LKL's Life Story

Unfortunately, when I started learning Japanese, it was too difficult. In four days, we learned one "alphabet," or writing system, of the four, and were going to start on another. It was fascinating, but at that point, I was drowning. I couldn't continue studying Japanese in addition to all of my other classes (and work), and I dropped it (sorry, guidance counselor).

After two years, I knew I wanted to get my Master's in interpretation at Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS). However, I realized that Knox wasn't going to prepare me sufficiently for that program, and so I requested a transfer to MIIS' BA in international studies program. I was accepted, and moved to California after the first trimester of my third year at Knox.

I had already done all of the basic classes, so during the year and a half that I needed to get my BA, I continued to take a lot of language classes. My favorites were a class on contrastive analysis (a comparison of English and French) and a class on English linguistics. For these two classes, I wrote my term papers on the same subject, adapted for each course: the power of the translator.

After receiving my BA, I was provisionally admitted to the Master's program in interpretation. This is typical at MIIS - there are a lot of students who have the potential to becoming interpreters and translators, but who don't speak the two (or three) languages with which they want to work fluently. The provision states that after the first year of the Master's program, the student has to spend a year in a country where the relevant language is spoken. This didn't bother me, but I still tried to take a shortcut - I went to France during the summer between my BA and the beginning of my MA.

During this second trip to France, I spent six weeks in Rouen. The Institute for International Training offers an intermediate-level class in French business and culture every year. I spoke at an advanced level, so the Institute created an advanced program for me and another student. The program itself was not very useful, frankly; however, being in France and living with a French family helped me improve a great deal. I was determined to return to California speaking French fluently, so during the first three weeks I didn't speak a single word of English, not even with the other students. Incredibly, I could feel my French getting better every day.

In the middle of the program I traveled to Belgium, where I learned something very important: speaking French is not always appreciated. I didn't know anything about Belgium, other than that it was a bilingual country. I had naïvely assumed that in such a country it would be better to speak one of the official languages, even if that wasn't the language of the part you were visiting. I was in Brugges for four days, and I very quickly learned that most Flemish people prefer to be spoken to in English rather than French. When I spoke French, reactions ranged between coldness and rudeness. In contrast, when speaking English the people were very friendly. It was nice to discover that Belgians didn't hate me, but this visit interrupted my French progress, and even when I got back to Rouen I didn't really recover - it was more difficult this time.

In addition, I started going out with another student, with whom I spoke English more and more. His host family were the parents of the father in my host family, and the two families offered to take us to Tours (they were going to a reunion in the south of France). The student and I spent three days together - we visited several châteaux, went wine tasting, etc. At first we spoke French together, but it was a little weird, and we ended up speaking English. In fact it was funny - on the car on the way to Tours, the families congratulated us on speaking French to one another; three days later, on the way back, that was no longer the case. And upon returning to Rouen, my determination to not speak English had disappeared. Nevertheless, my French had greatly improved during those six weeks in France. Before I left, I went to Paris and finally visited the Louvre (but only for an hour).

When I got home to California, I immediately started a program at MIIS - a sort of preparatory class for the Master's which lasted for two months. It was very interesting and I learned a lot - my French started improving once again. After that, the Master's program started.

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