In My Tongue

I feel relatively confident speaking in French, although I kind of reserve, like, my French speaking for either like work, like if I'm working, let's say, at a place that's bilingual, or for like, more intimate settings like with my family or with very close friends. I don't know why, I guess it's just like...

French is a language that I associate with family, because in the town that I live in, there are very few people that I know who are either first language French or fluent, you know? English, I don't really know how to feel about it, I just... it's just something I do. [Laughs] You know? On a daily.

Lingala can be a little bit iffy because I don't know... Des fois, je me sens un peu, like, décourager to speak it just because I know that I have a very funny-sounding accent. And I'm always afraid that oh, like, if I try to speak in Lingala, like people could say like, "Oh, who do you think you are?" You know?

But, I had gone to Congo a few years ago and I had a really good experience with like, learning to expand my Lingala. And, I actually had a cousin who was around my age who didn't really know how to speak any French. And so, I had no choice. [Laughs] I had no choice but to use the Lingala that I knew and to learn some more so that me and her could like hang out and communicate.

Bemba is very hard to learn, although, I try my best. You know, when I'm talking with my mom, talking with my grandma and my aunts, I will always greet them in Bemba and try to carry on a small conversation with them, but it's very... like, it has a lot of syntax rules and stuff like that, just like English, so it's harder to learn, but I don't find that, like, my accent is as bad as in Lingala, so [laughs] I just... It's a little easier for me to, like, feel confident in speaking Bemba, let's say, in public, yeah.