Bilingual Pub Quiz - the Ultimate Relationship Test

The pain in the ass that is learning a new language


Let's just be honest, friends. That's what it is (at least for me), a pain in the ass. El dolor en el culo ("pain in the ass" in Spanish), um pé no saco ("a kick in the balls" in Portuguese), une épine en travers de la gorge ("a thorn through the throat" in French; I love it how the French version manages to be the most poetic one, by the way). And this is coming from someone who teaches languages for a living and speaks a few foreign languages herself to varying degrees of fluency.

Now, somebody at the beginning of their foreign language learning journey might think "But how ever can you say that? You call yourself a language teacher? You ought to be ashamed of yourself! It's so fun and interesting to learn about different languages and cultures, and I'm so incredibly passionate about it!" To that I say (the cynical old witch that I am), just give it time :P

I'm kidding but only a little bit. Of course, it's entirely possible that you are different. You might actually be a person who has no inhibitions about speaking a foreign language and learns a lot in a relatively short time. (You lucky bugger.) Good for you, says I. For me, as established, language learning equals "a kick in the balls" (as a woman, I cannot completely relate to this concept, but it sounds hurtful enough).

That's why, when I first moved to Portugal six years ago, I should have known better than to fall into the trap of forcing myself to learn a language because there was no other choice. Because that is the best way to learn a language, they tell you, to go to the country where they speak it and talk to the locals. And for some reason, I bought into all that, imagining myself sitting at a charming little café with my new local friends (who appeared from who knows where), drinking green wine, eating pasteis de nata, and debating the true essence of Mensagem in my adorably accented Portuguese.

Yeah right! 

In my experience, that non-comfort zone that everybody is raving about is all well and good until you're actually smack dab in the middle of it.

Not that there's anything wrong with stepping out of your comfort zone per se, but must your measures be so drastic? I mean, if your life dream were to become a lion tamer, would you begin your Simba-whispering career by stepping into a meter by meter cage with a pissed-off lioness and her three cubs, or would you start with something a little easier, say, a kitten? And, if in this analogy a language class in a controlled environment is the kitten and talking to locals is the lioness with three cubs, then surely there's something between the two, like a lynx? 

Said lynx came to my life after almost two years of living in Portugal in the form of something called Portuguese-English language exchange, an event where locals and expats met to practice both English and Portuguese. There were a lot of authentic conversations with native and non-native speakers over a drink, people who helped you with your language skills and whom you helped with theirs, and fun was had by all.

Then when my fiancé and I arrived in Belgium a few years ago, we tried to find a similar event (French-English language exchange) in our hometown to facilitate our integration. And because we couldn't find one, we organized one (okay, that sounded a lot simpler than it was).

However, after a few months of regular language exchange events every two weeks, we decided it was time to kick it up a notch.

Kicking it up a notch and all the reasons why you shouldn't

As part of our language exchange, we started to organize bilingual pub quizzes, which are normal pub quizzes except that 50 percent of the questions are in another language. In our case, the two languages were, naturally, English and French.

At first we thought, hmm, organizing a bilingual quiz for an international audience with a wide age range, what could go wrong, eh? Turns out, a lot. First of all, the international aspect: For example, for quiz number 3, we asked a question about Mortal Kombat. Afterwards, we heard that Mortal Kombat had been (and still is) banned in Germany, where at least a few of our quiz-goers were from, so they could have had no way of knowing what we were talking about. Also, the age range: On one occasion, we asked a question about Goldie Hawn's daughter, and one of our quiz-goers went, "Who is Goldie Hawn?" (Personally, I think he was just trying to make us feel old.)

But no matter how well we did our homework, one problem still remains - the differences between the quiz-makers, i.e my fiancé and myself (we also have a friend act as the French-speaking co-host and beta reader but he's never the problem - it's just us two). Some of the issues have to do with our different cultural backgrounds (our general knowledge is different because of where we grew up in) but mostly it's about our different opinions on what makes a good quiz question. Everything else (the technical aspect, how many points to give, logistics, and other practical things) is like a trip to Disneyland compared to that.

The Making of the Infamous Quiz

Then how do we make a quiz that we both like if we cannot even agree on the quiz questions? Well, as everything in life, folks, this too comes down to communication. And after a few quizzes (and living together for three years), our communication has evolved. 

My fiancé, for one, has learned to use the so-called hamburger feedback with me. You know, the feedback model where you sandwich your negative feedback between two positive ones to distract your gullible subject. This way you not only have your subject solely remember your kind words and think you're a great person but you'll also have your feedback on record if you ever have to refer to it (you sneaky you).

For example, for quiz number 2, I suggested that we play different Eurovision songs (my non-European friends: if you don't know what Eurovision is, you're missing out on life!) and have people guess what country they are from. So, the following was my fiancé's well-hamburgered response that started with an almost inaudible deep breath and continued like this:

Top bun (the positive start): 

"Honey, it's great that you have ideas."

Meat in between (what he actually thinks): 

"But I don't think this particular idea is good for this particular quiz."

Bottom bun (ending on a positive note): 

"However, I want you to know how much I encourage and value your ideas. Please always feel free to present them. Maybe one day one of them will actually be... you know... *cough* good."

The downfall of this approach, however, is that I'm the kind of person who will hear nothing after "I don't think this particular idea is good." 

To be fair, though, I'm a lot blunter with him. For instance, for every single quiz we've had, he's suggested a very similar type of a question (it's actually the same question each time but he's trying to present it differently to trick me into accepting it).

Fiancé: Honey, how about this question? What is the probability of-

Me: No.

I mean, I will do everything for (my) love, but I won't do that. And, to be clear, by "that," (watch and learn how to be unambiguous, Meatloaf) I mean probability theory.

Somewhere between quiz 1 and 2, and after a while of twisting each other's arms and either gently (fiancé) or less gently (me) wet-blanketting each other's ideas, we reached a point where we figured we needed a less tiring method of decision-making. And the naive little sheep that we are, we thought that the solution would be to establish a sort of a veto system, which meant that each of us could use a specific number of vetos if there was a question we strongly felt should not be in the quiz (hahaa, ridiculous!). Despite the good (naive) intentions, this ended up bringing out the stubborn side of both of us. And after a while of tricking each other out of vetos, bluffing and calling each other's bluff, we realized that these vetos could end up ruining our quiz - and, in time, our lives in general.

We eventually proceeded to replace the veto system with the so-called martyr act. That is when one person suggests something, and the other person a) gives a heavy sigh and b) says something along the lines of, "Well, honey, I just want you to be happy. I wouldn't add that question if I were you because it's crap, but if it means that much to you, then go ahead and add it, in all its crappiness, and I guess in time I will learn to see the less crappy qualities of it - of which there are not many -, because you love it and I love you," which often backfires because the first person sees right through the guilt-trip act and just goes, "Great! Added!"

So. Where does our quiz-making evolution stand today? As I'm writing this, we are just a couple of days away from our next quiz and we still have two questions to come up with. My fiancé just sent me a message:

So, there you have it - the latest evolution. As you can see, we are still twisting arms. Which actually, if I'm honest with you, usually turns out to be completely unnecessary. For whatever reason, the quiz gods seem to like us and we somehow always end up with a quiz we both as well as our audience loves. So much so, actually, that after each quiz, all the arm-twisting is but a distant memory and we both tell each other (and ourselves) the same thing - we need to do this again soon! ;)

Happy Einsteining to all you quiz-goers!!