impossible to please

So in the past I have done lots of complaining about having a hard time with the language in France and how some people don't do anything to make it easier to communicate regularly.  Well, I should also be honest and say that there I think I would be frustrated no matter what.  In the last couple weeks I have noticed that when I  go to lunch with my co-workers and have a hard time understanding french in the loud cafeteria (and to be honest I have been working really hard and been stressed so I am usually really tired at lunch so I don't try that hard (recently- before the last three weeks this is not true)) and I get frustrated, but when someone switches to english to speak to me after i speak french to them I feel like they are saying that my French isn't good enough.  Which might or might not be true in some circumstances.  However I know in some cases that this is not true.  A nice older lady asked for help picking avocados at the store on monday and I tried to help but when she heard my French she switched to English - I think this was just her being polite and trying to practice her English.  So it seems that the french are damned if they do and damned if they don't in my book - sigh.

Of course then there are a few people who go out of there way to speak slowly to me in French and are patient when I screw up.  These in particular are the people that make learning French and living in France fun and worthwhile.  So I don't know what the point of this post was but there it is.

optimistic follow up

So over the next day or two after I posted about the two ratings of my French ability I came to a realization that how you are "rated" is dependent on your level.

That sounds weird but let me explain.  When I lived in England for a school year in undergrad I had a bunch of non-English speaking friends and flatmates.  So one day one of my friends (left call her "A") commented on how people rated her English.  She said that whenever she asked someone how her English was we would say it is "good" (my self included), but that A thought that another mutual friend (lets call her B), who spent most of her time with her friends of the same nationality, had worse English than she did though everyone told B that her English was also "good."  Well it was true that's A's English was significantly better than B's.  That is when I realized that A's English was "good" in regards to someone how is basically fluent, while B's was "good" in terms of someone who is learning and struggling a bit.  Now we weren't intentionally being confusing we were just naturally putting them in categories/levels before we then rated them.  Therefore, when I am at the level of "tourist" I am rated really well, but when I am rated as "someone who uses French daily and 'should' be fluent" I have some work to do.  So my optimistic realization was that I had made the transition from "tourist" or "short-term visitor" to the next level up and in accordance to the next level I am only sorta so-so (comme-ci comme ca).  So hurrah!! my French is improving (which I know but it is nice I have some confirmation).  

On a related note - I am also trying to pick up some habits that are going to improve my French.  The first is I have started to read the second Harry Potter in French - sans le version original.  So far it is going pretty well.  I don't understand everything but I was able to work things out.

king of the tourists

So I am getting weird double feeling about my french.

So when I am out with my parents or my wife's parents and I am at tourist places people are so happy I speak french and in a couple of cases go out of there way to speak french to me.  Compared to tourists who can only say "Merci" and "Bonjour" I am a freaking king - King of the Tourists.  But then I get to work and everyone is more critical - saying I need to work more on my french and commenting where they think I can take french classes (which to be honest I have a better idea of what is available at this point then they do).  I actually think I need to talk classes too - but when I don't have a car and I work a 35 minute bus ride from anywhere (and since it is work provided I have one bus in the morning and one in the evening) it is hard to take classes.  So this leads to a very interesting mix in my opinion in my French.  So is my french good?  or do I "still have problems with French?".

Well maybe someday maybe I will figure it out.

Learning to Color

Learning a language is like a kid learning to color.  When you first start, you color outside the lines in a mostly unrecognizable mess, but as you progress  you get closer and closer to the lines until one day you aren't completely coloring inside the lines, but the picture still makes sense.  Even this progresses until you are coloring beautiful pictures inside the lines.  Then there is even the possibility of making your own lines and modifying the picture with shading and color choices to be more beautiful.  We call these over-achievers Poets.
Of course, me learning French is a little more like driving a Hummer through a vegetable garden.

(This is an old "post" copied from Facebook)