Hey there folks, it’s been just over a month since I last blogged, time is so stretchy that I really can’t decide if that’s a long time or not! This particular blog is more of a language-y centric one – I realised that it’s time to comment on my language skills.
First thing I’ve noticed with my French is that it’s much easier to change between French and English. I remember when I first got here, if I spent heaps of time by myself watching something in English or skyping in English or whatever I found it really difficult to speak French for about 10 minutes after getting out of getting out of my little hidey-hole room.
There’s another interesting thing I’ve noticed about the way language is learned. I find that I just use some phrases so reflexively that I’ve realised that people learn languages through the memorisation of complete phrases. Undoubtedly my French education has helped me so much with knowing what constitutes a grammatically correct sentence but all that knowledge doesn’t always come out fast enough when you’re trying to speak. Hence, writing rather than speaking is always easier!
In French, there are two forms of saying ‘you’ which is the tu/vous form. The former is informal and the later is formal. The language structure changes (e.g., the conjugations) according to the form you use. Because I am not French and I don’t have this inherent social hierarchy conditioned into me, I have a lot of problems with the vous form. When I’m simply forced to speak rapidly, I use the ‘tu’ form most of the time by accident because I’m simply used to speaking to friends. Sucks! I’ve had so many “oh shit” moments just after I’ve used the ‘tu’ form and there’s nothing you can do about it after you’ve said it :(
Overall, I’m also finding that I’m expressing myself :) It’s a good feeling! I don’t always speak perfectly and sometimes I have to explain what I want to say in an incredibly round-about fashion but I get there :) Most of the time as well, people can explain a word that I don’t understand in French. It’s always a good thing when you can receive an explanation for a word you don’t understand in the language that you are learning – means that your vocabulary is decent enough!
Long story short, I don’t know how to define myself in terms of being a French speaker. I definitely speak the language and I’ve had hours upon hours of conversations with friends in the language and for the most part it feels like I can say exactly what I want to say. But on the other hand, I am NO way near being ‘fluent’ as it were. Becoming intimate with a language takes a long time – certainly something very very difficult to achieve in only 6 months.
One other fairly big thing I’ve noted is the Franglais in my head. The French is starting to take over, so I code-switch and have half English/French sentences in my head or I’ll use English words with French constructions. Crazy stuff.
So basically at the moment I’m on a train headed to Paris to start a wicked Eurotrip with my best friend :) I mixed drinks last night so for the first time ever/a very long time I actually have a hangover and it’s blarrrggghhhh so I will blog in more detail later haha
