The chill of February numbs my face as I walk down Avenue des Pins in Montreal’s Plateau neighbourhood on my way to my French class. A small part of me is panicking, thinking about how I won’t be home for forty-eight hours: work, class, briefly crashing at my partner’s place and then work and class once more. I try to find comfort in the diminutive, compact architecture of the Plateau, the soft, warm light radiating from apartment windows as darkness gradually envelops the city. As I arrive at the intersection of Saint-Denis and Rachel, I am ambushed by a throng of people scrambling to gather pastries, flowers and wine. While an evening spent in an austere grey school building isn’t the sexiest Valentine’s Day plan, it does relieve me of the pressures of the holiday. 

My teacher has put a small bowl of chocolates on the corner of her desk as a concession for keeping us here on this special night. Our classroom is the kind of space that many adults may not have entered since adolescence—wooden desks arranged in pairs, sturdy plastic chairs, a big chalkboard. As my classmates trickle in wearing a now-familiar exhaustion, I think about how these late-night classes remove me from the liveliness of the city and, at the same time, give me a sense of purpose during these cold and dark times. 

Francisation is an intensive language and cultural program in Quebec that seeks to bring students past an intermediate level of proficiency in French. It is offered free of charge by the government to newcomers to the province. I started the program after completing eight years of schooling at McGill, during which I had almost no desire to learn French. This unwillingness was partially the result of a chauvinism that runs rampant among English speakers—the idea that English should grant you access to the world. It also represented a refusal to let myself feel at home in the place I lived, because I felt that I would eventually leave, as so many others I knew had. However, as my connections to the city deepened after I graduated, I no longer saw my time in Montreal as transitory. I freed myself from my sense of placelessness and committed to the mortifications of adult language learning.

Learning a language as an adult is a process that demands, above all, humility. It was almost painful to lose the connection that I had always taken for granted between my thoughts and my speech. Encounters that were once breezy suddenly became hard work. It is discouraging to be brought to your knees by interactions as simple as ordering a cup of coffee or asking for directions. When I try to speak French with my friends or partner, I feel like I am pulling them into a farce, obliging them to engage earnestly with my slow, choppy sentences, almost like they are humouring a child playing make-believe. At the same time, I’ve never had to construct my sentences with such care—to consciously consider each constituent part of a sentence and harmonize them. Finding the right words always feels euphoric.

During class that night, our teacher speaks about the importance of tolerating ambiguity. It is okay to have conversations where some words or phrases are still unclear. You have to be resourceful with the pieces of language that you have on hand. Like experiencing desire, learning a language is a messy process of reaching toward a meaning that feels right outside your grasp. 

Our teacher puts us into small groups and gives us Valentine’s Day-themed discussion prompts: Qu’est-ce qui met l’amour en danger? Quels sont les inconvénients d’une relation durable? (What puts love in danger? What are the disadvantages of a long-term relationship?) We laugh at the severity of these questions, yet the class feels electric. We proceed to speak about the most intimate parts of our lives slowly and methodically, carefully parsing language, often still saying the wrong thing. ⁂

Aishwarya Singh is a writer and educator living in Montreal.