AnAmericanDogInParis

The Adventures of a 12 pound Shetland Sheepdog (Sheltie) going to Paris.

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Tom & Maxine like to travel. Blogging helps us create a record of the trips, and share with friends and family...

Monday, August 14, 2006

Speak French

I've had 7 years of French language classes between 6th grade and college. Maxine has had 5 years. But, based on prior experience we knew that while we could say hi and ask for coffee, we couldn't really have a conversation in French, nor could we deal with anything complicated.

In January we began a prolonged effort to improve our French skills. This took three forms:
1. We borrowed a full series of language CD's from the City of Los Angeles Library (there are 56 CD's in the set and we're both at roughly CD 30 right now -- we'll be cramming to finish before we leave LA).
2. We've been listening to daily broadcasts from RFI (Radio France International). I don't know for certain, but I suspect that their mandate is somewhere between Voice of America (but in this case the goal being spread the French perspective in French) and CNN. One of their broadcasts, which runs 3 times/day is 'francais facile' (easy french). This is a news broadcast which is updated over the course of the day. Even more useful, the first broadcast of the day comes with 'le script' -- meaning you can follow along (pretending to read french now too!)
http://www.rfi.fr/radiofr/statiques/journauxFrancaisFacile.asp
3. We're working with a native French speaker as a tutor. Basically, what we do is to meet with him once/week for an hour and try to keep the entire conversation in French. He helps us in many ways, from pronounciation, to disciplining our sentence construction, to idioms.

All in all, we hope when we arrive to be able to converse at least a little bit.

Beside, we have to be able to warn people off when they try to pet Cassie! How do you say, "She doesn't like people"?

1 Comments:

Blogger Riana Lagarde said...

"Elle n'aime pas les gens" (like you are saying ledgend, but no D at the end)

Congrats on your French, you are a way ahead of the game! I only had two years of high school french- canadian and was completely lost in French when I arrived 3 years ago. You will find some conversation classes in Paris or some other classes to help you along. Stop by at the Mairie and get a schedule (they are the cheapest classes that you will find). Bon Voyoage!

9:19 AM  

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