American foreign language education

I was riding my bike back across the Harbour Bridge this afternoon after the whole lodgment episode when I noticed a guy who was pretty obviously a tourist starting to walk up the ramp onto the bridge's bicycle track. Pedestrians are not allowed on the bicycle track, and bicyclists (and everyone else who is rolling, like skateboarders and rollerbladers) are not allowed on the dedicated pedestrian walkway (or "footpath" as they say).

The bike track and footpath are both bi-directional and they are on opposite sides of the bridge. Both are on the outside edges of the bridge so they have great views of the city. The footpath is on the bridge's east side so it has the best views of the harbour, including downtown, Circular Quay, and the Opera House.

I knew from previous experience that the security guard standing near the middle of the bridge, whom you can't see from the end of the ramp due to the bridge's curve, would stop the tourist and send him back. He would have go go back down the ramp, under the bridge, and back up the other side. And he'd be better off doing it too, since he could put that camera he was carrying to better use.

So, seasoned Sydney Harbour Bridge user that I am, I stopped to give this guy the 411.

"Hey man, you're gonna have to go back and go over to the other side of the bridge to walk across. This side is bikes only. The pedestrian walkway is on the other side."

He stared at me for a second. "I don't ... unless iz ...  French."

"Ah, Francais," I said. "Je m'appelle Christophe."

His eyes brightened briefly when he heard some semblance of the French language coming from my lips. But the quizzical look returned to his face as he almost certainly quickly began to wonder where the hell I had learned to speak French.

Mississippi is the answer, of course. I had two years in high school and another two in my lib'ral arts undergraduate education.

"Je ne parle pas Francais." I said.

By now he was beginning to wonder whether I was fucking with him. I had just told him in French -- shitty, horribly accented French, mind you, but French nonetheless -- that I do not speak French.

And that's the truth. Rote memorization of vocabulary words and constantly repeating, "Where's the bathroom?" does not magically cause you to learn a foreign language. Oh, what time I wasted on that nonsense.

He pointed over my head towards the pathway. "Nord," he said.

I thought for a second. "North!" Yes, that's north!" I pointed over his shoulder and nodded in agreement.

"But you can't go that way, you have to go back," I pointed back. "And under ..." I made a sweeping gesture with my arm to indicate going under something.

He looked at me as if to say, Did you forget the part where I just said I didn't understand you?

"What 'under?'" he asked.

"You know, under," I said, committing the cardinal sin of repeating the same word more slowly and loudly to help a non-English speaker understand an unknown word. Perhaps even more foolishly, I repeated my wide sweeping upper-cut motion with my arm. "Under."

He stared at me. "I go nort," he said.

"No, bicyclette only," I said. I put my fingers on the rail and made the universal gesture for walking. "Walk," I said, "over there." I pointed to the other side of the bridge (not across the bridge).

Suddenly I remembered the French words for right and left. I remembered our lesson about how Paris is bisected by the River Seine. Parisians call the part of the city on the right side of the river "rive droite" and the part on the left side "rive gauche."

 "Bicyclette, gauche, ici." Bicycles on the left, here, I said. "Walking, " I made the universal gesture again, unable to remember the French word for walk, "droite, over there." I pointed to the right.

He seemed to understand. This time I omitted words all together. I pointed back, then down, then to the other side of the bridge, and then I made the walking gesture.

"OK," he said.

"Good luck," I said.

And that is how you communicate with a Frenchman after four years of making A's in your French classes in the Mississippi public school system. Truly said.

In case you're wondering, the guy hadn't missed or been unable to read the sign saying that he wasn't supposed to be walking on the bike track. The City of Sydney simply hasn't bothered to put up a sign directing people to the walking path. This is despite the fact that every damn tourist who comes to Sydney at some point attempts to walk across the bridge. So WTF, Sydney? Put up a damn sign already telling people how and where to walk across the bridge.