Pinpoints

Learning French- day 1 September 9, 2008

Yesterday evening I had (finally) my first French lesson. The reception was crowded with people from all over the world all wanting to learn a foreign language.  The walls were full of information in different languages and teachers were struggling to bring the materials to their students. Coming back to that building brought lots of memories not only because I took some Dutch lessons in the past but also because I used to have some classes in the same building during my college years. I felt somehow old despite the fact that I did not finish my college too long ago.

I was there in time but like always there were people coming late. I do not particularly like this type of distractions but it is normal to happen because most of the students who take these classes are working in the day and trying to learn a new language in the evening.

The professor is Belgian from the Flemish speaking region. I have to admit that I do not like this too much because she does not have that strong French accent which I would like to acquire. I am struggling to get that beautiful French “r” and I hoped that she would have it. Anyway she seems a nice person and passionate about her work. At least that’s what she says.

We are 29 people in the class (!!!) and I am curious about how she will manage to have all of us speaking. I know for a fact that I speak for 4 students at the same time.

During the first class we bought le livre and the syllabus .After that we had to introduce ourselves. I have to admit that I was quite nervous at the beginning because I did not speak French for some time and I did not want to look & sound stupid. When I came into the class some people were speaking good French and I was wondering if I am in the right level. However, as the lesson progressed I was happy to see that my worries were not as strong founded as I thought. My French is ok but my pronunciation is so anglicized that it makes me laugh. Also, I am happy to say that I know the name of all 28 people in the class!

Everybody there speaks French and most of the people speak their own language and now French. Most of them speak no English. So that’s a good thing because I will be forced to speak only French. However, I have some Flemish speaking people in the class and a few times I switched from French to Dutch. So again I will be improving my Dutch as well.

One of the questions that we all had to answer was the reason for taking French. I was unpleasantly surprised that most people answered that they want to learn French parce qu’il faut le faire. How is that possible? Learning /studying a foreign language is the most beautiful thing and should be done because one enjoys it and not because he/she is forced… how can one put all the efforts in learning a new language when the pleasure is not there?

Anyway, it was a nice beginning, no devoirs but I had a quick look in the book and I started doing some of the exercises. By doing that I will have already some questions to ask the professor when we will do the exercises together in the class. The biggest worry will be me getting bored with things moving too slowly.