Madeleine Schwartz had what sounds like a complicated but fascinating childhood. She lived with her mother in New York for half the year, and with her father in France for the other six months. 

Then as an adult in 2020 she moved to Paris full time to run The Dial, a magazine she founded to bring more local journalists and writers to an English-speaking audience.

That’s where some trouble started. A more fluent friend observed that Schwartz’s attempt to translate English speech forms into French missed subtle points. She was, her friend noted, effectively shouting at others.

Locutions that would seem bizarre in English were expected in French. “Compared with English, French is slower, more formal, less direct,” Schwartz explains. “The language requires a kind of politeness that, translated literally, sounds subservient, even passive-aggressive. I started collecting the stock phrases that I needed to indicate polite interaction. “I would entreat you, dear Madam …” “Please accept, dear sir, the assurances of my highest esteem.”

You can read much more regarding this treacherous path in the New York Times article, “Can You Lose Your Native Tongue?”

The piece continues to examine how for the bilingual, languages are at a sort of war with each other to determine dominance. It’s an eye-opening look at how the many immigrant language learners must struggle with expressing themselves as they sort through the various languages in their heads.