Raphael, comment tu dis....?

Subtitled: I am the worst translator in the world and I don't care

Today a student said, "Mlle, how do you say, you know that thing you throw in the water if someone is drowning?" To which my mind said "File not found." I didn't even know the word in English to look up. Sometimes I feel like, ooh, I should know that word or ooh, I used to know that word or ooh I'm just gonna make it up and you'll never even know. It's rare that I'm like, huh, no freaking idea, kid. So then I said, "Pas de problème, Ms. Peratt has a boat, I'll go ask her." I marched myself into Gretchen's room and said, "Uh, you know that thing you throw in the water to save someone..." Gretchen, only mildly annoyed that I interrupted her frantic trying to decorate the classroom to win the Bell Week classroom decoration contest, said "A life preserver?" Which then I dutiful went back to look up in mon cher ami le gros dictionnaire. (une bouée de sauvetage, in case you didn't know either.) Qui est la fucking prof? Moi. Because only I can use the gros dictionnaire with any accuracy.

Said exchange prompted Gretchen and Jenny to walk into my room at various random intervals holding various obvious objects like scissors and cups, which then prompted me to use the gros dictionnaire for cover to show them the international sign for 'fuck off.' Only a monolingual would not understand circumlocution, the act of describing something because you don't know the stinking word, which is how I spent most of my French life asking my exchange partner's boyfriend, "Raphael, comment tu dis..."

But seriously, I am the worst translator in the world. I hate translating. I hate when I have to find the English word because half of the time in class I have to say, "uh, you know, like when, uh..." and the picture is so clear in my head, but the word doesn't come and then a kid says, "Blah, blah, " and I say, yeah, that's it. It's like the English words and French words are not connected. The files are corrupted and then I just look like I don't know any English at all. I am literally bilingual, because I speak one half of English and one of French. And I so don't care.