LUCY BURDETTE: You already know this by now, but I confess, I’ve got a thing for France, especially Paris. When I was a junior in college, I took a half year study abroad, spending one month in Paris, and four in Avignon. I was devastatingly homesick, and did not take the best advantage of my time there. I feel like I’ve been trying to make up for that ever since! This time out, I was headed to Paris for a week with two girlfriends. Carol, my copine on a previous food tour in Paris, has visited the city many times, and like me, can’t get enough. Yvonne visited only once many years ago.
In January, I decided that it was time to up my French speaking game. There are a million ways to try to learn a language, including Rosetta Stone, Duolingo, Pimsleur, Babbel,…I ended up going with a company called Comme une Française that focuses on speaking. There are five or six teachers who hold about 21 weekly classes on zoom. You choose how many and when you attend, like a gym membership.
Our theme of the week
There is a theme of the week with vocabulary and YouTube videos so you can study ahead. At the beginning of each session, the professors give a little talk about this subject. Then we are divided into groups of two or three where we stumble through 20 minutes of conversation (hopefully all in French no matter how halting!)
The prof of the day lurks with each of the groups and then we gather together again for feedback and corrections. Then on a new sub group, and more chatting.
my chat buddies, David and Rowna
A major challenge has been deciding when to attempt to move up from the debutant to intermediate. So scary!
I love many things about this style of teaching – first of all, it forces me to speak French, which compared to listening and reading, is my absolute weak spot. Second, the students are from all over the world and it’s a lot of fun to learn about their experiences and why they’re interested in speaking this language. The teachers are patient and focused, and some quite funny. But it’s so much harder to learn at this age than it would have been to persevere when I was young!
I’ve been rereading FLIRTING WITH FRENCH, by William Alexander—the story of his attempts to “master” the French language. And also David Lebovitz's The Sweet Life in Paris. It’s reassuring to hear that both of them struggled mightily too.
Back from Paris now, I have to say I was very pleased with how it went. It was easy to panic and lapse into English under stress, but I was not shy about trying to speak French. As far as I know, I made no major gaffes:). Okay wait, that's not quite true. There was the early-in-the-trip reservation at a small cutting edge restaurant where I inadvertently added an extra reservation rather than changing the date. The owner (I think) called me, quite irate (clearly) and informed me (I'm pretty sure) that would be charging me a 60 euro no-show fee. He also, in a fit of French pique (I learned,) cancelled my second reservation. Our new friend the real Emily in Paris kindly tried to intervene, explaining that I was a tourist without much French and was extremely désolée. Interesting to hear from her that she feels she's hit a ceiling with her French. She speaks perfectly fluently from what I heard, but she told us she'll never sound like a Paris native. She'll forever be pegged as Australian!
Your turn Reds...Do you speak another language? Or are you tempted to learn one? Any tips or failures or success stories?
I remember smatterings of French from my high school days and but that's about it . . .
ReplyDeleteAt this point in my life, I'm not particularly tempted to learn another language.
It's a challenge Joan, but I can see flashes of light:)
DeleteI love this Lucy! Good for you. I am so impressed. Spanish is my second language of choice. After being an honors student, I didn't use it for years and then I moved to AZ where I used it all the time as a librarian and it comes in very handy when traveling to Mexico. Speaking is my weak spot, too, but I have found most people are quite forgiving.
ReplyDeleteSpanish is so useful Jenn! Our daughter uses it in the hospital too in CA.
DeleteMy sister is a chef, and owns a catering company, and has run several restaurants. She is super trained in cooking, but she also went to Mexico for a year to cooking school in addition, where it was total immersion Spanish. So she is absolutely and effortlessly bilingual in Spanish, and as a result, can easily communicate in either language with her employees. Many of whom are Hispanic. She says it is absolutely life-changing. And she is so interesting speaking Spanish…her body language is totally different.
DeleteI would love to be effortlessly bilingual. How amazing.
My hat is off to you. I struggled in high school and never did very well at it. No real desire to change that now.
ReplyDeleteYour language program sounds like a really good one, and it must be, if you were able to navigate around Paris. I loved your story about the restaurant. I took French one semester in high school and then 4 semesters in college and cannot say I speak French except for the usual greetings and such. And I have my own faux pas to share. On our first trip to Paris, my husband and I had lunch at one of the outdoor restaurants in the Tuileries and ordered Salade de thon but without any meat or fish. (In those days we weren't eating fish or seafood yet.) Well, the salad came, and I insisted we didn't want any fish. To our embarrassment later, we learned that Salade de Thon is Tuna Salad. (So I obviously needed your program.)
ReplyDeleteOn another note, now that we are in Portugal, we are taking Portuguese lessons from a really good teacher and everyone thinks we are coming along. It will take a long time to become fluent, but we are getting so that we can have little mini conversations, and locals are so pleased we are trying to learn (apparently not everyone does), that they coach us and help us. It's a lovely culture.
I think Portuguese must be really hard Elizabeth! Good for you to learn it! Did you ever tell us why you chose to move there?
DeleteThe reasons were many: We had been coming to Galicia for about ten years (a region in Spain about two and a half hours north of Braga.) When I decided to write my first cozy (Deadly Vintage) I wanted to set it in Portugal, so I wondered, "Where in Portugal would be close enough to zip down for some first-hand research?" and Braga it was.
DeleteWell, after our first visit, we fell in love with Portugal, and we started coming more regularly and made some very nice local friends. (Leading to Book 2, Deadly Verse.) The more we came, the more we liked the culture. For one thing, it's not a violent culture. You can walk safely through dimly lit streets at midnight or two in the morning and not worry about your safety. The people are warm and open-hearted. And it's very family centered. Children go everywhere with their families. It's also very affordable as a place to retire. The city is full of culture: Art museums and galleries, gardens everywhere, a cool theater that books wonderful singers and musical programs, a library that shows old classic films. Good restaurants. The medical care is great. And we can walk everywhere. Whereas, every time we returned home, it was to news of new mass shootings, a reminder that we had to drive everywhere, and prices also kept rising. So we finally decided to retire here, and we haven't regretted it.
Of course we miss friends and family still in the US Thank goodness for Social Media and email! We also have visits from friends and family coming up, and we Skype and do WhatsApp. So that helps. Meanwhile, it's a relaxed, peaceful place to spend our "golden years."
This is a great topic for me right now, Roberta. I have a long history with language learning. Starting in fifth grade, I had four years of poorly taught Spanish. In eighth I started four years of French, in ninth four years of German, and halfway through my senior year I hied off for a year in southern Brazil and learned Portuguese with complete fluency. Took German through college. Went off to Japan (to live with an American boyfriend) for two years and worked hard on learning Japanese, including reading and writing. I lived in Grenoble France for half a year and two years in West African countries where French is the official language. And I earned undergrad through PhD in linguistics.
ReplyDeleteGive me a couple of beers and my Portuguese comes back nicely. My French still gets tangled in advanced verb tenses. The Japanese is barely there. And my muddled Spanish is a mush of those childhood lessons with an assist from Portuguese and French.
But now I have a daughter-in-law and her family in Puerto Rico, and Tuesday I started an in-person intermediate Spanish class given by our local adult ed! It's only two students and a great teacher, and it felt fabulous to stretch my brain (and mouth) like that again. The other student and I did our best to stay in Spanish, and we have some written exercises, too.
I will check out your program after the class is over - conversation is my goal. Gracias!
you're doing it the right way Edith! and it really helps to have a goal. Advanced verb tenses? pfft!
DeleteEdith, your language skills are very impressive! Kudos! (What language is that I wonder?)
DeleteEdith, I loved seeing the pictures and reading a bit about the wedding in your newsletter!
DeleteKudos is from Greek meaning "praise honor or acclaim" became popularized in Victorian England. -- when Britannia ruled the world
DeleteI don't speak another language and really don't plan to learn one. Unless I can somehow learn Klingon or Elvish.
ReplyDeleteJay, if you find a tour to either of the places where they speak those languages, let me know and Irwin and I will book it, too.
DeleteYou guys are making me laugh this morning!
DeleteEdith, I knew you were multi-lingual, but this is an impressive list of ways to make your brain work! When our youngest was a Sister Cities exchange student to Munich, we hosted a German girl for two weeks, and spent time with the whole group of more than a dozen German kids. I spent one afternoon chatting with them about how many languages they spoke. It was humbling. Every kid spoke at least three languages, and a couple spoke as many as six.
Karen, it's embarrassing that Americans don't try harder to learn other languages. Though at this point, I'm pretty sure my brain would balk at trying Klingon, Elvish, maybe!
DeleteMy father's job took the family to Germany when I was 8; having completed grades 1 and 2 in Canada, I entered the equivalent of grade 3 in the local village school where everyone (of course) spoke German. I was lost and miserable and spent my first day in class plotting how to get out of there. But by Christmas time, I had friends and was chattering away happily in German myself. The beauty of both immersion and youth -- the best time and easiest way to learn a language.
ReplyDeleteLucy: I tip my hat to you for making the efforts you are now to learn French. Way to go and persevere! I now speak French relatively fluently, and wish that I had chosen Spanish not Russian as my second foreign language in middle school. When in Mexico many years ago, we got by with my very rudimentary knowledge and my deft use of a phrase book; the locals were patient and that was encouraging. Making the effort is always worthwhile.
Did you retain your German Amanda?
DeleteIt's dormant in the back of my brain, because I don't use it often. I'd need some immersive practice to bring it forward again.
DeleteMy sons learned French that way in Mali. We put one in a French kindergarten and the other in a Belgian preschool. Both were fluent by Christmas.
DeleteWell, I speak English passably well. Sigh. I took French in high school, two years, and had the best accent in the class, according to our Belgian teacher. One of my classmates had a French mother, so this was a big honor. But that was, ahem, 55 years ago. The first time I went to Paris my British expat roommate spoke her fluent French and I didn't get much of a chance to practice. The second time I went, with the two daughters who each took four years of French much more recently, and they expected me to do all the talking. The wimps. (The nurse daughter even used to be called in for French speakers when necessary.)
ReplyDeleteThen Steve and I went to France together. He studied it for five years, and can read French very well, but his accent is hilariously atrocious. He would try to speak to the locals, and I would translate in my slightly better pronunciation. And so many people would want to practice their English with us.
In preparation for my trip to Italy for Rhys's workshop I did DuoLingo, but got so tangled up. The program seemed to assume some prior knowledge of the language, which I did not have. But like my rudimentary Swahili, I now know enough Italian phrases to be polite. And how to say "please speak English" when necessary.
This was the first time traveling in Paris without my hub and with 2 friends who had little to no French. So I had to forge ahead! Swahili, wow!
DeleteKaren, in grad school I used to hang out at the Beer-and-Swahili sessions, not that I was studying it or spoke, but because everyone there was a friend. I picked up a little!
DeleteSon-in-law #1 took Swahili in college, but he can only remember rudimentary words like "karibu".
DeleteRoberta, there are SO many languages in Africa, and most people there speak at least three: Swahili, their tribal tongue, and English, which is taught in most schools. But guides often speak at least one or more other languages. Italian and German are common, at least in Eastern Africa; many Africans are learning Chinese, too. Kenyans speak a modified Swahili called Keswahili, which is so different. The manager of the safari resort tried to teach me her native language, Ma, which is what Samburu and Maasai speak, but we didn't have enough time (not sure any amount would be) for any of it to stick.
When it comes to language stories, I have a million of them! I took French in high school and in college, and while not a particularly good student, I could read real French literature and muddle through conversations.
ReplyDeleteAt age 27, I left my special education teaching job, moved to Israel and entered an ULPAN, an intensive spoken language program. I became fluent enough to get a teaching job in a clinic working with special needs toddlers and a second job advising college students working with severely intellectually impaired people in an institution. Any time I forgot a word in Hebrew, I would say it in French.
Several years ago, preparing for a vacation in Quebec, I bought tapes to refresh my French. Everything always started off fine until I was searching for a word and finished it off in Hebrew. The locals were even more puzzled when I'd begin to laugh at myself.
I take a Hebrew Ulpan class every week now on Zoom. I don't think I will ever spend any real time in Israel again, although we could visit some time. I think I do it because it is a good exercise for the brain. The funny thing is that I still stick in French words on occasion. LOL
That is funny Judy! this learning a new language is definitely good for an old brain!
DeleteI learned classical Arabic, which is sometimes quite different from the dialect spoken in each country. My first time in Egypt trying to communicate, the clerk in the store repeated what I asked in English to make sure I knew what I asked. Then I got a project working there and spent a considerable amount of time traveling back and forth and always staying at the same hotel. I insisted with the hotel staff that they only speak to me in Arabic. They were so helpful and patient and were eager to teach me Egyptian Arabic - which has its uniqueness from the other dialects (notably the j sound becomes a hard g sound, e.g. Jamilah vs. Gamilah). I will always treasure that time.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great experience Elizabeth! Arabic looks so difficult from the outside...
DeleteLearning languages is so fun!
ReplyDeleteLucy, I have heard about the French and how they have a committee to decide which words to keep and which words to throw away.
Learned Sign Language at the age of three years and I wanted to learn French in the 4th grade though someone told me to learn the English language first. LOL
IMHO, Never too old to learn a new language. I remember a friend's grandparents learned Sign Language to communicate with their Deaf grandchild.
Sign Language is more visual than French, though. When I visited France, they seemed to tolerate my writing notes in French and my using International Sign Language.
Learned Spanish and French in school. Currently learning Norwegian.
Diana
Norwegian, wow!
DeleteBoth my parents were fluent in French having learned it in their respective high schools. But it was their "secret" language they used so we wouldn't know what they were talking about (should we take the kids out for ice cream? and such). I instinctively learned a lot of French general conversation but not enough to speak the language to any degree.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter and her family lived in Norway for 1 1/2 years and the kids picked it up very quickly. After returning to the states my high school granddaughter was able to continue taking classes at the local college.
that's really cool about the Norwegian. My granddaughter is in a Spanish immersion kindergarten class and she will be fluent I suspect in a couple of years.
DeleteI am so glad to hear that your granddaughter's school has Spanish immersion. I wish every school had a dual language curriculum. My grandson's middle school offers Mandarin Chinese as an elective which he is taking. So we are making progress!
DeleteWow! i am so impressed with everyone's mastery (or not) of many other languages. I had French in high school and I know maybe a few phrases, thanks to Louise Penny and her books, but I doubt I could have a conversation with anyone. Facial expressions and gestures would be the way I'd go. Oddly, every now and then I use a French word without thinking. Somehow it must have been stuck in my brain almost 60 years ago.
ReplyDeleteBut we do have other languages all around us. All instruction manuals seem to come with at least 2 besides English. Although I can't help but wonder if the English instructions are maybe translations from something else, maybe engineer-speak.
One day in the car my granddaughter pulled down the sun visor and there were very important things written in French. That might have been her first exposure to the language and she went on to take four years of it in high school. She did well but I could never get her to talk to me with what she had learned.
Judi, you are so right about the instruction manuals! I was exactly like your grand, too shy to try to speak. (My teacher in high school was Madame Lewis (Lu-eees!), who spoke French in a very strong Brooklyn accent.)
DeleteGood for you, Lucy. Here's a comfort for your Australian friend--I've read in a number of places that only a few exceptionally gifted people can learn to speak a foreign language without their native language's accent and intonations IF they learn the new language after the age of 12. TWELVE! So no matter how well you speak a language, even perfectly, if you learn it after your early teens you'll have a "foreign" accent. I'm aware of this because, after 35 years in Bern, I speak my brand of German (a mixture of standard German and Bernese dialect) very well, but I cannot get rid of sounding like a native English speaker. Peter's and my son, Tommy, learned both languages at the same time from babyhood on, so he is truly bilingual. But, hey, even if we can't speak without an accent, it's wonderful to be able to speak a foreign language at ANY level. I salute all the language learners!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely right Kim--kudos to all of us for making the effort!
DeleteKim you are right about the age thing. We adopted two children from Russia - ages 11 and 12. They do not speak English with any accent. We heard that kids adopted older than that do have an accent when they learn English (or whatever adoptive language).
DeleteI learned English in school. When I was 13, I participated in an interprovincial exchange with an English student from Ontario. Immersion is a good way to learn speaking a language.
ReplyDeleteAs I had no occasions to practice in my life, studies or work here in Quebec, I began to read in English not to lose it all.
When I decide to travel to Scotland, I found an English conversation teacher. For two years, I spoke with him almost every week except summer. I think regular practicing is the best way for me. My brother learned Spanish conversation the same way.
I’m far from perfect in English and I have an accent but I’ve been able to visit Scotland, England, Ireland, Australia and of course the United States.
And Lucy, even as a French Canadian, I have an accent when in France. They always can say where I come from.
Danielle
So interesting that you have a Canadian accent Danielle!
DeleteDanielle, and conversely, our 92-year old neighbor, who has lived in the US since the early 1960s, still has a strong Quebecois accent.
DeleteI grew up speaking Japanese at home before I learned English. It's pretty rusty now.
ReplyDeleteI started learning French from junior high school to university. Working for the Canadian federal government, I needed to read French but not speak it while working in Toronto. But I had to pass both my written/reading and oral French exams when I moved to Ottawa for another job in 2014. Those basic level exams were gruelling but I passed them all!
P.S. I forgot to mention that what made those exams really challenging was that they contained lots of government/technical jargon. These are phrases/words that most people would never use in every day life, or on a vacation!
DeleteOMG Grace, that sounds impossible! I wonder if you'll have the chance to use your Japanese? I bet it would come back...
DeleteLUCY: Maybe if I immersed myself in Japanese (in Japan) for a substantial time, it would come back. And yes, those exams (2+ hours each) were crazy. These days, I only need to use my every day French when visiting Montreal.
DeleteSpanish in high school and college, French two years in college. Don't speak either except for a few phrases, reading is better. But love languages. A friend in grad school went to China to do his research and his family was allowed to go with him. By the time their year was up, the kids were fluent, dad not so much even though he'd had intensive language classes before going.
ReplyDeleteChinese would be another BIG challenge!
DeleteGood for you in learning a new language, which also feeds into your passion for all things French! One of the things I love about Zoom is we can take courses with people from all over the world. People we would've never met without Zoom and we get together because we share an interest in a topic. Regular meetings are the icing on the cake.
ReplyDeleteYes Zoom has been a game-changer, even though most of us are sick to death of it!
DeleteGood for you for all your study! It is harder to learn as you get older, but we can still learn. On my last trip to France, my son was happy to practice his French. We were in Antibes and one night we were sitting outside eating at a little Italian restaurant when Matt used the wrong word and the waitress was confused. A (clears throat) handsome British yacht captain at the next table helped us out and then complimented my son on his French. Said son did his first little practice teaching of German this week (as a PhD student in Germanic studies).
ReplyDeleteMy friend Annette (with whom I shared the "folk music in Scotland" research project) stayed on after our overseas study in 1978 and spent three months in Avignon improving her French.
I learned French in high school and college and started studying Spanish when I retired 12 years ago. When I first started learning Spanish, French phrases would pop into my head, even though I hadn't used the French in decades. Currently I do once a week Zoom classes with a teacher we met at language school in Cuernavaca, Mx. The other student is my friend Sharon. We have a lot of fun, and the last few years have been reading and discussing novels. Currently we are reading Violeta by Isabel Allende. The classes fly by--the three of us talk about our lives and families and then move on to the book. I also get to practice Spanish at my church on occasion--this Sunday is Día de los Niños fiesta and I am going to help with one of the games. The celebration will be mid afternoon, after the Spanish language service, and we hope many of the Anglo families will come back for it.
those are wonderful experiences Gillian! The trick is getting over the hump about feeling embarrassed about mistakes, I think.
DeleteOh, what an adventure, Lucy! It is so… French. :-) I can manage as a tourist in French and Spanish and German, and the longer I am among people speaking those languages, I can get by. I can’t have philosophical discussions, but I can do rudimentary life.
ReplyDeleteAnd similar to your experience, I was assigned to be the one to handle the car rental in the south of France. While we were there. I emerged from the car rental place, saying “I either just rented a car for $25 a day, or bought a car for $25,000, I’m not quite sure, but here are the keys! “
that's hysterical Hank!! We did not know you could speak all those languages:), you will be very useful on our Jungle Red tour...
DeleteWe practiced our French by watching "Candice Renoir" on Acorn for several weeks before our trip. I remembered my HS and college French more every day! I tagged along with the school children in the Musee d'Orsay and Cluny museum and listened to their guide with success. I speak tourist German and picked up a little Italian along the way. We ended our trip with three days in Avignon. Loved it!
ReplyDeletesounds like a great trip!
DeleteI grew up speaking French, German, and Italian, my English was learned from other kids in the neighborhood. These days languages come back in immersion circumstances, but because language is a living thing, I'm too shy to speak it!
ReplyDeletewow Kait, that's quite a story. My advice of course would be to plunge in, ignore the shyness.
DeleteStudied Spanish from 7th grade through BA in Romance languages. Took a semester of Italian don't remember any of this. On a parallel to languages I bet many of you can read music scores. I had to learn all three clefs because the 'cello played in all three. After I got my implant 3 years ago, I had to relearn sound, then speech. It took a while but now I can understand dialects in English. Still cannot understand Spanish .. that skill might come back too. I suppose as most of you are writers, you are also drawn to speaking other languages, words are fascinating right?
ReplyDeleteSo interesting about what's coming back after the implant! I can read music because I started early, which is not the same as singing all the notes on key:)
DeleteI can make my way around menus in French, Spanish, and German. This is how I learned to like sweetbreads, tripe, and calf brains
ReplyDeleteAnd tongue
You’re welcome
You can have my entrails Ann:)
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAnd for our to trip Italy, I made sure I knew how to say: "ce l'hai in nero?" (Or something like that,) for the English "do you have that in black?" and Mi dispiace, no lo sapevo." For the English: "Im so sorry, I didn't know that." Both VERY useful.
ReplyDelete(And forgive me, I know I am commenting WAY too much--once or twice is WAY enough :-) when it's not my day) But so funny: I heard someone say once: What do you call someone who speaks many languages? Multilingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks one language? An American.
ReplyDeleteWe love hearing your comments, Hank, all of them! That's a good but sad joke. The trouble with starting to speak in a language is that people then answer in that language and you have to understand that too!
DeleteYou can never comment too much, Hank!!
DeleteReally, Hank, if you cannot comment more than once or twice, how about the rest of us who are drawn into everyone's conversation here on occasion? There are days when I want to comment several times! Like today. I always want to read what the Reds have to say.
DeleteOh, so true, Lucy! Just when I'd think, oh, I GOT.THIS, the person would actually answer, and then I'd be doomed. Or, like the time in a elegant Paris restaurant when I carefully carefully ordered in French, and the waiter was...noblesse oblige patient, with arched eyebrow and almost sneer. But I persevered. And then, at the end of the dinner, he said to me IN FLAWLESS AND ALMOST ACCENT-FREE ENGLISH "I hope you had a pleasant evening." He TOTALLY spoke English, but never admitted it throughout our time with him.
DeleteI’ve always had an interest in other languages. When I was in seventh or eighth grade, one of the teachers offered an after-school French class. I happily participated in it. In high school I took three years of French, and was an A student. I took three semesters of French in college, and again was an A student. I don’t remember much. I can sort of read it but I would be lost if I had to speak it.
ReplyDeleteI’ve always wanted to study Spanish. My college said I had to continue with the language I had in high school, though. When I was in my mid-twenties I lived near a Berlitz language school. (Do any even exist anymore?) I signed up for Spanish. I opted for the more expensive one-on-one instruction. I think it was a six month program. (This was around fifty years ago; hard to remember a lot of details!) I would have a different instructor each time because the school wanted the students to get used to hearing different Spanish accents. So I had a teacher from Spain, a teacher from Cuba, one or two from Argentina, etc. It was total immersion. I loved it, and learned quickly. One of the instructors, I think one of the ones from Argentina, told me that he’d never had a student who learned so quickly. And I’ve forgotten almost everything I learned! I still would like to learn Spanish fluently. I’m considering taking it on-line.
DebRo
Oh yes do take it Deb! I know it would all come rushing back...
DeleteLucy, I love your Zoom class for language - what a brilliant idea, and what a great way to make it as easy as possible to learn (or brush up on) a second language.
ReplyDeleteI was once pretty fluent in French; I studied it from sixth grade through three years in college. Now? Not so much, and I think your type of class might be perfect for me when I have time to brush up. As for your friend being forever labeled Australian, I think that's the fate of everyone speaking a language they didn't learn from early childhood. No matter how fluent you are, you retain some trace of your native accent.
Apparently this Zoom program started near the beginning of the pandemic, which was rather brilliant!
DeleteSusan C Shea, ici. Right now, I'm recovering from a pathetic performance in an in-person 7-week French Conversation class. The teacher assured me I was right for the intermediate section, but no. I think I'll try the online program you recommend. I can read and understand French, but the 6 other stiudents' eyes glazed over when I tried to tell a short anecdote. If we can find a place to stay in Paris (trop cher en Septembre) I'm supposed to meet two friends there for two weeks. As they say, ça depend!
ReplyDeleteSusan, don't be so hard on yourself! Fluency in a spoken language takes practice and you just need more of that. Just like other skills, some people catch on faster than others. Do NOT give up! (Try reading a French newspaper out loud or a book, so that your tongue gets used to the cadence. It will help!)
DeleteAgree with Judy, don't give up! Was your class once a week? that's the beauty of this zoom class, you can go as often as you have time for. One of my pals might stay for several sessions in one day! My brain is fried after one...
DeleteSo interesting to read everyone's comments and language experience. Spanish was our compulsory second language in our Texas schools, started in second or third grade. I spent a lot of time in Mexico growing up. My parents had close Mexican friends and later owned a house outside Guadalajara. My mother studied Spanish for many years, first with Berlitz, then with a Chilean teacher. She was quite fluent but her accent was TERRIBLE--she could never lose that Texas twang. I lived in Mexico City for a summer when I was eighteen and got along pretty well, but I have forgotten so much.
ReplyDeleteWhen I visited Lucy in Key West recently I was so inspired by her French lessons that I swore I'd work on refreshing my Spanish, but I haven't managed it yet. I'd love to speak French and Italian, too, but figure I'm better off sticking with the language that at least has a groove in my brain.
Yes Debs, I'd like to learn Spanish and Italian too but not sure it's in the cards!
DeleteDebs, vamos hablar Espanol juntos!
DeleteLearning a language! I am in awe. I spoke passable french but I couldn't understand a word of what came back as an answer. Jerry spoke pretty good spanish but I was the one who translated the responses. Seems like there's two different channels in the brain for a language, speaking and listening. My grandchildren are in a bilingual spanish/English program at their elementary school and I do believe they will be truly bilingual. Such a bonus!
ReplyDeleteI think you must be right about the two channels Hallie
DeleteI took Spanish since 6th grade and majored in it in college. When teaching wasn't my thing, I tried to keep up watching TV shows in Spanish but they usually spoke too quickly for me. I bought a set of record albums and books to refresh my Spanish when we went to Mexico. Also have a German record set (before the computer) for when we went to Germany. I still can understand Spanish if they don't talk too fast but my German was never that great. It got me to the lady's room in Munich where we had to leave the huge department store and go into another building of the same store so it was worth it.
ReplyDeleteI think accents are sexy and interesting. Do people in other countries think that about American accents? Besides, we all have accents because just like there are many versions of English, I know there are lots of versions of Spanish and German. When I stayed with a family in Argentina, I was surprised that they had a different familiar YOU with its own rules. Also, the J sound was pronounced with a Y sound. Yo equals Jo. If you ever heard Fernando Lamas, that's the Argentine accent.
Such a good question Sally! I don't know if people in other countries find American accents sexy!
Delete