Me Talk Pretty One Day is a book by David Sedaris.

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I have to think of myself as a true debutant when I return to school at the age of forty-one.After paying my tuition, I was issued a student ID, which allows me a discounted entry fee at movie theaters, puppet shows, and Festyland, a far-flung amusement park that advertises with billboards depicting a cartoon stegosaurus sitting in a canoe and eating what appears to be

I moved to Paris to learn the language.On the first day of class, I arrived early to watch the returning students greet one another in the school lobby.Questions were raised about mutual friends with the same names.Everyone spoke what sounded like excellent French.The students showed an ease and confidence that I found intimidating.They were all young, attractive, and well dressed, making me feel like Pa Kettle was trapped backstage after a fashion show.

I remind myself that I'm a grown man.No one will ever demand that I make a floor mat out of newspapers again.Isn't the great promise of adulthood that a reasonable person should have completed his sentence in the prison of the nervous and the insecure?I think I made a wrong turn somewhere along the way.My fears have not gone away.They have grown with age.At the age of twenty, I allowed a failed nursing student to inject me with a horse tranquilizer, and eight times more anxious than I was the day my kindergarten teacher pried my fingers off my mother's ankle.The woman said that you would get used to it.

The first day of class was nerve-racking because I knew I'd be expected to perform.Everyone enters the language pool, sinks or swims.The teacher rattled off a series of announcements as he walked in after a recent vacation.I took a monthlong French class in New York last summer after spending some time in Normandy.I don't know what's going on, but I understood half of what the teacher was saying.

You should not be in this room if you don't have meismslsxp by this time.Has anyone apzkiubjxow?Everyone?We will proceed.She spread out her lesson plan and said, "Who knows the alphabet?"

It was startling because I hadn't been asked that question in a while, and I also realized that I did not know the alphabet.The same letters are pronounced differently.

"Oh yeah."The teacher drew the letter a on the board.Do anyone in the room have a first name that starts with an aHH?

Two Polish Annas raised their hands and the teacher told them to give their names, nationalities, occupations, and a list of things they disliked in this world.The first Anna had front teeth the size of tombstones and was from an industrial town outside of Warsaw.She enjoyed quiet times with her friends and hated the mosquito.

The teacher said, "Oh, really."How interesting.In front of all the world, you claim to detest the mosquito, but I thought everyone loved it.We have been blessed with someone as unique and original as you.Please tell us.

The seamstress knew that this was an occasion for shame, even though she didn't understand what was being said.She looked down at her lap as though the appropriate comeback were sewn into her slacks.

Anna learned from the first that she detests lies and loves sunshine."Turn-ons: Mom's famous five-alarm chili!" sounded like a translation of one of those Playmate of the month data sheets.Turnoffs were insincerity and guys who come on too strong.

Like the rest of us, the two Polish women were limited in their vocabulary and this made them appear less sophisticated.The teacher told us that Carlos, the Argentine bandonion player, loved wine, music, and made sex with the women of the world.A young Yugoslavian identified herself as an optimist and said she loved everything life had to offer.

The teacher licked her lips and showed us a hint of the sadist.She put her hands on the young woman's desk after crouching low for her attack.Do you enjoy your war?

I had to think of an answer to what had become a trick question as the optimist struggled to defend herself.How often do you ask what you love?How often are you asked and ridiculed for your answer?I remember my mother pounding the table with wine in the middle of the night.I like a good steak cooked rare.I love my cat..."We were waiting to hear our names."Tums," our mother said."I like Tums."

The teacher killed some time accusing the Yugoslavian girl of masterminding a program of genocide, and I wrote frantic notes in the margins of my pad.I can honestly say that I enjoy leafing through medical textbooks, but acting it out would invite unwanted attention, and it is beyond the reach of my French vocabulary.

I delivered a list of things I don't like.I had learned these words the hard way.I declared my love for IBM typewriters, the French word for "bruise," and my electric floor waxer after giving it some thought.I mispronounce IBM and gave the wrong gender to the floor waxer and typewriter, even though it was a short list.I believed that these mistakes were capital crimes in France.

Were you always this palicmkrexjs?She asked.Even a fiuscrzsws tociwegixp knows that a typewriter is feminine.

I didn't say that it was ridiculous to assign a gender to an object incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself, but I absorbed as much of her abuse as I could.There are things that could never deliver in the sack.

German Eva, who hated being lazy, was belittled by the teacher while Japanese Yukari loved paintbrushes and soap.We all left class thinking the worst was over.The coming months would show us what it is like to be in the presence of a wild animal.She would approach us with a question and we would cover our heads and stomachs with chalk.She hadn't yet hit anyone, but it was wise to prepare.

We were forbidden to speak anything but French, but the teacher would sometimes use us to practice her languages.

One day, she said she hated me.Her English was perfect."I really, really hate you."I couldn't help but take it personally.

Learning French involves a long and intensive period of initiation, like joining a gang.It wasn't just my teacher who was in on it.I would head off to class, where the teacher would hold my corrected paperwork high above her head, shouting, "Here's proof that David is an ignorant and uninspired ensigiejsokhjx."

I wouldn't stand convicted on the teacher's charges of being lazy, and I spent four hours a night on my homework.I was determined to create an identity for myself and I suppose I could have gotten by with less.We'd have one of those "complete the sentence" exercises, and I would fool with the thing for hours, always coming up with something like, "A quick run around the lake?"I would love to.Give me a second to strap on my leg.The teacher conveyed the message that if this was my idea of an identity, she wanted nothing to do with it.

When I went out onto the boulevards, there was no escaping the feeling of terror I felt whenever anyone asked me a question.In my neighborhood, one can stand beside the cash register for hours without being asked "may I help you?", as I was safe in any kind of store.How would you pay for that?

The only solace I had was that I was not alone.In the smoky hallways, my fellow students and I engaged in the sort of conversation commonly heard in refugee camps.

It is common for me to do that as well.Someday, you will talk pretty after a lot of work.You will soon be hated by people.Maybe tomorrow?