Studying and Living in the Languedoc of the South of France

Article and photos by Lola Pak

The author is in front of the Pont du Gard, an ancient Roman aqueduct in the Languedoc region of southern France.

When I first entered college, I never imagined leaving with a French degree. I studied Spanish in high school and wanted to pursue a foreign language in college. However, a language that half my class had studied and everyone else in America was in a frenzy to learn had lost its unique appeal for me. I took French as soon as I got to college for a fresh start and out of curiosity. Since then, I have utterly tombée amoureuse (fallen in love) with the language and culture.

French has a reputation for being a complicated language to learn. The nasal inflections were alien to my English tongue. The intricate rules identifying when to eliminate the last vowel of a word and when to add an apostrophe boggle my mind to this day. However, the biggest challenge in learning French was more exposure to provide total immersion. I live in the Deep South, where the Spanish-speaking population grows daily. Any semblance of French culture is limited to crème brulée for dessert. After a while, I doubted whether French was for me. I was discouraged by working adults who considered French a “useless” language in today’s America. “Take Spanish,” they advised.

I decided to join this program and become more exposed to the French language and culture to decide once and for all if I would continue studying this difficult and relatively unpopular language in my part of the world, though spoken by 300 million people worldwide and often known as the language of diplomacy.

Other factors contributed to the program’s appeal. UGA en France offered courses taught directly by university professors, eliminating the difficulty of transferring credits. The program also took place during the summer, from June to August, so I could focus solely on the credits for my French major. I wouldn’t fall behind in the courses for my other major in journalism. Getting along with the other 20 students in the program wouldn’t be a problem, as we had our love for UGA football and a desire to perfect the French language in common. However, the most significant advantage was studying French in a town where no one spoke English.

The Arc de Triomphe at the end of Rue Foch in Montpellier, France.

Montpellier is the capital of the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France, west of Provence and a four-hour train ride from Barcelona. The town is a healthy mélange of ethnicities, such as Algerian, Moroccan, and Martinican; few speak English. The program director purposely chose the city to ensure that students would be completely immersed in the language.

Arriving in Montpellier — after a week of sightseeing in Paris — we were individually placed with host families spread throughout the medium-sized town. There was a considerable distance between each house to prevent interaction with familiar faces. The contract between the student and the host was simple: speak only French. My host was Valerie, a lady from Martinique who lived with her two children. I was excited at having the opportunity to live in a French household and be exposed to the francophone culture of the island of Martinique.

The Gothic-era Église St-Roch was named after the patron saint of Montpellier.

As for classes, the first session began on Monday, right after our Saturday arrival. Our Montpellier campus professors taught us and covered topics such as the culture and literature of southern France. The hours were intense, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day for three and a half weeks in classes with exams and projects due each week. The instructors had made it clear from the beginning that the program would emphasize the study in study abroad. Even during the weekly excursions, we took to other Languedoc towns — Nimes and Aigues-Mortes — we were accompanied by guides who offered historical commentaries. Everything about this program was very unlike the experiences described by other students, who typically had studied very little and traveled a lot more in different countries.

Fortunately, the classes and trips were fascinating enough to satisfy the desire for the ultimate study abroad experience. The Languedoc region has a richer history than I had been aware of in my three years of French studies. I learned that the entire southern half of France at one point spoke a completely different language called Occitan. Today, few can speak or understand the language. However, some of the older streets in Montpellier are still named in Occitan to commemorate a time when they had a separate identity from the north. The name Languedoc actually means “language of Oc(citan).”

For more leisurely experiences with the local culture, my peers and I headed to the nearby Mediterranean beaches on the weekends. We attended several local events, such as La Fête de la Musique, a music festiva. We watched the arrival of the Tour de France.On other occasions, we split into groups and took day trips to smaller, neighboring towns such as Carcassonne — which is an hour by train. Montpellier is situated equidistantly from Spain and Italy, and many students took advantage of the extended weekends to visit those countries.

The fortified city of Carcassonne in the distance.

Adjusting to my host home environment took a bit more time. It suddenly hit me that I was officially on my own. While in Paris, I spent most of the time getting to know my peers and consequently hardly spoke French. When Valerie and I met at the train station, her rapid-fire French instantly overwhelmed me. I panicked, wondering how I would survive the next two months.

When I had the chance to call home after settling in, I expressed frustration with my situation: Despite the hours I would spend with my peers, I still came home each day to my host family. They spoke little English and didn’t understand my shyness in greeting them with kisses on the cheek, as is the French custom. However, aside from the language barrier, I was unprepared for the culture shock. France and America shared the basic methods of washing laundry in a machine and using a stove to cook with. In addition, the respective presidents had an amicable relationship. How different could living in France be from my life at home? I finally concluded that this type of logic was very “American”; I had naively believed that the diplomatic and economic similarities between the countries meant that they were the same — but they were not. I realized that I had a lot to learn and resolved then and there that I needed to be more open-minded for the remainder of my stay. Beyond improving my French, this new outlook ended up being at the core of my education abroad.

It helped that Valerie was so supportive. She treated me like a family member, never making me uncomfortable with my stumbling French. She would gently correct me, then teach me new terms not taught in the classroom. Her son Alexis, who was the same age as me (our birthdays were only 10 days apart!), had become a friend and a guide to French youth culture. Above all, they were my most incredible supporters in helping me begin to master the language. By the time I left in August, I could communicate effortlessly with store owners and strangers who mistakenly thought I was a local!

Spices at the open-air market where Valèrie took me to on my first weekend in Montpellier.

My host family also exposed me to a glimpse of Martinique, a small island in the Caribbean, an extended territory of France. Their apartment was decorated with bright colors, fruit baskets, and paintings of beaches created by Valerie herself. There was also a dictionary in Créole — a French dialect spoken in Martinique — on the bookshelf and photos of their extended family throughout the home. They often asked about my family and origins (I am from Georgia, but my parents are from South Korea). I could see that they valued many of the same things I did as a Korean-American: family, tradition, and the constant balancing act between two cultures.

My host family in our apartment.

The most rewarding aspect of studying abroad in France was the combination of the people, the language, and my moments of self-realization. Being torn out of my comfort zone and thrust into one unfamiliar situation after another brought out sides of me that had remained dormant or undiscovered. For instance, I have always liked traveling, but I never knew how much until a group of friends and I took a day trip to Aix-en-Provence. Because I had made my train reservation later than the rest of my group, I had to go back to Montpellier via a complicated itinerary: Aix to Marseilles by bus, then to Montpellier by train. It was my first time traveling alone; I was petrified by the prospect of getting lost and sat nervously by the bus window to make sure I knew where I was. However, an hour into the ride, I relaxed and began to enjoy the moment. With no friends to distract me, I focused on the view. It was my first time riding ground transportation in France, and I could see some of the small villages and vineyards hidden when taking a train.

When we got to the train station in Marseilles, I saw it was on a hill overlooking the city and the Mediterranean. Despite the anxiety about the unknown that traveling alone had initially provoked in me, I would have done it again in a heartbeat. I realized traveling was my passion. I have since made moves to steer my career goals toward working in the travel industry by searching for internships at travel publications and companies.

An unknown village is seen on the train ride to Montpellier from Marseilles.

Ultimately, studying in France was the best "risk" I ever took. I am infinitely more fluent in French and fully comprehend the texts I read in upper-level classes. Exposure to the language in its own context and experiencing multiple subcultures created a satisfying and well-rounded study abroad experience. To those who still don't see "the point" in studying French, I would reply that language is a means of communicating with others. In our increasingly shrinking world, there is no such thing as a useless language. Take Spanish? Maybe another time — I still have plenty of Languedoc sun and spirit to last for a long time.

Lola Pak will graduate from the University of Georgia, majoring in magazine journalism and French. She hopes to travel the world and inspire others to travel while writing for travel publications, such as National Geographic Traveler.