June 21, 2010

I’m blogging about taking French classes at the Alliance Française located at 113 1^st Street North (the North Loop Neighborhood) Minneapolis, MN 55401-1411
(612) 332-0436

My goal this summer is to transcend beyond beginning French to an intermediate level. Assuming that happens, I hope to continue on to an advanced status.

The Alliance Française has a long history, even in Minnesota. The organization, which originated in Paris in 1883, was formed to promote French culture and language and branched out around the world. Minnesota’s A.F. organization was formed in1902 by a University of Minnesota professor. It has now grown to over 900 members.

The Alliance now owns its own place in Minneapolis. It’s tucked into a hundred year old brick building on North First Street between other small businesses. The building’s old-fashioned, wood-paneled street front is appropriately painted French Blue. French flags cheerfully fly outside it. Thus, no one driving by can mistake the organization’s mission.

How lucky am I, given my interests, that I live only a block and a half away from the Alliance? It’s Downtown living at its best. The class I signed up for this summer is ten weeks long, four days per week, 3 hours per day.

Today, I began my Intensive Beginning French class. The first class was the shortest three-hour class I’ve ever experienced. There were two students and one instructor. We immediately worked on pronunciation, some basic grammar, speaking and listening in French, and learning the names of the alphabet letters. Our teacher is Jamal. He gave us a bit of homework but told us that tomorrow there would be more. I’m excited to find out how much I can learn in ten weeks.

Allow me to contrast this with the German I learned in high school and college. I can read and guess a good deal in German but I’m dumbfounded trying to have a conversation in it. My studies included “Der Flieg” by Brecht but not what I call useful “menu Deutsch.” And the differences in German dialects are prohibitive for me to understand them but not for them to understand me. High German, the standardized German taught in schools and used on television, is far removed from Bavarian, Austrian, and Swiss German.

You’d think I’d want to just continue with German studies. But I have some French friends and I really don’t have any German-speaking friends at this point. It’s more likely that I’ll travel again in France, less likely in Germany--although it’s a lovely country to visit. I did take German Berlitz classes while residing a few short weeks in Munich.

I’m not discouraged at my late-life tackling of foreign language. For one thing, I know that studying a foreign language will be a boost for my brain. On-going brain studies show this. (It gives the scientists great hope for us as humans to know that the body replaces brain cells and that learning doesn’t end at age twenty-five.)

From experience, I know that I don’t have to be an expert in a language in order to appreciate and use it. I have certainly enjoyed the times I’ve had interacting with French culture and French friends (even though I didn’t understand a lot of what’s going on around me).

French culture takes pride the French language. Thus, every French person is a very good instructor. A French waitress has matter-of-factly corrected me to say “un café” instead of “en café” when ordering coffee. People on the subway and in businesses have taken time to correct my pronunciation or vocabulary in a helpful manner. Amusingly, one young French fellow demanded to know why my group did not speak French in France. (He spoke to us in English.) I baffled him a bit, replying that I studied German and never expected to be in France! (That did seem to stump him.)

I know that if I put concentrated effort into learning French, I will increase my access to the French people. They will continue to educate me politely and voluntarily. For me, this is greatest incentive to learn French.

I have yet to experience anything similar to this on-the-spot coaching in other countries. The Germans may cringe in pain while I’ve butchered the language. But outside of German classes, I’ve rarely been corrected. (Perhaps Germans have always been more eager to practice their English with me.) The Spanish were likely to just wait until we found an interpreter. We Americans are so forgiving of the misuse of the English language that our TV and radio personalities drop the “ly” off of their adjectives, abuse verbs, and confuse “good” for “well.” (e.g. “You done good honey.”) I have come to believe the American audience believes this is “folksy.” Unfortunately, most Americans do not take well to correction no matter how well intended.

I am off to do my homework. For me the greatest challenge in the upcoming weeks will be my pronunciation and listening skills. “Je m’appelle….”

June 22, 2010

Today’s French session was a clearing of cobwebs from the rafters of my brain. It refreshed the knowledge that I’d lost and rousted out some of my bad habits or misunderstandings picked up earlier. I haven’t had much grammar (other than in foreign languages) since seventh grade. I am grateful to have had that much. Considering English grammar unnecessary, American schools in many places have dropped grammar from required curriculums. My secret belief is that the growing ignorance of grammar has something to do with the “No Child Left Behind” policies installed through out the country. Hey, if you aren’t required to know it for a national test, why study it at all?

I digress. So, I am really reaching back into my past to pull out any useful grammatical information from my head while studying French. Some points I’ve picked up from Jamal in just two days:

* If a French noun ends in –e, it’s most likely a feminine noun. Wow, how useful is that!! Clues! And if it’s not feminine, it has to be masculine (no complicating gender-free words as in some other languages).

* Now in French, I have learned that if American is a noun, it’s capitalized, and if it’s an adjective, it’s not. Doesn’t “I am an american.” look strange? (In fact, I’m having a fight with grammar check as I write this. As I type, I am forcing Microsoft Word to override its punctuation check on the word american and that annoys me a lot. I know what I want whether it’s correct or not!)

In English, we have such a complicated system of capitalization that I’m sure many duels have been fought over it. Looking at a complete list of English capitalization rules is daunting. I surely don’t remember learning all that.

Then there are French numbers for me to re-learn. The last time I tried to pronounce numbers in French, I decided speaking English numbers or using a pencil or a keypad was going to have to do.

The other student in the class thinks I’m doing well. But she’s got a great goal to motivate her. She needs French for her job. I do have some advantage of being previously exposed to French, but it’s so easy to just get to a certain point and then just give up. (I think, “Another exception to a rule?”) If we don’t have any goals for the use of the language, it’s going to be difficult to stay engaged in it. I’m having fun. That’s my goal. I want to be able to go to France and not be a near illiterate. I want to go to France and not be afraid to stand at the counter at a bakery to request a loaf of bread.

The other student in the class thinks I’m doing so well. I do have the advantage of being previously exposed to French, but it’s so easy to just get to a point and then just give up. She’s got a great goal. She needs French for her job. If you don’t have any goals for the use of the language, it’s going to be difficult to stay engaged. I’m having fun with it. That’s my goal. I want to be able to go to France and not be a near illiterate. I want to go to France and not be afraid to stand at the counter at a bakery to request a loaf of bread.

June 23, 2010

Since the other student in the class was out today, I had a one-on-one class. Jamal and I worked very hard on pronunciation, number recognition, masculine and feminine use and recognition. Will I ever “hear” the vowels so that I can pronounce them properly?

This brings to mind an amusing incident that I remember from very long ago with a French friend of mine. She was telling me (in English) something about a bull. At least I thought that’s what she was talking about but it made no sense as we were talking about breakfast in general. So, after a short dialogue between us, I asked her to repeat the word, and I heard, “bull,” then “bull,” then “bull.” No matter, it just didn’t make sense. So, I asked her for an example. She drank hot chocolate from a bull. I became suspicious that this was not possible. So I suggested maybe she was talking about a ball? “No, no, no.” She wasn’t interested in golf I guess. Finally, I understood that she drank hot chocolate from a bowl! How could I not have guessed this from context? Duh! It was because I did not know that French people drink from bowls! It seems messy but it is possible.

When a word is used in a sentence without any cultural context, due to lack of the listener’s experience, it becomes a frustrating, bi-lingual challenge to comprehend it. This is why I know I have to at least hear the vowels if not reproduce them “just so.” Maybe this will be easier than studying a tonal language such as Chinese, but it’s a lot more difficult than making unambiguous (to English speakers’ ears) sounds in German. Sure, every Western language seems to have its diphthongs with which to struggle. But at least I can usually hear them.

One on one with the teacher I was able to ask extra questions. And we had the chance to explore the use of “Est-ce que.” This is a short-cut way of asking a question while making a statement (no exact equivalent in English that makes sense). But the concept sounds good. If one asks a question in English without raising one’s tone at the end of sentence, it can be confusing. Yet, I have heard some East Coast people do this to great effect. In some way, the questioner is not perceived as being in the weakened position of not knowing something. But the questioner is still expecting an informative response.

English could benefit from the more wily ways of foreign languages. Wait, what am I thinking? English is a composite of a vast number of languages. We pick and choose the useful concepts and words, and make them our own. It’s much simpler to borrow an idea than reinvent a perfectly good one! And we like short, succinct, rapid-fire language. It certainly shortens the length of books and reduces the cost of telephone calls billed by the minute. We are clever aren’t we?

June 24, 2010

Has it only been four days of classes? At the end of today’s class, my mind really began to fade out a bit. It’s not that the class was harder; it’s more that I think I’m growing the “little gray cells” as Agatha Christie’s famous character, Poirot, would say. (I hope some readers will know the great French Belgian detective, Poirot!) Now my little gray cells just want to take a restorative nap as soon as possible.

Alors! I must complete my homework for the day. Who knows what might intervene in my weekend, keeping me from applying today’s newly acquired knowledge?

(Just now, it took me approximately five minutes to figure out the spelling and meaning of alors by searching the Internet. WikiAnswers gives us this: “It can also be used in informal conversation to mean "So then..." and it can be placed after other words to give emphasis, e.g. "zut alors !" or "ça alors !"” I love the Internet. I love using informal language.)

Anyway, my notes from the class look a little like cuneiform writing from Babylonian times. I write so little with a pen or pencil anymore it’s difficult for me to try to make sense of it sometimes. Marking wet clay tiles with a stylus might be exaggerating, but perhaps I could stay on a straight line with that system. Really, this intensive class is not about taking notes. It’s about interacting with the instructor, Jamal. It’s about give-and-take dialogue, which clarifies the point(s) we are studying and makes us use French.

I’m sure the first question we all ask is “How does one use French when one doesn’t know it?” This, of course, is the dilemma faced by everyone who desires to learn a new form of expression. When I think of it, drawing, singing and even swimming requires jumping in without being concerned that our first efforts are imperfect. Maybe there are some exceptions, but I think overall from childhood to adulthood we accept that this is normal for most of our efforts in a new area.

Yet, for some reason, we are particularly embarrassed about not being able to express ourselves in a new language. I’ve noticed that Americans, who have not been exposed to or studied a second language, are most critical of others speaking another language. Somehow, the world swirls around them and their needs exclusively, regardless of the situation—as in a place within their own city that has another culture, or visiting a country that uses another language.

Or, and I find this really amusing, the individual is so self centered that they assume

1) People must be talking about them “behind their back” or

2) The other person really understands English but they just won’t use it.

Now either of these is possible. But isn’t that even more reason to try to pick up a few words of the local language? Then one would know if either was occurring. And while those “other” people are discussing their laundry or shopping for shoes, you can be sure you will catch them talking about you some day.

July 7, 2010

I just would not have believed that it would take me this long to return to blogging. We are now in the third week of intensive beginning French. Jamal gave us no homework today but asked that we review what we have studied up to this point. So, I have the energy to blog away today!

Actually, the primary reason I’ve not made entries lately is that I have been so exhausted. The first weekend I just couldn’t be creative. I felt like every corpuscle in my body was crying for oxygen. This has continued up to this week. Now I’m fine. I can only believe that all the mental effort I was putting into immersing myself in French was taking its toll.

I do remember my first immersion experience, which was also exhausting. I arrived in Lyon, France to take business classes at the Université Jean Moulin Lyon III. This was a program set up by the University of Minnesota Business and Law Schools. The classes were in English. French students attended for the business/English exposure along with graduate students from all over the U.S. who were in the program for credit. While I was up for the adventure, the experience was fatiguing. Every night I lie in my dormitory room, exhausted, with a radio listening to Radio Free Europe for a bit of English. I also had had the wisdom to bring tapes, which taught French useful to travelers. I became so deprived of social conversation for a couple of weeks, and I became so hungry because I couldn’t find much food in the stores or order what I wanted in restaurants that it motivated me to really study those tapes! I was learning how to learn a language and that was very tiring.

Knowing this, this is what I have been doing to reinforce French besides our class time hours:

First, there is the assigned homework. Mostly these are exercises in our workbook. We also have a CD, which has the dialogues from class to absorb while listening.

Second, I have been renting DVD French films to watch at home every night (English subtitles). Luckily, I have a spouse interested in French also.

Third, I’m participating in French conversation where I can find it. The Alliance offers a once a month “Petite Dej” and there are other groups that meet as well around town. There are cinema nights at the Alliance every other week on Friday evenings.

And fourth, while I have no conscious control of it, I’ve been conjugating French verbs in my sleep.

I believe I’ve watched at least twenty-five or thirty French movies in the past month so far. This, along with classes, DVDs, CDs and French conversation, has really aided me in “hearing” the language. I’m picking out words and phrases a bit more every day. French now sounds like a language to me instead of a blur.

A final update on our class: We began with two students the first week. In the second week, we picked up another student. And today we had another student join us. At this rate, there will be ten students by the end of ten weeks. I’ve experienced students dropping a class as it progressed but I don’t remember ever experiencing a growth of members of a class before, especially in a foreign language. And I am surprised that we are all adults, some of us way past the age of expecting to learn another language. The common thread that joins us is that we are all well educated…oh! and we are all women.

July 11, 2010

Viewing French films is helping me build confidence so that I can hear the language and make some sense of it. I have been identifying more and more words and expressions. I need context to recognize the sounds and the breaks between words. It’s amazing how a new word can be introduced to me during the class and, that night, I’m hearing it within the movie. There seems to be no end to the number of French films with English subtitles available.

I am gaining some confidence. I have begun to use some French with my husband. This is possibly troubled territory. I suspect that learning even a little of a language from my spouse could be as dangerous to our relationship as learning to drive a car from him. We pay driving instructors and language teachers to avoid such issues. They can remain objective and copasetic. No chance of cute stories told at next year’s New Year’s party. No chance of one spouse teaching another a new form of Franglais.

(Disclaimer: Names have been withheld to protect me from litigation… and this is not about my spouse) The following dialogues are all a product of my imagination.

The two cases:

I’m striving to enhance my French language interactions. I attended one conversational group (Petite Dej at the Alliance) just a couple of Saturdays ago. It was fun listening to people and attempting to talk with them. I felt self-conscious but a lot of people in the room had been in the same position at some point. This allows me to feel that the receiver of my poor French is at least empathetic to my needs to practice communicating. I’ve found out there is a number of conversational groups around town that meet regularly. I’m planning to drop in on a few in the near future.

I’m meeting a lot of people by taking this French class. This would include my teacher and the students in this class. But also, while I’m improving my French I’m pursuing opportunities to “immerse” myself outside class. Thus, there are more interesting people to meet.

Bastille Day celebrations in the Twin Cities seem to be popping up more frequently. As is usual with such things, much of these seem to be as much commercial agendas as they are a celebration. However, the Bastille Day celebration sponsored by L’Alliance Française this past Saturday night was another opportunity for me to soak up French culture without the commercialism. My husband and I ventured forth to this Minnesotan event to find some French culture and maybe even speak some French. Bastille Day is the equivalent holiday to our July 4 celebrations…sort of. Every July 14^th, the French commemorate the anniversary of “the storming of the Bastille” in 1790. This was the infamous fortified prison in Paris. The occupation of the Bastille became a symbol of the French Revolution.

The event we attended was held at the University Club on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. Of course, there was a buffet of tasty French-style cuisine. Included were assorted French cheeses, Croque Monsieur (a signature version of a ham and cheese sandwich), wine and so forth. We stayed to listen to a band play Francophile friendly music outside. We found ourselves with food, drink, and a couple of new acquaintances with which to converse while sitting on a covered outdoor patio.

There are a lot of opinions about learning foreign languages. We met a few people at the party who were discussing how easy it is to learn Portuguese after learning Spanish. (I’ve had others tell me the exact opposite: that Portuguese is more difficult because it still uses many Latin tenses.) I think the idea is that Latin-based languages are very similar. It’s true that if one could overlay the Latin languages there would be commonalities but clearly, that doesn’t make them mutually intelligible. Claims that they are so similar imply they are dialects not separate languages. Ahem! Tell that to the Romanians calling Portugal.

At the table we found on the covered patio, we met two very interesting people who did not meet each other before and who had studied French, German, Spanish and smatterings of other languages while in school and traveling. The man had served in the Peace Corps and had an interest French and German. The woman had fluency in French and German and is taking Spanish classes now. We all swapped stories about languages, travel, and life for a couple of hours. It’s really rewarding to meet new people that have so many interests in common and want to share them. As a result of this meeting, I found out there is an event this Sunday on Nicollet Island promoting a Minneapolis, USA – Tours, France. I’m going to explore the idea this weekend. It looks like an opportunity to volunteer in a venture that might use my experience in several ways or maybe I’ll just meet more people interested in French.

July 16, 2010

The French classes are getting harder. There is a lot to cover. We have left the “safety” of the verbs for “to be,” “to go,” and “to do.” We are now exploring new verb-territory. This week we’ve been introduced to “to want,” “to be able (can),” and “must do/ have to.” While the first set of verbs are very irregular and challenging to learn, the second are a little more regular but I’m finding them also difficult to learn. Needless to say, these are very important verbs and it’s not a question of whether I have to master them or not.

So I am falling back on my best foreign language learning aid: writing out the conjugations multiple times for several days in a row. I’m finding this is revealing some of my confusion. Without a lot of self-vigilance, I easily switch between the spellings and mismatch the verb with its correct pronoun. I even manage to swap verbs mid-conjugation. Somehow I have verbs beginning with “A” mixed up in my head. I should be in better shape on these by Monday. At least by then maybe I can catch my own errors. A little added bonus to this technique is that I will improve my handwriting.

Crazy as it seems, I’m finding this is very fun. I never have been much of a multi-tasker in the sense that I’d prefer learning/doing one big thing instead of studying multiple subjects at the same time. Right now, I have a point in time that I can really concentrate on just French. That’s what’s making learning fun for me. I don’t have to deal with studying for exams and earning a grade. The entire reward is in being able to use the language. I know that I will want to test out my French the same way one might take a test drive in a new vehicle. I’m hoping we can travel to Montreal this fall some time for that purpose.

July 22, 2010

So much can happen in a week. I’m hearing the vowels a lot better but my pronunciation doesn’t match. I know how a word should sound most of the time but it takes me at least a couple of tries to get it out of my mouth. Practice! Practice!

This week we learned how to tell time in French. Given there are two ways of time-keeping in Europe, an American, who hasn’t been in the military, will likely have issues coming upon using both systems at once. For me it’s “like y’know, confusing?” which is the same as ours, the clock hands go around the face twice per day. The system of time telling is large the same as ours. We state the number of hours and minutes and then tack on AM or PM to clarify what we mean. Pretty simple. Where it gets a little sticky, is that the French can and do use the military system of 0.00 hours to 24:00 hours for every event as well.

From reading the class’ dialogues, it seems that one person is using one system while talking to another person using the other system. If you’ve ridden the trains in Europe, you have to be aware of this military system. But you may not have embedded it into your being. Do you know that your stomach will growl at about 18:00 hours? If so, skip the matinee at 15:00 hours so you have time to make dinner.

I encountered a similar issue in a past job. Selling a liquid industrial product in Canada was not my favorite task. I needed a price chart that offered my product in U.S. gallons, liters, and Imperial (British) gallons because each customer had a preference based on the equipment used with it. To complicate the matters more, customers paid in Canadian dollars or U.S. dollars so that the fluctuating difference in currency had to be calculated upon each sale as well. This was in the early 1980’s, when personal computers were unheard of, and calculators had a very limited memory. There was nothing to do but work out a new chart each visit by hand. Yet, humans are amazingly spry at adapting to multiple simultaneous systems. It’s just a stretch for “newbies.”

I’m glad I vented that. I feel better now. If I could sell to Canadians, I can master the French time conversions!

A tip for when we’re restricted to present tense: it’s easier to make a list of topics in English present tense first. Then write about those topics in present tense French. It saves a lot of rewriting.

Our class tackled past tense this last week, also. I’m relieved, as it’s a challenge for me to think and write in only present tense. Using the passé compose for my French writing assignment this week, I felt I was now expressing myself more freely. And aren’t we all for ecrirér de meilleures? (writing better)

August 14, 2010

After my last entry in July my head began to spin a bit with all the French I’d been trying to stuff into it. All my effort’s been put into French homework. Learning math was an emotional issue for me (I’ve been known to through the math book across a room when I get frustrated.) So it’s no surprise that learning French is also emotional for me.

There are days when I just feel like I can’t absorb one more exception to the rule or a new pronoun’s use. I am so enjoying these classes, but there are definitely up and down moments. I guess opening my mind to accept the information is bound to be humbling. There is no place for the ego to go. So, I turn around to face the challenge time after time. The reward of knowledge is worth it to me.

It’s been frustrating to learn to use the passé composé and futur proch tenses. I haven’t gotten into my head that I’m actually shifting to another tense. My other difficulty has been confusing the “helping-verbs” between these two tenses—and how to form and conjugate them simultaneously. I have to rely on my past experience studying German.

If I use these tenses enough “it will come.” I know that sounds like a sound bite from “Field of Dreams”! * Is flying on faith what learning another language is all about? My French is bound to improve eventually.

I estimate that by the end of my 10 weeks of immersion French I will have watched and mostly enjoyed about 70 French movies with subtitles in English. (Using subtitles is not cheating. I know I wouldn’t watch a film without getting something from the couple of hours invested.) Virtually every night I’ve inserted a DVD into the player and attempted to absorb as much from the French language as I could. Today’s movie was a small break-through. I feel as though I’m hearing and understanding much more French directly (no translation). I’m beginning to hear dialogue that isn’t in the subtitles.

*This quote is from this classic 1989 movie about a mythical game of baseball in an Iowa cornfield, “If we build it he will come” was a pivotal moment in the movie for me.

August 19, 2010

Working with French vocabulary is summoning up a vast store of words in English that I’ve stashed away, often unused for years. I’m finding myself using a much greater variety of words, most of them Latin-based. It’s interesting that, when we talk about daily things, our Anglo-Saxon based words do just fine. When we need to flex our mental muscles to make a fine-tuned statement about our experiences, needs, or desires, our sentences are often composed from Latin/French roots.

This is not to say that French words are in any way “superior.” It’s simply been a quest to expand word choices. I don’t suppose we can have 500,000 words in English by making them all up ourselves. Our avaricious plundering of French words amuses me. (Observe the vocabulary popping out in the previous sentence!)

Definitions for the same word in French and English can be so different. In English, most French words have been given a more specialized role in our speech. Think of “to attend.” In French, it means “to wait.” A French person once told me she’d been arrested many times…what she intended to say was that she’d been stopped by the police many times, not dragged away to jail as we would interpret it.

I know. I might ruminate way too much. But, I’ve been thinking to myself that the French language could use a good infusion of a few more words to reduce confusion. I mean, how many ways can you reuse and recycle l’ le, la, les, de, des, en, and à? (I’m forgetting one or more here but you get the idea.) The trick answer is “way too many.” The French have found them all. (But that’s the Germanic side of my brain.)

When I am struggling to find a way to say something in French, I feel like a swimmer drowning. That is, it’s as though I’m mentally flinging my arms about looking for a verb or a noun to hang on to for salvation. By being forced to make sentences using only a few words, a person really has to be very creative. But amazingly, it can be done. It will feel very good to be able to pull together a sentence in French on the fly.

One element I understand better now is that the French use verbs that seem very direct to us. A specific example is the use of the word “must.” If we used that word as much as the French do, it would seem very stressful. (All we need in America is more stress.) We use expressions such as “I have to—“, “I need to—“, “I want to—“ to tone down the immediacy of a statement or request. These niceties make us seem like we are a gentle, patient people when we really aren’t.

If I told my child “you must pick up your room,” he/she would know you mean business. “Must” is an imperative that demands no dilly-dallying. If I told my employer “I must have a raise,” it wouldn’t be taken quite as well as “I need a raise,” or “I’d like a raise,” or “These are three reasons the company should give me a raise.” In fact, with anyone other than a child, using the word “must” can lead to serious misunderstandings.

A funny thought: Put using all “musts” into a speaker using all present tense! Oh, I have heard it. When beginning English speakers combine “must” with only present tense do they mean that they must do something in the future? Or, it must be done right now? Or, do they just have a lingering desire to do something? I have never doubted the need for a nice range of tenses and selection of verbs. Actually, I don’t believe I’ve ever thought about it before. Another benefit of studying French!

August 22, 2010

I’m anticipating our last week of intensive beginning French today. Ten weeks of class have just whizzed by me with my head almost totally buried in the learning of French. It’s truly amazing what my class members and me have accomplished. Maybe it’s time to tell you a little more about my fellow students.

I’ve already introduced myself in many places throughout my blogging so I’ll skip any description of myself here to avoid redundancies. If you’ve been reading along, you’ve learned a lot about me. I’ll keep writing this blog and more will be revealed as appropriate.

The student I know best in the class is a woman, who has a PhD, works as a professor at a local University, and, for her job, needs to learn French quickly. Her work assignment is taking her to a French speaking country in Africa. She is highly motivated yet is also working full time doing what professors do. Meanwhile, just to make life a bit more complicated, she’s broken her ankle early on in the class. This lady’s struggle to learn a foreign language for the first time has been inspirational to me. So many times in class, I’ve realized she’s climbing a very steep incline and is asserting herself each and every time she’s in class. This student is similar age to me. I identify very closely with her and want her to succeed so badly. When she thinks she hasn’t learned a thing, I remind her to look back at where she began this summer. That usually helps.

The second student is another woman who wants to learn French, primarily for traveling in France on vacation. She’s had some French before and some Spanish so she’s in some ways out front with that background. It hasn’t seemed to affect her learning curve to leave the class a couple of times for a week or so and return to the class. (Of course, she does her homework while away.) In fact, she didn’t start in the same beginning week as me and the first student. This student is the most verbal in class. I’m a fairly shy person in some ways, so it’s easier for me to sit back and allow her and others to answer our instructor’s questions rather than make the effort myself. (I don’t speak or write in whole sentences in English most of the time. Forcing myself to put together whole sentences in French is forcing me to work against my inner voice.)

Our third student joined us in the third week. She’s had a lot of Spanish in her education and so has a struggle leaving Spanish pronunciation behind and learning the very different French accent. Her motivation to learn French is a desire to learn something new, much like me. Like me too, she’s studied another language before and has language-learning skills that take a while to acquire the first time anybody studies any foreign language. She joined the class late and worked hard to catch up on the material. She has succeeded in joining the class and looks forward to learning more after this class, as I do.

I would conclude that if one is motivated to learn a new language, even at a later age, that it’s completely doable. It’s a matter of motivation and persistence. My goal is to be able to converse and write reasonably in fluent French. I’ve found in the past ten weeks that it’s totally possible. I have met many people along the way this summer by attending local francophone events. There are a lot of people enjoying a bilingual francophone existence. And, it’s been made possible through post formal education and travel.

August 26, 2010

Today is the day of our last class of intensive beginning French. Last week I was a little sad about our class ending. But this week it looks like our intermediate intensive class will start September 13 and run on for another ten weeks. It’s a strange thing to be a little addicted to language class. However, it’s my style to jump into a task just like diving into a swimming pool.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve enjoyed a bit of “food therapy” during a few of our mid-morning breaks. I was inspired to bring cherry clafouti one day because our teacher Jamal commented on how good it is. (I’d been making clafouti for years and didn’t know it was a French treat.) Another week, some class discussion prompted our instructor to stop by a new French bakery in town and bring us a few pastries to test. (Verified: the pastries are great.) Jamal, our instructor, had a birthday a week or so ago. We weren’t aware until that day, so the next day one of us brought birthday cake and another brought coffee for a one-day-late birthday party.