Thursday, April 28, 2011

Diligence...

As I may have alluded to on my first and only post, diligence is not my strong suit.  This might explain why you haven't heard from me in nearly two weeks.  It isn't the only explanation, however, as amazingly I do have a few other pursuits on the fire to keep my unemployed mind from complete idleness.  One of these pursuits is a valiant attempt to learn French. 

I may have mentioned that I am going to Europe again at the end of June. A good portion of the trip will be spent coasting about the Sud du France (translation: south of France) with a funny, handsome, charming 20-something, English-speaking Frenchman.  Sexy right?  Alas, as is par for the course in my non-existent love life, he is blissfully gay.  Ah well, it will be a blast nonetheless...but I digress...today's monologue is about learning, or shall I say attempting to learn, la langue Francaise.
I have been to France before, travelling alone as I often do. And indeed it was fabulous, but aside from reading the menu (I speak food in most languages), and the ever popular "merde", I regretted not speaking more than 10 words of the language. "Bon Jour/Soir", "Ou est le toilette?" and "Merci Madame / Monsieur" can only get a person so far.  Specifically, to the bathroom.  Which, while helpful, is not the makings for robust Anglo-Franco communications.  So I thought I would make an effort this time to be capable of forming at least a rudimentary sentence or three, and to this end, am completing the first three levels of Rosetta Stone. 

It is a good program, designed to help even the most addled of brains such as mine grasp the basics of a new language.  Unfortunately there is nothing "basic" about French.  Yes, some of the words are similar to English, and vocabulary in the sense of individual word memorization isn't terribly difficult.  That is where the "not terribly difficult" part ends.  The first hurdle is pronounciation, which if you have ever heard anyone speak French needs no further explanation.  There are words I truly cannot say correctly, as my lips, cheeks and tongue are incapable of contorting that way.  I'm sure it's because I wear braces...it must be...right?  Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  It also happens that many of the words I'm learning, even the ones I can successfully utter, have little to no bearing on what I will actually need to say when I'm there.  It is quite unlikely I will encounter a horse in need of a ladder on my travels along the Riviera.

The next challenge is grammar.  Matters of singular and plural are hard enough, de..du...des...les...le...ack!  But there is a concept that exists in French (as well as Italian and Spanish) that is unfamiliar to us native English speakers...the concept of things being masculine vs. feminine.  We're not talking about obvious things such as people or animals, where one can simply turn them upside down and...voila...it's a boy!  No my friends, we're talking about inanimate objects.  For example, a table is a girl (la table) but a bike is a boy (le velo), a car is a girl, a bag is a boy.  I'm sure there is some rhyme or reason.  No, that's a lie. I'm quite convinced there is no rhyme or reason at all to what makes an object masculine or feminine, other than the whims of a roomful of Bordeaux-pickled, cheese-filled, evil mustache-twirling Frenchies who invented the language ages ago.  Since I can see no rule to follow, it must simply be a matter of memorizing what item is which gender.  And to a 41 year old brain which did most of it's developing in the 70s and 80s, raw memorization can be something of an...ahem...challenge.

I have 8 weeks left to complete two of the three levels I endeavored to finish before take-off.  I'm sure there will be more of a story to tell before I'm through.  In the meatime, along these lines, I leave you with a video from comic genius Eddie Izzard.

A bientot...

No comments:

Post a Comment