French

[mothwing]

Vois sur ton chemin
Gamins oubliés égarés
Donne leur la main
Pour les mener
Vers d'autres lendemains...

It is really frightening how fast I have forgotten this language, how alien the sounds already feel to my tongue and how utterly unable I am to understand it.

I took French for four years at school, and now I only understand tiny bits of what used to be so open to me. I don't even understand the homework I found a while ago, and it was my own. In French. And I have no idea what it may mean. I vaguely remember things about nature issues I may have described ( "...je suis un ami de la nature."). All tenses escaped my head, it seems, and same goes for most words, and after not having picked up a French book for about five years I am not even able to read the lyrics of the songs from "Les Choristes" without resorting to dict.leo.org every second word now. It is depressing.

It is odd how much the soundtrack is connected to Crocky for me, it may be because we have seen the film together and because one of her teachers virtually is Monsieur Mathieu. It was in German, sadly, but I am definitely going to watch it in French one day. Well, I will not understand a lot, but it cannot be that I really remember nothing. I cannot form one grammatically correct sentence in French.

Well... yes, I can. "Je suis Moth, et toi, qui est tu?" or "Où est la toilette pour femmes?" - but that's basically it - and there are probably mistakes in those sentences as well. J'en ai ras le bol, that's higher education for you - a few years out of school and my French is rudimentary, my English tenses are going to pieces and my Latin is even less existent. Sigh.

The worst of the three is probably Latin, because need Latin skills for my degree. Well, not actually, but I have to present that at some point I had reached a certain level of proficiency. That means that I will have to take the course I need to reach the level I need for my degree and that means that when I am in Glasgow I will have to repeat every bit of Latin I learnt and then forgot again.

But seeing as Crocky has similar plans, it will most probably be fun, learning things together.

Comments

[luckyoldsun.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a man who is terrible with all languages, besides his native tongue... you seem to be pretty darn proficient to me and, no doubt, will regain what you've lost with a little time and effort. In the mean time, I will remain, as always, green with envy when it comes to all things "Moth."

:o]

I hope you're well... and (w/ reference to the previous entry) that your computer troubles are soon resolved. My dad similarly enjoys levying blame upon me for computer/technological problems when they are at all associated with me or my presence.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

You make me blush - apart from the company of Crocky, what is there to be envious about? And if our Linguists are right and a language is a systematic means of communicating by the use of conventional symbols and sounds, then you "speak" at least music. :)

I am not too sure about French, but I am absolutely sure that I'll learn Latin again with a lot of hard work, but French is optional. But then, someone has threatened me with going to France should I ever get on her nerves, hence it might be better to learn that as well ("Où est ma crocodile farvorite? Elle s'est enfuit ma maison!").

Yours as well?
Ah, Dads can be quite stubborn when it comes to computers. I hope yours can see reason. Or seeing that they can, in fact, malfunction on their own accord as in my case.

Ah, I still remember the good old days...
Me: "Dad, my computer crashed, and after that it-"
He: "What? Windows 98 cannot crash."
Me: "Don't know about that, but it did, and after that-"
He: "My computer has never crashed and I use Windows 98 as well. What did you do to it?"
Me: "I switched it on after installing that game and..."
He: "Ah. [rant mode ON] A game. Typical. You know that most of these games are bad for the computer and... [evil incarnate and generally not to be associated with my household], don't you?[/r]"
Me: "Yes, but..."

All this is different nowadays, of course. So much has changed.
Me: "Dad, my computer won't start up, it says it cannot find some file..."
He: "What? What did you do to it? That never happens with XP!"

:)

[mariebernadette.livejournal.com]

I'm in awe of people who can pick up languages so quickly. I, too, am only proficient (and sometimes, not even that) with my native language, lazy slacker English. I wish I could add tagalog or some cantonese, but only when I'm getting yelled at to move from the computer or the couch.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Oooh, envy. Cantonese sounds brilliant and Tagalog does, too. Sigh. I wish I had a linguistically more interesting family. They do not even speak different frigging dialects, because my parents have both moved from the Ruhr Basin to Hamburg when they were teenagers and have been staying here ever since.

Quickly? Me? I've had French at school for four years and I have been learning English for... 12 years now. Gosh. That's not exactly what I'd call quick. :D