Le premier jour tout en français.

Dear Friends,

Today was the first day that we had to speak only in French for the entire day.  As Jane said after the end of the day, "We learned that tour meager ability to speak French is eclipsed only by our paucity of words, grammar and correct sounds."

We are in the same class which we both agreed was works very well for us.  However, we both felt that we were misplaced into a class too high.  We are Intermediate 4.  Some of the people in our class speak very quickly which intimidated us, but throughout the day, it became clearer that being able to speak quickly did not mean you were speaking correctly.

Our class reflects the demographics of the entire class.  We have two young men who have just finished college, a couple of young women who have been out of college and working for several years, a man from Sweden who refused to say what he did but looked to be in his 30s, a woman with two children 8 and 10 and another retiree who is one year older than I am and has a flat in Nice although he lives in Sweden.  The nine students in our class represent Sweden (2), Bulgaria (but has lived for many years in the US), Australia, US (3), Russia (but has lived in Monaco for several years) and England.

The pace of the day is very fast so there is no chance to get bored and you do not realize how tired you are until there is a break, but even in the breaks and at lunch you must speak only French.  We had only 10 minutes of homework which we have both finished.

Our primary teacher is a very nice woman who has an ageless French appearance.  She corrects constantly but often with humor and demands focus and correctness in all respects.

More later,
Jane and the Unabashed Liberal