\tSince my French lessons ended a year ago, my French has really gone downhill. I don\u0092t study it at all. Don\u0092t try to learn new vocabulary. Don\u0092t practice conjugating verbs. Don\u0092t bother to look up where in a sentence the pronoun goes when you\u0092re speaking in the past tense, even though it\u0092s something I do actually wonder about. I don\u0092t bother going to the French-English language exchange I\u0092m invited to each week, even though it would be a huge help. I can make dinner reservations, read a menu enough to know what to order (and more importantly, not order), interact at the pharmacy and invite Kaitlyn\u0092s friends over for lunch.<\/p>\n
\tPeople tell me I speak French well. They are lying. I do not speak French well. I understand ok. Enough to generally respond, but not always. When a woman at the grocery store asked me what an item in my cart was, I did understand and could tell her. Except that it was yogurt and that is just one word I cannot pronounce. Basically, I survive. I do better than a tourist who has studied up before travel but not as well as I thought I\u0092d do after living here more than three years. But I rarely speak French. I don\u0092t really say anything to the other parents at school. Kaitlyn\u0092s teacher doesn\u0092t especially want to talk to me because she figures I won\u0092t know what she\u0092s saying. I don\u0092t watch French tv. I didn\u0092t sign up for tennis lessons this year because the French there wasn\u0092t overly helpful (I already know left and right and that seemed to be about the only thing he said other than \u0093hurry up,\u0094 which I also already know.)<\/p>\n
\tThis afternoon I went to an art\/pottery sale. The woman who holds the sale each year is French. She knows some English but she says she\u0092s too overwhelmed during her sale to be able to use it and sticks to French. I can appreciate that. Anyway, I was standing with her and another French woman. The artist was talking and talking in rapid French. When she finally stopped, the other woman turned to me and said \u0093did you follow all that.\u0094 Honestly, I\u0092d stopped even trying not far into the conversation. I got what I needed and let my mind wander. I said \u0093no, not really.\u0094 And the woman said \u0093but you were nodding as if you got it.\u0094 So now apparently I unconsciously nod in agreement even though I really have no idea what I\u0092m nodding to. And since she said that to me, I\u0092ve caught myself doing it. I don\u0092t realize it, but I\u0092m silently saying \u0093oh, yes, you are speaking to me very quickly in French but I\u0092m good, I get it, every word.\u0094 When what the nod is really saying is \u0093well, on my way home I can stop and pick up some milk and still get to the school in time to get Kaitlyn and what should we have for dinner and I need to get the laundry done.\u0094 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since my French lessons ended a year ago, my French has really gone downhill. I don\u0092t study it at all. Don\u0092t try to learn new vocabulary. Don\u0092t practice conjugating verbs. Don\u0092t bother to look up where in a sentence the pronoun goes when you\u0092re speaking in the past tense, even though it\u0092s something I do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kaitlyn-marsue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}