French lesson
There’s no doubt we are keeping ourselves busy with work on the house, what we are also doing is learning French. We try (and this is not easy to achieve now we are in confinement) to practice when we are going about our day-to-day life in addition to doing our homework at some point during the week, which can vary from spending a whole morning looking at a rule and practicing it, to spending an hour listening to a chapter in readiness for our next lesson. And today, as it’s Wednesday, we have our french lesson with Clare from ‘figure out french’. We have a 60 minute lesson once a week via Zoom. This gives us time for some conversational French before we dive into our lesson proper and tackle the grammar. One of the challenges we both have is our knowledge around true English grammar, neither of us could be described as exponents of the Queen’s English. So at times we feel we’re learning English and French.
What I love about our lessons is how Brian throws himself into pulling huge long sentences together. I’m probably what I would consider a little more reserved on the volume of words I use. Either way, being here and trying to use our newly learnt skill everyday, and improve our vocabulary, is great fun, and it’s so good to have positive interactions with the people in our village. Clare always tries to bring some fun into the lessons too.
Our homework from last week was particularly difficult for both of us. We were learning the difference between plus (ploo) and plus (ploos) and whether the locals have dropped the negative indicator from ‘ne (verb) plus’ and it becomes just plus, which can only be understood by whether you hear the s or not! A tricky but oh so subtle variation that can be the difference between saying you have enough time or do not have enough time. Our 50 something brains definitely need ‘plus time’ for the subtleties to sink in. I’m sure if we give it a few weeks/months it will be natural, just right now though it’s ‘très difficile’.
Our tutor Clare Jones has also written a couple of books, which are good fun. Over the years she has been enjoying speaking the language, she has learnt, and gathered together, lots of French idioms, just like we have in English, such as ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’. She provides not only the literal translation, but also the context of the saying and some background on how it came about. Such as ‘c’est du jus de chaussette’ - it’s like dishwater, literally ‘it is sock juice’. According to the Revue Lorraine Populaire, if nothing else better was available then they would use socks to filter coffee.
If you find French sayings interesting you can buy the books on Amazon here where Clare’s passion for the language shines through.