I don't think about French all the time.
I do wake up thinking about it, and remembering dreams wherein I spoke in French (and now, just a little bit, understood what I said). I buy dictionaries of French, I read simple stories in French, and I look at articles and videos that are in French and about French. When I see a new one, like these You Tube videos on the language, I perk up. (Though I get just a tad irritated when they translate Prenez-vous les cartes de credit? as May I pay with a credit card? and I think No it's not, it's Do you take credit cards? Picky, I know. ) I find myself wondering if its just as 'right' to say Je ne travaille pas as Je travaille pas (I think, no - the first is better). I have this laptop's language bar enabled so that I can switch the keyboard to the United States-International setting, thus facilitating keying in accent marks like this - é. And when I see that Google Translate has an option to remap the keyboard to the French style, I nod and smile. I don't use it, but that it's there pleases me. Oh, and I have flashcards in the car to glance at while stopped at traffic lights.
But I don't think about French all the time. Really.
Sometimes, I think about violent right wing rhetoric.
And then I dive back into French. It's safer.
4 comments:
LOL. Nice metaphor.
It really is.
I think that after we get back from this trip, I am going to have a whole lot of spare time. I'm also going to have to force myself to continue using the language, so that I don't lose what I've worked so hard to gather.
If you keep watching videos and making the effort you should retain it.
True. Problem is, I won't have the motivation as fiercely as I do now. I tell my wife that what's driving me is the fear of arriving in France and not being able to carry on a conversation for 20,30 minutes. Phrases, sure - I can do that now. Talking at length about how their kids are, what kind of food they're cooking -- that's a higher order of complexity. I asked my wife, during these months, to periodically ask me to say whatever I just said in our normal conversations in French. I know that initially I will not be able to do it. But I hope that with practice, I will.
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