One Week Complete

I have just finished my first week of classes at Coeur de France. I am much more enthusiastic than I was when I last blogged. The first of the week the workload and the difficulty of speaking French all day (and understanding only part of what was said) was frustrating. The thought of six weeks of it was overwhelming to me.

However, I started Thursday determined to speak French as much as I could (and you all know how much I like to talk). I also am committed to lots of homework to make sure I am progressing as well as I can.

This week, I had 5 group lessons of four hours each, 3 private lessons of one hour each and 4 pronunciation classes of 30 minutes each. I spent from 1 – 4 hours per day studying.
Here’s where I think I am. I can communicate as needed with the personnel in local shops. I am doing much better in communicating with other students in and out of class. We still have challenges and a few English words drop in here and there, but for the most part we try to communicate in French. Today, my class went to the café for a drink and discussion. As an example, we discussed Starbucks. Since I don’t drink coffee, I shared and how a friend of mine orders his coffee at a specific temperature. Others were shocked to learn this was possible. Interestingly, I was questioned as to whether he was a lawyer also. My point is that we spend a lot of time discussing ordinary things.

I find that I am thinking in French without the need of translation for simple things. Even alone I count in French unless number is large. When thinking about the days of the week, I don’t think “samedi” that’s Saturday. Instead I simply think we are doing this on Samedi. As I take notes, I take some of them in French. For example, when I want to write something is the same as something else I write “meme” rather than “same.” When typing this blog, I started to type “Pour example” rather than “For example.”

My vocabulary is expanding and I feel I understand the grammar rules that we have learned. This weekend I need to study these rules so that they come more naturally and I need to work on memorizing verb forms and gender of objects.

Although I have nothing to judge by, it seems to me that this is significant progress in only one week. The city and the people are interesting. I promise to write more about this soon.