Bonjour! Je m'appelle...

I thought I should focus a post about this new language I have encountered, French. Right, we're not friends, but I have a feeling we're going to grow on each other until I can't stop speaking French and it can't stop having me speak French. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Before I started French classes, my vocabulary could be counted by my fingers... on one hand. Even though 9 of us never taken French, the program still wanted us to take a placement exam. Mel (someone who actually lives a few streets away from me in NY, and yet we just met each in Geneva) said it best: "I now know what it's like to be illiterate." There was an oral part to this exam which consisted of a student in a room by themselves with all 3 instructors including Earl. Terrifying.

This language barrier is more prominent in my everyday life in Geneva. I can not speak to a someone in the street, a phone salesmen at Sunrise or the cashier at Migros, but also I can not speak to my host dad and the two daughters. (The 3 year old must think I'm mute because I don't know how to respond to her except with a smile.) As you can see I found it a bit hard to not being able to talk to people.

Classes started and just pronunciation gets me. The "e" sounds like a grunt and the "i" sounds like "e". "R" is sounds like air and "x" sounds EECCs quad at Wheaton. Also, apparently you don't need all the letters in a word to pronounce it. Yea, it must be there for decoration or to give the appearance of importance. Furthermore, I have taken Spanish in school since 6th grade till the end of my first year at Wheaton. I have the urge to answer speak in this familiar language, and even say "Como que dice?". I actually started talking to a phone salesmen in Spanish.

Now, after 3 classes with Gisele, my French now exceeds the number of fingers AND toes. I can proper greet someone, tell them my name, spell it out for them, count too 9999, and where I live. Les Debuates (sorry for the spelling) debuted to all the other French classes our biggest hit "Au clair de la lune". I have learned phrases such as "Je habit Morges" "Je suis fatigue" "Il aime rose". My host dad and I are starting to understand each other ( a lot of hand movements and assistance from my host mom are used). It now is starting to look doable.