Last week I sat my first French exam. I really struggled with conjugating some of the verbs (I forgot that connaître “to know” conjugates to nous connaissons “we know”), and it is still hard for me to remember that often something special is required if the next word begins with a vowel. Still, I have learned a lot in the past few months, and I have really enjoyed my classes. The lessons themselves are mostly spoken role-playing, while the homework involves memorisation of vocabulary. I have a great teacher, and I really enjoy the company of the other students. It is a very fun environment, full of laughter whenever I tell them I am wearing a hen “Je porte une poule” instead of pullover “Je porte un pull“, or I try to pronounce the word like happy (“heureux“) that doesn’t contain any phonemes found in the English language.
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You know Lydia, when I look at how fast you’re going, I’m quite impressed.
I’m a native Dutch speaker, so French (obligatory, in Belgian schools way back then) was probably just as hard for me.
However, in those days the present day approach with lots of role-playing was not yet widely used, so I just focused on grammar and vocabulary, only to notice that six (6) years later I still lacked a lot of confidence when engaging in conversation.
Anyway, I’m glad to read there’s a lot of laughter in a class that seems able to balance fun and hard work!
C’est trop mignon!! I love it when English native speakers speak French. The accent is very sweet and can only be beaten by French speaking German. For the conjugation, it’s best to learn the tenses by heart; that’s what I did in France. It’s boring but very effective.
Bonne chance pour la suite!