Yesterday I attended the first class; Adult - French for Beginners. It felt good to go back to the classroom, getting a brand new set of text and exercise books. I like the smell of new books, and it has been a while since I got myself any. The books came in a tote bag, which also contained a note book, a pen and some brochures. I like freebie welcome packs. Although it was a relatively small class, probably not more than 20 of us, it was quite diverse - locals, American, Philippino, Thai, Chinese, Malaysian, students, finance/banking, pastry chef, secretary, medical technician, engineer, pre-school teacher etc. Everyone was slightly awkward being around people they don't know, but they all seemed ready to dive in. It felt like the first day in Uni except there are no exams involved here, which is a nice.
After we took turns to introduce ourselves in francais, the teacher started the lesson by getting us to read some phrases out loud in whichever way we thought the pronounciation goes. We had to read it out loud, before he would tell us how to pronounce it correctly and what the phrases meant. And that was how the rest of the class went. We give something, before he gave something back. The approach built up our confidence to just give it a try. After about half an hour it became instinctive for us to read out everything in our broken French. With French, you can't just work it out in your head how you are going to make a particular sound, you have to train your mouth, tongue, throat and nose how to get their act together.
After we took turns to introduce ourselves in francais, the teacher started the lesson by getting us to read some phrases out loud in whichever way we thought the pronounciation goes. We had to read it out loud, before he would tell us how to pronounce it correctly and what the phrases meant. And that was how the rest of the class went. We give something, before he gave something back. The approach built up our confidence to just give it a try. After about half an hour it became instinctive for us to read out everything in our broken French. With French, you can't just work it out in your head how you are going to make a particular sound, you have to train your mouth, tongue, throat and nose how to get their act together.
I am still not particularly sure why I decided to learn French. I did feel slightly annoyed that when I was reading up or googling places of interest in France, I would face challenges pronouncing the names, much less remember them. I would be good to know where you want to go. I know that I didn't want to do anything career related. My recent change in role at work is already giving me the opportunity to learn quite a few things, and on-the-job training is my preferred mode of development.
It seemed fun to learn for fun sake, although there were points in the class where I wondered whether it would be much fun to have to remember the male and female equivalent of each word. Perhaps my brain was looking for a challenging exercise, something which the French pronounciation certainly offers. They say that the letters at the end of a French word are often silent, but not really. It is more like you have to pronounce it half-way. Take for example the word 'non', you have to picture that there is half an 'n' at the back of the word. Or the delightfully bubbly word 'champagne', you have to picture that there is half an 'e' at the end of the word. It is a two-syllable word that can sound like a three-syllable word.
Maybe it is just the idea that I can take my time to learn something completely new and see where it takes me. Perhaps to a complicated sounding village in a part of France unknown to me.
It seemed fun to learn for fun sake, although there were points in the class where I wondered whether it would be much fun to have to remember the male and female equivalent of each word. Perhaps my brain was looking for a challenging exercise, something which the French pronounciation certainly offers. They say that the letters at the end of a French word are often silent, but not really. It is more like you have to pronounce it half-way. Take for example the word 'non', you have to picture that there is half an 'n' at the back of the word. Or the delightfully bubbly word 'champagne', you have to picture that there is half an 'e' at the end of the word. It is a two-syllable word that can sound like a three-syllable word.
Maybe it is just the idea that I can take my time to learn something completely new and see where it takes me. Perhaps to a complicated sounding village in a part of France unknown to me.
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