Putting my money where my mouth is
Jan. 15th, 2010 11:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eveglassToday's French class was an exercise in contrasts. On the one hand, there was some truly useful information, like when to use the subjunctive in relative clauses and how to use the conditional for politeness. (You can do this in English, too: "Would you pass the salt" vs. "Pass the salt.") On the other hand, we had a 45 minute lecture explaining that the four stages of essay writing are brainstorm, outline, write, and revise. Not only do I know this stuff, I've taught it. Many times. By the end of the class, I had a full page, single-spaced, of an opinion piece and was a third of the way through my revision, while most people had only barely started writing. It was, in short, frustrating.
So I decided tonight to see if there was anything I could do to help myself. I went to Chapters and found a book called Difficultés expliquées du francias... for English speakers. ("French difficulties explained... for English speakers") It's an intermediate-advanced book, which puts it just at the right level. The idea is that it targets those mistakes which are most common for anglophones to make, due to interference from the English language.
This looks like it's going to be a very, very useful book. In the very first chapter, there's an explanation that for body parts, French is different from English. Whereas a word-for-word translation of "He broke his leg" into French would be "Il a cassé sa jambe," the actual translation is "Il s'est cassé la jambe." This is useful stuff.
There are 46 chapters, ranging from 4 to 10 pages, or thereabouts. If I have the discipline to do two chapters every weekday, I can finish it in about a month. Frankly, I think I'll get more use out of this book than the course, but only time will tell.
So I decided tonight to see if there was anything I could do to help myself. I went to Chapters and found a book called Difficultés expliquées du francias... for English speakers. ("French difficulties explained... for English speakers") It's an intermediate-advanced book, which puts it just at the right level. The idea is that it targets those mistakes which are most common for anglophones to make, due to interference from the English language.
This looks like it's going to be a very, very useful book. In the very first chapter, there's an explanation that for body parts, French is different from English. Whereas a word-for-word translation of "He broke his leg" into French would be "Il a cassé sa jambe," the actual translation is "Il s'est cassé la jambe." This is useful stuff.
There are 46 chapters, ranging from 4 to 10 pages, or thereabouts. If I have the discipline to do two chapters every weekday, I can finish it in about a month. Frankly, I think I'll get more use out of this book than the course, but only time will tell.
