Tuesday, July 1, 2008

My French Class Rocks the Maison!!

I am sooooo excited about my French class! The professor let me stay, so no worries, but I am one of the lowest students in the class. She pointed out that myself and a guy that are in the class are a little behind but told us to get some specific books to help us. She was great, I really like her. I have no clue what she is saying sometimes, but most of the time I get the general idea.

I also love that I can actually understand some of the things about the language. Like past tense and future tense. I can't remember a damn thing, but I took notes and now I can logically see how things work. Now to just memorize all the verbs and vocabulary and no problem.

The class itself was pretty fun. Grammer and working with the professor in the morning and some kind of conversation thing in the afternoon. Today we had a fun group exercise. There are 10 of us in the class from 8 different countries; 2 from Spain, 2 from Korea, 1 from Japan, 1 from Russia, 1 from Poland, 1 from Jordan, 1 from Mexico and then lil old me from the USofA. She gave us a camera and sent the group out to take photos of things that we see in France that are different than we have in our home countries. Once we took the picture we had a sheet where we had to write a title of the picture and then describe what was different. One of the Spanish girls took a picture of dog poop on the sidewalk and was going to talk about how there is so much dog poop here. She is so right. I think that is why people don't look you in the eye when they walk, it's not that they are unfriendly, they just don't want to step in poop. I needed something I could actually write about so I couldn't really afford to get creative. I decided to take a picture of one of the small cars, I know that word; voiture. My description (translated into English) went something like this;
In France they have very small cars. In the United States we have large cars. I like the small cars because they don't pollute.

Brilliant eh? So verbose, and my use of adjectives is just riveting non? And yes, I know our cars are getting smaller, but I had to work with the words I knew. Watch out, I'm on my way to speaking and writing in French. I have to go take a nap now because I am completely exhausted.

8 comments:

BlondeInFrance said...

"I think that is why people don't look you in the eye when they walk, it's not that they are unfriendly, they just don't want to step in poop."

It all makes so much more sense now!! Also, I look down because of all the cobblestone streets. It's a twisted ankle just waiting to happen!

Anonymous said...

Andromeda- I hear you on the twisted ankle deal! Those cobblestones near the cathedrale are intense! Super fun to drive over though...

Sounds like you're going well! I'm right now living vicariously through you...

Unknown said...

Great to know you are in the class. I was waaay more advanced than my entire class because I don't spell well. It bored me to death but I noticed finally after 2 or so months, many of the low students were understanding me...

I re-memorized what I had forgotten by writing down the verbs and tenses. This was also a homework assignment which I did entirely every time. It worked very well for me!

Justin said...

Susan I am so glad to hear you did make it in to the class. That is awesome. You will probably progress so quickly since you are with some more advanced people... I know I would rather be in a more advanced class than in a slower passed one where I got bored. You will be speaking and writing perfectly in no time!

Anonymous said...

Wow!!! Glad to hear you made the grade. Hopefully you will start moving to the head of the pack.

Shari

Ksam said...

I was the same - I started out in a class that was too advanced for me, but it just motivated me work extra hard outside of class to catch up with everyone else, and I ended up learning French a lot faster than i probably would have otherwise!

Susan in Lille said...

Andromeda - You are so right! I see French women in high heals walking on the same streets I need flats and a cane for...how do they do that?

Le Tigre - I hope you find your class soon!

Expat - Thanks for the kind words, I was really surprised they told the two hight level girls they would waste time, but now I see they were sooo right

Justin - Yeah, I think you are right, I should be glad to be the low one because maybe I can catch up.

Shari - thanks!

Samantha - You know...I think that is exactly how I am going to approach it. Hope it works for me too!

islandgirl4ever2 said...

Great that you get to stay!! I am sure you will pick it up because you are motivated!! That really helps, esp. since you like the class and the prof.. Bonne chance et bon courage!! Take care! Leesa