Apr 19 2005
French. Ack.
In a rash of productivity, Bonnie and I decided to enroll in a
continuing education short course here at Duke for French, specifically
French 1. The first class was yesterday, and I still feel the
urge to drink. Or say je m’appelle or however it is spelled.
The teacher (if that is the proper word) is indescribable. The
first sign was when we started conjugating a verb that was for next
week, but we hadn’t yet talked about how to pronounce words in
French. This was preceded by a stern lecture about how one must
never forget masculine and feminine words and succeeded by a lecture
about how Americans are so rude.
I was also asked suddenly what color my car was, though I own no car,
and could not tell him I didn’t own a car cuz we learned how to say "I
have" but not "I don’t have." Then again, we didn’t even cover
colors in French, at which point I got scolded for not being able to
say "I have a yellow bicycle." I don’t even know how to say bicycle.
So, things went on like this for a while, culminating in watching a
movie for a high school French class in the eighties. Given that
I was the youngest one there, and the oldest was in her 60s (I’d say)
it was a bit inapplicable. ("Here are all the colonies that are
still a part of France!" (five small islands are highlighted. Do
these places even still belong to France, 25 yrs after the production
of the video?))
The class culminated in him announcing that we would learn future tense
in French III if we took it and our homework was to be able to recite
our address in French next week. Not that we learned any numbers
this week…except nine, for some reason (neuf if I could read it right
on the board).
I may have to take up drinking in class. He said it was ok.
