I went to the French-English exchange group this morning. It was the first time in months that I’ve made it. I was hoping that over the course of those 4-or-so months my French would be much improved, and carrying on a conversation would be easier. Or at least easier. Not so much.
The house where the group met today was the same house where I went to my first exchange. But this time was different… and definitely not because my confidence was any higher. It immediately became clear to me that the dynamics of the group had changed. Advantage: French.
After standing around drinking coffee and doing some general chatting, the actual exchange gets underway. For that, we broke into smaller groups to help make sure everyone gets a chance to do some talking. When we did, there were two French for every English speaker. That was intimidating, to say the least.
My little group started with French. Unfortunately, three non-chatters ended up in the same group. (What are non-chatty people doing at such an event in the first place? Good question) Basically, there were a lot of long, awkward pauses and silences. The group at the dining room table seemed to be having much more fun, so we just listened to them a lot.
The exchange also pushed my day and my French close to its limit. The exchange was in the morning then in the afternoon I had my pool plan French lesson… 90 more minutes of French.
All this parler-ing in francais had better start paying off pretty soon.