I’m down to one more test! I had two oral exams today putting me up to four so far. It was a little unnerving sitting at the table with nothing but myself and the recorder. No dictionaries or conjugation tables to help me. For the most part they weren’t as difficult as I had expected and I feel that they went well. Right now I’m studying the more technical aspect of my course as the test tomorrow will mostly consist of grammar, spelling, accents and the like.
Similar to English, I suppose, there are loose rules in French with a HUGE number of exceptions. I’ve discovered that the French language is more about sounding good than being consistent. If there is an instance that follows a set pattern but doesn’t sound good to the french ear, then it’s changed! An example is the possessive adjectives. The words ‘mon’ and ‘ma’ both mean ‘my’ depending on the gender of the object. ‘Mon’ is masculine and ‘ma’ is feminine. For example ‘mon fils’ (my son) or ‘ma fille’ (my daughter). These possessive adjectives are pretty consistent but in class we came upon the phrase ‘my friend’. I assumed it would be ‘mon’ if the friend was male or ‘ma’ if the friend was female. Nope. ‘Ma amie’ doesn’t sound right so the male possessive adjective is used even though the friend is female. So regardless of the gender, ‘mon’ is used with the noun ‘ami(e)’.
Anyways, that gives you a little idea of the kinds of things I’ve been studying. I definitely feel like I’m beginning to have more fun with the language as the days go by. It’s not quite as frustrating when I go out and I have a good time trying to say in French what I want to express.
Thanks for your prayers, they are greatly appreciated as we continue our language study!
On this day..
- Prison Break! - 2006
Yeah, it’s the whole double-vowel thing…similar in English we can’t say “a apple”, we say “an apple” so that 2 vowels aren’t together.
Are all the grammer rules driving you CRAZY yet?!
You guys sound like you are learning a lot! I am impressed! I took Spanish in high school and I do remember the male and female stuff…I always got confused about an object being male or female–weird. I would’ve liked to remember more of what I learned back then. Someday I’d love to take some classes and get back into it. In Minnesota I didn’t have as many opportunities to use Spanish–here in California I would and I think that would make it more fun to learn.
Keep up the hard work–you’re doing a great job!