I met my tutor for breakfast, we had a quick conversation in french to get me ready, and off I went.
This was my third attempt. When we all did the first attempt, we went in cocky. We had heard there was an examiner named Jacques, “Jacques le Couteau” was his nickname, and we all wanted Jacques.… Read the rest
I had been back at Asticou about five weeks when I realized that the passive receiver of language learning was not working for me, and I spent a weekend thinking about some of the challenges I had gone through in the previous year. I kept coming back to the tutor’s analysis — I wasn’t letting go.… Read the rest
Even though all of us said that we weren’t ready (My experiences learning French – Part 1), the school sent us for the oral test.
And all of us except one failed. The one who passed? The weakest one among us. Partly as her “stories” for telling what she did for a living were pretty simple in comparisons — she was a clerk who did very basic admin work.… Read the rest
I am a not a linguist by anyone’s definition. I’m not very eloquent in speaking English, let alone any other language. I can write pretty well in English, and I edit even better, but other languages were never my strength. I grew up in Peterborough, which was not exactly the hub of linguistic diversity.… Read the rest
