Back in School

This week I started French classes at a school not far from my apartment. I'm in class for three hours a day - and I'm happy to say, I'm not the worst student in class!!! Ok, maybe that's not nice. French is not an easy language - already we are dealing with the following tenses - past, present, passe compose, reflexive verbs, infinitives and then add negatives to the tenses. Grammar is a big deal in French. In fact, people have long discussions about it and there's an academy of really old people (people whose average age is close to 80) whose job it is to guard the vocabulary of the language and the grammar of how things are to be said.

The classes are small, about 5-8 people in a class, and I'm in an intensive course - so I have 3 hours rather than 1.5 a day. It is rather exhausting I have to admit. Imagine having to pay attention to every work being spoken for three hours because you are in your mind translating from one language to another. Yesterday we covered things like the names of members in the family - so for example - sister in law is belle soeur or beautiful sister - nice, huh! However the French do not have a word for stepmother or stepfather, so they use the same word that you would for mother in law or father in law - which is - les beaux parents, la belle mere and le beau pere - as one of my friends remarked - how do you tell the story of a wicked stepmother if you use the works belle mere (beautiful mother as a straight translation) to describe her? I guess Cinderella and Snow White had wicked beautiful stepmothers.

I have also learned that while there are many words you can franglatize (that's my word) or make and english word sound french and end up ok - you have to be careful. There are many "false friends" - so, you should never use the word preservatif for preservatives, because preservatif is the word for condom and conservateur is the word for preservative. Things could get quite confusing if you get these things wrong.

Now, I studied french for five or six years - in high school and in college - so even though it has been a REALLY long time since I studied and used the language - I thought for sure it would come back to me after a little while, the way my Gujurati does when I'm in India. That is not the case. Perhaps it has been a little TOO long. I find that my reading comprehension is good and I recognize vocabulary and I can piece meanings together. I find that my speaking ability is like that of a grade schooler - I know words but piecing them together and getting the right tense for the verb - oh and then getting the right subjective form for the objects (because every object must be male or female so it both sounds and looks different - as if the language weren't hard enough!) - is difficult. But the worst, is my listening comprehension - the French speak quickly, slur their words together, and as one of my teachers said today - you never say the last letter of a word. Of course, why would anyone pronounce the last letter of a word? C'est difficile n'est ce pas!

Despite all of this, and while I have certainly lessened my expectations for myself, I am determined to just get better and maybe be able to hold a conversation or two (without constantly asking how to say a word or asking the other person to repeat what they have said) before I leave. Here's hoping.