MamaPata wrote:You’ve gotten to a great point with your French, you’ve made it part of your life, you’ve been able to translate for patients. That’s incredible.
And speaking of which...
Interesting situation last night at the hospital. A patient I was caring for of African origin turned out to have a poor grasp of English. When I found it the patient was from a west African nation in which French is spoken by many, I asked him/her if he/she spoke French. The reply was yes, and confirmation was made that French was preferential to English in my communications with him/her. Turns out the patient was originally from another, African nation in which French was also used as well. French was not the patient's primary language, but it was much preferred over English. So that was nice, to be able to use French again with another patient and translate again between the doctor and the patient.
The most difficult part was that the patient was very softly spoken, and I had to strain even when very close to him/her to make sense of what I was hearing to any extent. I quickly offered some comical relief stating I was rather deaf when requesting him/her raise the volume somewhat. If he/she was speaking English this would've been the same. Confusion arose a couple of times stemming from misunderstandings of how the medical system here works (the patient was a recent arrival from overseas) and only one situation in which I actually interpreted 'Je peux' as 'Je paie/paye'. Several attempts to ask him/her to repeat the phrase still left me confused, as this was right at the same point where misunderstandings over the medical system were thrown into the mix. Anyway, it was a bit of fun, but not at much as my last encounter due to the straining to hear, but it was also nice to be able to help via my linguistic knowledge.
There was an unknown word, which turns out I knew but the light-bulb didn't switch on immediately. Another word I used incorrectly but it didn't prevent comprehension nor did it prevent me learning (from the patient) which was the preferable term.
It raised the sentiment for more need for conversational practise. Not because I was rubbish, but just because I noticed the effect of reinforcement via real-life use of the language. It's one thing to study seventy hundred trillion grammar books and watch 20,000 films, but another thing to actually converse. Of course, as mentioned, I knew this, but it did serve as a good reminder.