Random Ramblings

Today'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.

The French class this morning was... overcrowded, in a word. There are 33 students registered in the class, a combined advanced (level 6) and written (level 7) group. Even with a few absences, we were still scrambling for chairs. Beyond that, I really did feel more advanced than most of the students, at least in terms of spoken French. (We didn't do any writing today.) A couple of the others students noted it, and even the teacher pointed it out when I was doing a little presentation.

The director of the school, who also owns two other schools near Place St. Henri metro, made the following offer: at one of his other schools, there's a pure written (level 7) group that's only got 14 students at the moment. Anyone in level 7 who wants to switch is welcome to do so.

Initially, I hesitated, even though I'm in level 7 and even though it would probably be the better class for me. This is mostly because the school I'm at now is about a 25-minute walk from my apartment, while the other one would require taking the bus and/or metro. On the other hand, as I have now seen the bus route I'd need to take, it's only about 25 minutes door-to-door in any case. (Assuming I catch my bus.)

So I called the secretary and switched schools. Starting tomorrow, I'll take the bus over to Centre St. Paul and we'll see how that goes. More news as it develops.

Today's breadcrumb talks about a difference between Christian and Jewish marriages, stemming from Jacob's marriage with Leah. Also, it includes an apology to everyone reading Daily Breadcrumbs off the LJ feed, as I accidentally updated the feed yesterday.

In other news.

Yesterday, I read the entirety of Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (note: link is to revised / expanded edition; I read the original edition, published last year). It's a surprisingly good book: very easy to read, with some intreguing conclusions. Highly recommended.

Also, yesterday was the first session of Ian and Yan's LARP. That went well, too. I ressurected a dark ages character I used to play, and had fun chatting with another character who was in the same dark ages game. (Our characters, of course, had aged about 550 years in the meantime, but the personalities were more-or-less the same.) Lots of good roleplaying, especially by Adam, who played out his character's OCD to a "t." On the other hand, I discovered it is amazingly difficult for me to do accents in French. Oh well. I had fun.

I allowed myself to sleep in the morning, for the first time in a long time. Didn't get out of bed until 11 am, which is about 4 hours later than I was waking up while doing my CELTA, and about 2 hours later than I've been waking up most days since. Yay sleep.

And now, to actually get started with today. TTFN!