BLOG: Bonjour! Comment allez-who?
Picture This
By Matt Anderson, Blogger
September 29, 2008 | noon
Here’s the thing. We all sat through those little B.S. high school language classes. I don’t care if you took Spanish, French, German or Swahili: if you didn’t care about being worldly your freshman year of high school, you didn’t learn or remember a damn thing. At least I didn’t.
Don’t get me wrong. I envy those few kids I know who are practically fluent in the respected language they’ve been speaking the past five years, and every day I kick myself for not sticking with the Spanish thing. After my embarrassing performance on the Precollege entrance exam (you really don’t want to know) even with three years of high school Spanish under my belt, I knew I had to start over. And let me tell you, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be in Spanish 111.
So, what’s another well-received language that’s close to Spanish but isn’t really Spanish? French! French was something new to tackle. French could allow me to redeem myself after all those mistakes I made in Spanish 101 back in high school. This was going to be easy. No, this was going to be really easy! I figured I could take this thing slow, really learn the material at a reasonable pace (not just memorize it for the next day), become fluent in five years and move my ass to Paris for the rest of my life.
Let me break it down for you.
My first day began with a fairly pleasant coasting through the pure awesomeness of my Nazi Germany history class. (Which, by the way, granted me a spark of hope that history can actually be interesting). Even with the excitement bundled inside of me that history was going to rock, I still only had one thing on my mind: FRENCH.
So after my lovely hour-long date with fascism, it was already time for me to venture over to the majestic Gordy Hall for my highly anticipated French 111 class.
I felt that little hop in my step as I dodged the omnipresent smoke cloud that exists on Gordy’s front steps. When I reached the room and took my seat in the class, all I could think to myself was, “Bring it on, Napoleon, Marie, Louis I, II, III, IV, etc, etc. Soon I’ll be giving you lessons on the rules of the tongue.”
That’s when class started.
And when I was informed that there would be no English speaking in the class. Ever.
Suddenly my mind went from Napoleon to panic. All I could think about during the rambled jargon of my professor’s speech was how royally screwed I was. My excitement turned to anxiety, my pep sank to sulk. What was I going to do? How was I supposed to survive a class when I couldn’t even tell if I should open my book? This was going to be Spanish all over again, but this time I was going to have to work my ass off to get a crappy grade instead of slack off to get one.
I don’t think my mouth, or my eyes, shut that entire hour my first day of French class. I walked out of Gordy, took a gulp of the smoky air around me and instantly felt sick.
Well, the days turned into a week, then a week turned into two weeks, and gradually, day by day, I was able to pick up on some of the lingo my teacher frequently uses. In fact, I’ve learned a lot these past two weeks. At first it was definitely a challenge, and although it still is, I don’t see it as something I can't handle anymore. It’s a problem I actually love to solve now – a puzzle I really enjoy putting together.
I feel that pep again. No, I feel something greater. I’m not just excited to learn something; I know I will learn something. I will master this course. Pretty soon I’ll be kicking Español by the wayside saying, “Bonjour, comment allez-vous, Spanish who?”
Who knows, maybe I’ll even conquer my noon economics class in the process. That’s when I’ll really have Napoleon, Marie and all the Louies take notes.
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