying to learn English because her and her husband would be moving to the US soon, and she was trying to get her English to be at a much more advanced level. So we did this exchange. We spoke every Sunday

DC Restart: Software And A Partner

SPEAKER_01 6:36

or every other Sunday. It was excellent, really, really awesome. That helped me a bit. So finished that year up in DC, went back to med school, finished med school, matched a residency. And then after you match a residency, you have a couple months to where you can do whatever you want, like take a vacation, because you've been studying your ass off for the last few years. Uh, and also move if you need to. Uh, so for me, I was like, I want to maybe spend some time in France because you know, I think a little bit of immersion would really, really help my speaking. The thing is that I was super poor then. I was in medical school, so I was in a lot of debt, so making negative money, but I still wanted to do it. So I found the cheapest way as possible to go to France. So I went on this website called workaway.info. I should say, whenever a website has anything but.com, you're like, is there a sketchy Nigerian behind this trying to take my money? But uh workaway.info is actually a really awesome website. Still, it's still there. It's where people can go on the website, find a potentially homestead situation in another country. The thing

Workaway In Rural Bordeaux

SPEAKER_01 7:42

is, it's like an exchange. So essentially, the people who are hosting on the website will ask you for help with something, hence workaway.info. So you could do a bunch of different things. So for me, I was lucky enough to find this family. Actually, they found me because they messaged me first, who lived in this super, super small town just outside of Bordeaux in France. And it was super interesting because most of the experience that people have is, you know, hey, uh, or most of the things people ask for was like, you know, watch my kid or maybe help me out with something. This family, on the other hand, they needed help with just what they did around their property, but they did a lot of manual labor. So I did manual labor expo help as well with this family. But the town I went to was a super, super cool tiny town. Kind of felt like Beauty and the Beast for a little bit. Uh, but it was really, really interesting. And like honestly, like the work I did with this family was intense. Like, I did everything from helping them because they did the work as well. It wasn't just me doing it, because that would be weird. But so they would be working on their farm, I would do that. They would be helping their neighbors uh clean out like the the roof, and I would help do that. They'll be trimming trees, I'd help do that. They literally did everything that they did. But I was super impressed with this couple because whenever we were done at the end of the day, they would go to the gym, but then I would be like, ah, my neck, my back, my no, it's fine. But like my like it was, I was not used to doing manual labor, so it was super interesting. What was also really cool about this couple is that so they were a white French couple. They could not, um, they could not have kids on their own, so they adopted a Vietnamese baby at the time, um, who ended up becoming like my good friend while there.

Learning With A Child And Community

SPEAKER_01 9:33

And there's something super special about learning languages with little kids. Um, my friend, I'm gonna call her Flora, not her real name, but I'm gonna call her Flora. She was super awesome, um, young at the time, around let's say seven or eight. She wanted to be my best friend. And it was super interesting, we had a lot of fun experiences because I, my pronunciation at the time was not as great. So I remember at one point I was trying to say uh the term for rainbow, and I couldn't say it very well. And kids are great because they will laugh at you, but then they will help you get better. So uh the way you say that is accent ciel, but I couldn't really say it well. And she was like, hey. Well, then she like would correct me. And I remember uh this couple was also super trusting. So sometimes when they went to the gym at the end of the day, they would leave their daughter in uh my hands, and we would just essentially uh walk around the town and this town, super tiny town, literally a town of like 200, 300 people. Me and Flora would be walking around and they'd be looking at us because I'm a black man and this like Asian like little girl, and they'd be like, the how the hell did our town become so diverse all of a sudden? Like they were super thrown off, but it was a super great experience, really, really had a good time. Um, yeah, it was it it was great. So

Residency Struggles To Maintain French

SPEAKER_01 10:43

after that, came back to Chicago, where I did my residency as well, and tried my best to maintain my French in residency. However, it is not easy to maintain a language and your schedule is that busy, but I tried my best. I ended up finding some friends who are North African and some other friends who are not um native French speakers, who we all try to meet up every once in a while to speak French. But honestly, it was not really um as I think intensive enough. I didn't really have an experience again to do an immersion until after I was done with residency and fellowship.

Aix Immersion And Homestay

SPEAKER_01 11:17

So I moved to LA for fellowship uh in 2020, uh in the middle of uh at the end of June, which is uh not a great time for anyone to move anywhere, but I did it. So moved uh to LA, finished up residency, sorry, finished up fellowship. And after that, I was like, yo, y'all, I'm taking some time off before I actually start doing this full doctor thing. So took about three, three and a half months off. I was enough, I found this really, really cool immersion program in this really, really cool town called Aix-en-Provence, which is in the south, uh, southwest of France, not too far from Marseille. Uh, so I found it through a friend of mine who grew up there and told me about this school in English, the school, English, the the school's IS, IS Aix-en-Provence, super cool, small school that takes in students from all over the world, and you get to really have a really great French learning experience because you have a mix of classes, but also you can also do what I did, which uh is stay with the home stay, which the school helps you find. So I was there for two, two and a half months. I stayed with this really cool French woman who hosted a lot of students, um, spoke French every day in a town that was not Paris. And the reason why I mentioned that is because when you are learning French, you probably don't want to learn it in Paris because there are a lot of English speakers in Paris, as in a lot of French people in Paris can speak English well. However, if you go to a smaller town, they don't really rely on English very much. So you have to speak French. And they also speak slow with less slang, which is I think easier for the non-native French speaker to be able to learn French. So this experience was really, really, really awesome. Um, I got to meet people from all over the world who were French speakers. Uh, even in my home state, I got to meet very, very interesting

Growth Through Debates And Travel

SPEAKER_01 13:05

people. Like uh at the time, uh, I was staying with someone or staying in the same home state with someone who was an anti-vaxxer. We interestingly enough did become friends, but we had a lot of debates, which probably helped my French. Uh, super, super cool, really, really great experience. I would honestly recommend anyone to kind of have the similar experience. And I also learned a lot about Europeans uh that I did not uh expect to learn. Like, for example, when going hiking with a German woman, uh, you better be prepared uh because they don't play. They do not play at all. Uh but that experience was what helped my French jump from what I would say is maybe beginner to moderate level to a more advanced moderate level. It was really, really intensive, but a lot of fun. I also got to travel on the weekends as well. So if anyone has the opportunity to do so, I would really recommend in any type of language you're learning, try to have some type of immersion experience and speak as much as you can. So, all that's over, I live in LA now and I still have to find ways to

Ongoing Practice: Media And Music

SPEAKER_01 14:02

maintain my French. So, I want to give you guys a couple of recommendations for how to do so. My go-to is listening to this podcast and also watching their YouTube channel of this series called Easy French. So, this is the easy language series in which you have people who are essentially trying to teach people languages from all over the world. So, for Easy French, what they do is that they go around Paris and other Francophone or French cities uh and they talk with people in the streets and they put that on their YouTube so you can listen to people speaking French naturally, which is awesome. Uh, and I also listen to their podcast in which the two hosts just talk about different topics, which is also really good as well. Love listening to French music for anyone who is uh uh loves French music, uh two artists that I really, really enjoy. Actually, I'll give you three. Uh, one is uh Stromae, uh really super fun, interesting, very creative, um, Belgian rapper slash singer uh that really makes amazing music. Another one is Indila. She's more indie, but her songs are super interesting. Music videos are great as well. And I also love Gims, a beautiful voice, um amazing artist as well. Love listening to other French music to be able to kind of maintain that. And I also, lucky enough in LA, I've found a lot of French speakers who are native French speakers.

Canadian Plans And Final Thoughts

SPEAKER_01 15:21

So whenever I see them and hang out with them, try to speak French as much as I can because honestly, it's use it or lose it. And now days I realize I'm super grateful for also French as well, as I am uh applying for Canadian permanent residency or fast track permanent residency because you never know what's gonna happen. Uh, you get more points as a French speaker. So I'm super grateful for that. And I really love learning languages and very curious if you guys, you know, want to comment about how you go about learning French or any other languages as well. Uh, but until then, we will see you next time on Pitta Punchlines. Peace.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

My French hair was like, it is no. I would just tell you with my magnet magic, right? And Bolton was like