French Lessons

Just got to the end of my second term of pre-GCSE French. It’s going really really well. I’m shite, mind, but I think I’m expecting myself to be an expert right away, which isn’t going to happen. Can’t happen, in fact. There’s a bloke there a bit like my Dad, who has picked it up very quickly, but I think he’s what she calls a false beginner – I think he has O level French. In fact, I don’t think there are that many true beginners in there.

I’m looking forward to having some time off work this Easter so I can really sit down and practice – I have a test next term which everyone passes, but I’d still like to have some personal confidence (and pride) that I’ll do it properly because I actually know my stuff – and if I do it properly I can go on to the GCSE next year without panicking about the jump in difficulty.

I’m loving unlocking this extra bit of the world. I mean, I’ve met the goal I set myself when I joined (I have a theory about travelling that as long as you can count to about three, say please and thankyou, and point at stuff, you’ll be OK) but I want more – I want to be able to go and hire a gîte somewhere vaguely remote and be able to survive for a week without worrying if there will be English speakers in the village.

Finding it very difficult teaching myself to listen – I miss stuff in the recordings she plays that everyone else seems to get. It’s like I don’t even hear it. I think I got into the habit of tuning out if I couldn’t hear (or couldn’t understand) and I’m trying to unlearn that. I’m going to start pestering the hospital about my digital hearing aid, maybe that will help too. Just doing the course is helping me right now, though. I’m finding it easier to tune into the accents of our Indian contractors, which I found very difficult a year ago, and I think that’s down to the French.

Have a habit of thinking in ‘Foreign’ though. So I get mixed up and go “Es tut mir leid, vous pouvez répéter? Or un, deux, trois, quatre, funf, sechs, sieben, huit, neuf, dix. It’s when I get confident and start talking on the fly, rather than thinking about it.

But, yes, I’m really, really enjoying. Which I never expected.