My French Adventures: Odds and Sods

Believe it or not, my second week of school is over. I think I can speak a little better than I did two weeks ago, but I still have a long way to go. My comprehension has improved, but I spend a lot of time translating words to English in my head so it takes more time to process. Formulating complete sentences is also difficult and my accent leaves much to be desired. That said, my prof told me I was doing well considering this is only my second week.

I asked her for recommendations of books that I could buy to practice at home. There is a huge librairie (the French word for bookstore as opposed to bibliothéque which is the French word for library) near the Place de la Comédie. Somehow, I was able to find the Grammaire Progressive du Français débutant and intermédiaire editions. These books are loaded with grammar lessons and exercises. Needless to say, I had to buy the guides with all the answers to be sure that I am doing the exercises correctly. My hope is that my classes at school, conversations with Patricia and others in French, the additional homework and reading children's literature will assist my language learning. As time passes, I may try to go on more school excursions, take in a film and explore other options to acquire French. On a side note, I did take in a school excursion this week - a wine tasting event - Le Vin: Initiation a la Dégustation. Although I understood little of what the prof said, I do know a little bit about wine. Out of the four we tried, I really enjoyed the Pic Saint Loup rouge called Benezech. We have had a few bottles of other wines from this region and they have been pretty decent.

Today, a group of us went out for a nice lunch to celebrate Gemma's last day at school. She goes back to Spain tomorrow. I will miss her company. Martina (on Gemma's right) is here next week and our new friend Enio (on Gemma's left) from Chicago will be here for a month. What is so interesting about these people is that they can all speak at least 3 to 5 languages and easily move from one language to another. Between the 3 of them, they speak Italian, Portugese, Spanish, English, Catalan and French. I am in awe most of the time. Here they are at an outdoor cafe - note the empty wine glasses.

I learned something this week that I found rather interesting. In class, we were talking about the different rules and expectations of people in France and Montpellier specifically. Then the prof opened up the discussion for people to talk about rules in their respective countries. Max, from Sweden, said that people there are expected to pick up after their dog i.e. "poop and scoop". In French the phrase is " ramasser les crottes de chiens." This is not a rule in Montpellier. According to our prof, it is a superstition in France that if you step in dog's excretement with your left foot, you will have bonheur or good luck. I was telling Gemma this over lunch and a gentleman beside us who speaks English overheard the conversation and said that this is not true. He said it was just an excuse because the people in Montpellier think that their taxes pay for the street cleaners to clean up after the dogs. Indeed there is a lot of dog excretement around and the cleaners are out early every morning washing the streets.

I will end this blog with a couple of miscellaneous pictures of things/people mentioned in previous blogs.

This is one of the colourful trams - Ligne 3 which I take to and from school.