By Rachel Chaikof
A summer vacation doesn’t necessarily mean a break from being educated after almost a year of hard work at school. In my personal opinion, summer vacation means venturing beyond the classroom. One of my most favorite things to do in the summer is to travel. In spite of the weak dollar and the high cost of airfare, fortunately, I am still able to travel at a reasonable price by staying with friends and host families. Staying at families’ homes instead of hotels is one of the best ways to travel because you learn so much about the countries’ cultures rather than just their tourist attractions.
For instance, I learned French for four years in high school, and I was able to speak it fluently by the end of four years. Right after I graduated from high school, I went to France for five weeks and stayed with various host families in Paris and throughout the southwest region. To my amazement, I learned many more new vocabulary words and expressions that I had never learned in the classroom. I even learned some words that do not exist in English at all. For example, I was watching two of my friends arguing for fun, and one of my friends said, “On se chamaille.” My friend said, “We’re fighting unintentionally.” So, the French word, “se chamailler,” which means to fight in a friendly way or unintentionally does not exist in exact translation in English.
Another perfect example is at one moment when I was at the beach, one of my host families said to me, “Tu ne peux pas nager, mais tu peux te baigner.” In the literal translation, she was saying, “You can’t swim, but you can swim.” I was certainly confused by what she said, and of course, I asked her what was the difference between “nager” and “se baigner.” She explained to me that “nager” is “to swim” for exercise or sports. “Se baigner” means to waddle in the water. In other words, it means to swim gently and not move too much in the water.
It’s amazing how one single word can be non-existent in another language like “se chamailler” and one word can mean two different things in another language like “to swim.”
One of the biggest differences between American and French culture I noticed, from my discussions with some French friends, is that high schools in the United States have many more activities than in France. Believe it or not, homecoming dances and prom are almost non-existent in France. They don’t even have the caps and gowns that we wear to graduation! When I showed pictures to my French friends and host families of my high school life, particularly of prom and high school graduation, they could not believe that these events were real. They thought they were just fantasies, as they only saw them in American films.
French people, in general, absolutely love cheeses. At every single host family with whom I stayed, we ate cheese after every lunch and dinner with bread, something that I would not have learned if I didn’t stay with host families. It’s not a joke. There’s more than just American, cheddar, and Swiss cheese in France.
There’s also brie cheese, goat cheese, brebis cheese, and many more that I can name. These cheeses are
certainly delicious.
So, for the past few weeks before heading to Lacoste, I’ve been staying with various host families throughout France including in the Basque region, Provence region, and Burgundy region. Even to this day, I’m still learning French and more about the French culture.
