French Lessons

During our stay this year, I decided to spend some time in the classroom working on my French. Each morning I spend an hour and a half with a a teacher and a group of three. The groups have changed some over the time I've been here. The cuurent teacher, Arnaud is young, patient and a force to be reckoned with--she does NOT like to hear an English word being spoken. At first, I felt I was making steady progress. It's now the end of my fourth week, and I feel I've 'hit the wall' so to speak. Nothing that comes out of my mouth seems correct; I mix up my verbs and pronouns, and have a thing about using 'sur' when I should be using 'dans'! It's enough to make me want to 'jette mes papiers dans la rue'! One of the daily exercises is to listen to a tape and report on what was said, I'm hopeless!--I hear a completely different story then anyone else. And Paul tells me that this is how I am in English--can you believe he said that???? The other students, currently a young 23 year old from London and an equally young person from Hong Kong are, I seem to be doing better then me. I try not to be too hard on myself; they are both taking two classes a day; and Vickie is living with a French family. BUT! Je ne parle pas bien! Or at least not as 'bien' as I would like. The group teases me about my "Franglais". When I can't think of the word in French, I substitute English! It's always worked for me when speaking German to my mother! I've got one more week and then it will be time to 'retourne aux l'Etats-Unis'. I'm hoping not lose what I've learned before we return next year, so let me know if you speak French and would like to 'parler'.

A bientot,

Christina