Monday 15 October 2007

It Don't Mean A Thing

We are waiting to start proper French lessons.

We've been here since March and while we can understand lots of what is going on and what people are saying our spoken French seems to be stuck at the two year old stage. We can say lots of names for things but somehow sentances are something that happen to other people. As for conversations well they feel like being on the loosing end of a tennis match. The French speaker is effortlessly batting comments my way while my head runs all over the place trying to muster a reply. It's exhausting.

The tv has been good strangely enough for spelling and numbers. This is down to quiz shows like the French equivalent of Wheel of Fortune and Countdown. It's also good to watch the local news and get a bit of an idea of what is going on. Not that much does go on which is nice.

So anyway we decided progress had to be made and went to see a French teacher to get assesed for what level we were at and book some lessons. We are "wrong beginners" by that she means we have lots of words without having the grammar rules to put them together.

So we are waiting for her to get a few more English signed up and away we'll go being right beginners.

6 comments:

Kitt said...

Bravo! Et bonne chance!

When I moved to Paris to work as an au pair many many years ago, communicating in French every day left me simply exhausted for the first several weeks, this despite more than a dozen years of daily French study and a still young and presumably fairly elastic brain. The tennis analogy is apt.

But once you have the grammar to hang your words on, it will all come together, I'm sure. I envy you!

Imperatrix said...

Do they still have a gameshow on called "Les Chiffres et les lettres"? [numbers and letters]. I used to watch it with my grandparents every night! (of course, this was 30 years ago, but heck the Price is Right is older than that, right?)

Learning French grammar is a great idea (could you even put it down as a business expense that you can deduct?)! Good luck!

Breezy said...

Kitt I envy you being here when you were young I'm sure we'll get there eventually then we just have to understand the patois the older people round here speak

Inperatrix
Haven't see that one. The region make a contribution towards the lessons for people settling here we can make an application in January so at least we won't be paying the full cost

Anji said...

I remember "Les Chiffres et les lettres"; my children starting school improved my French a lot, but I've never had proper lessons and make lots of faults.

Breezy said...

But Anji you are doing that thing of writing English but with a French style our friend's son does that a lot

stratobiker said...

Breezy, a great way to learn French is to get a bike and join the local cycling club. On the club runs the riders chat about all sorts of nothing, just chat, and before you know it you're joining in.