Charmed, I’m Sure

Our conversation earlier about how English sounds to other people reminded me of one of my favorite passages from the book Hunger of Memory, The Education of Richard Rodriguez, which is his memoir of growing up as an immigrant from Mexico.

And he talks about when he was very young and Spanish was the language of home and English was the language of the world outside and Spanish was softer and warmer and all that.

But he has a great passage describing hearing what he calls the high nasal notes of middle class American speech.

He says, the air stirred with sound. Sometimes even now when I’ve been traveling abroad for several weeks, I will hear what I heard as a boy.

In hotel lobbies or airports, in Turkey or Brazil, some Americans will pass and suddenly I will hear it again, the high sound of American voices.

For a few seconds I will hear it with pleasure, for it is now the sound of my society, a reminder of home.

But inevitably, already on the flight headed for home, the sound fades with repetition.

I will be unable to hear it anymore.

That’s beautiful.

You know that feeling when you’re traveling abroad and you hear English all of a sudden, and then when you’re coming back, then it just… it just kind of melts into the background, and you don’t notice it anymore.

I thought that was a great description.

I was never perfectly fluent in French, but French is like that for me sometimes because I don’t hear it often in Southern California.

And when I do hear it, it’s always a surprise, and I have to do a double take.

And sometimes I physically do a double take, and then people give me the eye, like, why are you looking at me?

And I’m like, sorry, we were speaking French.

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