So you've planned your trip to France and you've booked those plane tickets!
You've also brushed up on your high school French, taken French lessons, listened to French podcasts in the car and read over your French survival guide phrase book with your best over the top, theatrical, exaggerated Paree accent (picturing yourself with a beret, stripey blue and white top and baguette in hand of course ;).
You arrive bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in Paris and are ready to show off all of your hard work and connaissance.
It is now officially your time to shine.
You open your mouth fairly confidently to ask a well-practised question, it goes smoothly enough until your inner deer-in-the-headlights decides he/she needs to take over. You were great at the question, but now you have absolutely no idea what the response means. Your eyes begin to dart from side to side awkwardly. Umm help..?
Or, you manage to answer a question in passable French and are pretty chuffed with your effort, only for the Frenchie to switch to English after hearing your accent. Appreciate the gesture and all but ouch. Obviously your French wasn't good enough to continue.
And how about when you manage to exchange a few sentences, everything is going well, until you are thrown off by one word, one response, one question, one look, one change in body language. Uh oh, that damn deer is coming back.
Any of these situations sound familiar?
It is now officially your time to shine.
You open your mouth fairly confidently to ask a well-practised question, it goes smoothly enough until your inner deer-in-the-headlights decides he/she needs to take over. You were great at the question, but now you have absolutely no idea what the response means. Your eyes begin to dart from side to side awkwardly. Umm help..?
Or, you manage to answer a question in passable French and are pretty chuffed with your effort, only for the Frenchie to switch to English after hearing your accent. Appreciate the gesture and all but ouch. Obviously your French wasn't good enough to continue.
And how about when you manage to exchange a few sentences, everything is going well, until you are thrown off by one word, one response, one question, one look, one change in body language. Uh oh, that damn deer is coming back.
Any of these situations sound familiar?
I'm a self-confessed geek. I used to work 12 hour shifts as a pharmacist from 9am to 9pm, come home, eat dinner then study French on my own until 3am in the morning. I tried every single possible French learning strategy and approach in the book to cram in as much as possible in preparation for my move to Paris. At one point in time I had 4 tutors on the go!
Yet even with all this intense studying, upon arrival in Paris I still found myself in those exact awkward confusing situations I was hoping to avoid.
What I gradually learnt over time was that the best study I could do was of course, a combination of
Yet even with all this intense studying, upon arrival in Paris I still found myself in those exact awkward confusing situations I was hoping to avoid.
What I gradually learnt over time was that the best study I could do was of course, a combination of