Just Thinking…

It’s just before seven PM on Saturday.  We had what I’d call the perfect snowfall today – about two inches; enough so that my daughter could go sledding with a friend (“Except for the parents with their kids”, she reported back, “we were the oldest ones there!”), but not so much that it was difficult to shovel the driveway.  I was texting with a friend who lives in Paris; when I mentioned the snow, she said send me a picture!  This is what I sent:
 

I’ve been thinking a lot about French, lately.  The occasion is that we’re probably going to France this summer – I was casually invited to attend the wedding of a friend (we were talking, and she said Have you ever been to a Jewish wedding?  You should totally come. And when I pointed out that I might be the only English speaker there, she scoffed. Your French is good enough to get by, she said, and anyway there are people who speak English, too. I told her that I want them to wear name badges.) – and as part of that we’re going to go down to Burgundy to visit with our friends.  These are the people who were supposed to come here last summer, and didn’t; as they have two children, and have recently rented an apartment to be closer to one child’s school and the husband’s job, we’re thinking that if we don’t go to see them, it might be a long time till we see them at all.  While we are there, we’re also going to go down to Lyon to see another language correspondent (though, as it happens, he is planning to come here in the spring, a birthday gift for his wife), as well as possibly down to Toulouse to meet two others, and possibly one more in Paris.

So, with all of that, I’m thinking that I really should get better at understanding French when it is spoken at a normal speed.  Not the speed that they use on the radio, or television – even the people I talk to say that those folks talk way too fast – but just routine conversation.  I don’t want to have to keep saying Excuse me? Could you say that again, slowly?  I mean, what’s the use of speaking the language if you have to do that?  The problem is, learning the language is primarily rote memorization, and I’ve done a fair amount of that.  Not tons, by any means, but enough so that I can talk about things, even if, sometimes, that’s literally what I’m talking about – I took the thing to the store.  But hearing and understanding the language at a rapid pace is more than just memorization.  It’s almost as if you have to just absorb it.  You can’t – or, at least, I can’t – listen for words and respond to them.  You have to just get it – and right now, for much of it, I don’t.

How I’m going to accomplish this feat of linguistic legerdemain, I’ve no idea.  But I'm thinking that exposure to the language - just hearing it spoken, over and over and over - is part of it.  I want to think that knowing what the words are -- not just knowing vocabulary, but actually knowing what the speaker is saying - is part of it, too,  but I'm beginning to suspect that it's not as big a part as I previously thought.