Friday, March 16, 2012

On Learning French

Oh man…if I had a quarter for every idea for a blog that I have, I would have like four dollars….speaking of dollars, they are currently stronger than euros!
No but really, whenever I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep, I craft a masterpiece of post, and then in the morning it is gone. I try to blog about things that I don’t talk about in my newsletters so you don’t have to hear the same stuff twice, so my blogs tend to be more philosophical in content, I am discovering.
 But not this one…I thought I would just share some random pieces of information with you re: Learning French.
Lets start with a conversation I had with a patient Leclerc (think smaller Walmart) worker when trying to find the print-picture machine.
Me: Hi, is there a machine where I can borrow my pictures here?
Worker: you mean print your photos?
Me: Borrow.
Worker: Print?
Me: Borrow?
Worker: Print.
Me: yeah, maybe print….
Worker- yes, right over here.
Just so you know- emprunter-borrow: emprimer- print

Smiling and nodding when I don’t completely understand is both useful and dangerous when conversing in French. I just have to make sure the topic of conversation isn’t crucial, and its ok that I only understand the gist of the sentences.
Another thing, lately in conversation I find myself saying “wow yes” a lot, except in French that’s “wow oui” which is “woweee” to my English ears…..and then I feel lame, lol.
My church here has provided me with lots of language learning practice, between sermons and conversations and home group. The home group leader thought I was holding back a bunch of deep thoughts during our conversation- I told him no, in fact I am just trying to stay above water and keep track of the flow of conversation! And if I did have any thoughts, I am not capable of expressing them sufficiently yet. So I am a fairly quiet attendee right now:)
 Overall, it is going well, thanks for reading and praying!