Chapitre Un (continued again): JE SUIS LA JEUNE FILLE

Grenadine, la chatte

Bonjour again, mes amis!  My real classes at the CUEF (Centre Universitaire des Etudes Francais) don't start until next week, so this week we have only had a French review class before we take the placement test on Friday.  And boy are we reviewing... for 4 hours a day!  But I appreciate it, because speaking french is difficile.  Its one thing in class, where I can usually predict what someone is going to ask me and prepare an answer, but in real life I never know what to expect!  Plus, French people don't like to make anything easy, so they make multiple words have the same past participle, they make different letters have the same sound and the same letters have different sounds, and there are ALWAYS exceptions.  ALWAYS.  If you've ever wondered why french people talk with their hands, let me tell you:  it's because otherwise no one will know what you're talking about; if it was raining or pleasing; if it was going up or if you were lying.  The most experienced french speakers gesture the most because they have years of experience being confused by the french language.

Kiwi, le chat

Needless to say, it's been challenging to speak french, especially with my host family.  However, I have had some successes.  For example, one night at dinner there was strawberry jelly on the table.  One of my host sisters, who is 15 and learning english in school, picked it up and said, "Strawberry?"  I said, "Oui, strawberry jelly", and we proceeded to talk about berries for the next 10 minutes or so.  We made it through raspberries, blueberries and strawberries, but we got a little stuck on cranberries.  The family friend who was eating with us knew the english word cranberry (as did I), but neither of us knew the french word, so we tried to describe them to everyone else.  It was at this point that my success speaking french ended.  However, I feel like I'm improving every day.  On Tuesday, les enfants Von Trapp weren't there, so I played with the pets in the driveway for a while (about an hour and a half... or more?).  The great thing about pets is you can speak any language to them, and they respond!  Grenadine the cat, who was perched in my lap, kindly meowed every time I asked her a question.  And when Kiwi tried to bite me (only playfully; don't worry Mom, I'm not diseased) I was able to use the new vocab word I learned, mordre, to bite.  Last night, two of the kids had friends over for dinner.  One of them had just returned from visiting his sister in Australia, so he had been practicing his english.  When he left, he said, "au revoir" to everyone else, but "see you later" to me.  His french accent was funny, but I'm sure I sound the same way to everybody here.  It just makes me think of the Muzzy commercials, "Je suis la jeune fille!"  But the more I speak, the better I get so I'll just have to keep trying.  Tomorrow I take my placement test... eek!