Most Americans are introduced to a foreign language in a school setting. Of course, you can always spend a lot of money on a special computer program, a series of CDs or DVDs, or an exchange program to become fluent. Or, you can simply try the Janet's World Vehicular Immersion System of language learning, administered absolutely free through your car's GPS system.
Yes, in just three weeks, you can become proficient in directional conversation. Imagine impressing your friends with the phrase: "In 300 feet, exit right" in Vietnamese! Say the line, "Prepare to enter roundabout" in Russian, and watch their jaws drop open! And just wait until your spouse hears you whisper, "Merge left, then take ramp right" in Italian.
I suppose my portable GPS must have rattled around on the floor of my car's back seat while it was turned on one day, and bumped a magical series of buttons that switched the programming off my preselected "American English." All I know is that one fateful morning, I punched in an address to go to a meeting, and suddenly my trip became especially challenging.
I devoted a few minutes to trying to reprogram the GPS at first, but I couldn't seem to get to the proper screen, and it was getting late for my appointment, so I just drove off. I was forced to be especially vigilant throughout the trip, looking at the arrows and the map on the GPS screen. Much to my surprise, by the time I had arrived at my destination, I had mastered this foreign language's words for "right," "left," and "exit."
I tossed the GPS into the back seat after my trip, hoping it might bump its way back to English … and promptly forgot all about it, until, of course, I needed it again. It was then that I decided I should simply keep the GPS on everywhere I drove, so I could learn this language.
It was entertaining for a while, mostly because I was traveling on roads I knew fairly well. I enjoyed hearing how familiar places were pronounced in this exotic tongue. I used the old-school repetition method to perfect my accent, and amuse the drivers stopped alongside me.
But then I was driving my oldest son into Baltimore, and when he heard the GPS speaking, he became alarmed.
"What language is this?" he asked, popping the GPS off the windshield.
"I don't really know. It's Greek to me," I quipped.
"It sounds sort of Mediterranean," he said, "but I don't think it's Greek. How long have you been listening to it?"
"I don't know, " I said. "Two weeks? Maybe three? I can't figure out how to adjust it, and I just never seem to have the time to fool around with it when I'm on my way somewhere. So I've been more or less following along."
My son gave me a serious look, as if perhaps my story or reasoning was not plausible or logical. As if, perhaps, I might be an undercover master mother spy who might be traded at any moment for an entire group of less linguistically astute spies in a really foreign land.
He rapidly pressed a series of buttons, and let me know I had been participating in the Total Immersion Farsi Driving Program.
"What would you like now?" he asked. "Norwegian? Vietnamese?"
He scrolled through the languages, and we gave each a little listen. It was interesting how, to my ears, the simple phrase "turn left" could sound like a curt order in one language and a pleading prayer in another.
Suddenly, he came upon British English.
"That's it!" I said. "It's like Mary Poppins is in the car with me!"
Her voice is so lilting, so exceedingly polite, so proper as she entreats me to turn or exit. What can I say? It's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.