GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – I’ve been following Ta-Nehisi Coates’s rollercoaster ride to speaking perfect French – he writes for The Atlantic, and I’m an old fan of the magazine. I suddenly realized he was going to be spending four days in Montreux, a serious crash course to maitriser la langue even though my sense of Montreux is that it’s better known for people singing, mostly in English! So I began following him on Twitter.
I didn’t have the heart to reply when he said today that 60 million people in France speak French, so how hard can it be? Answer: yeah, but can anyone claim to understand the French?
And then this evening, I realized there is hope for him and his French-speaking future. If I knew where he was I’d get a couple more good bottles to him, real fast, for sharing the ride.
Did not realize the wine in Switzerland was this good. Went to a tasting today. Fool gaffled me for all my Swiss Francs.
— Ta-Nehisi Coates (@tanehisi) March 27, 2013