(no subject)
Today's moment of win so far is that while I was at la laverie doing my laundry earlier, a somewhat cute but helpless guy came in with a bag of dirty clothes and no idea what to do with them. He appealed to me for help, as I was sitting there minding my own business and listening to a France Inter podcast about the Forbidden City, and I'm pleased to say that I successfully helped him to navigate the not-super-intuitive laundry-machine process, and also counselled him on what cycle he should wash his clothes in. And I didn't completely butcher the French language! I have a faint suspicion that I might have talked to him a little bit like he was two (and if so, so not my fault, because that means everyone who's given me instructions while I've been here has been talking to me like I'm two), and je vous en prie (you're welcome) escaped me completely when he thanked me (I managed de rien, the less formal and more Canadian equivalent). So, communication win? I'm actually tentatively optimistic that I might be making some progress with my spoken French - or at least, I'm finding it a little easier to relax when I have to talk, which really helps me with my pronunciation. Also, as I discovered while I was enrhûmée, French is way easier to pronounce when you have a stuffy nose. So maybe having a cold helped me get back into the swing of it? Anyway, now if only I could get it together to manufacture more opportunities to speak...
Speaking of laundry and the French language, yesterday I went out bookstore-browsing. I failed to complete my two goals of getting some postcards (the bookstore didn't have any!) and getting some light reading for la laverie and other public occasions where I'm not comfortable pulling out my iPad, but I did find a pocket guide to French vs. Québecois vocabulary. A lot of the focus was on verbs and expressions, two areas in which my vocabulary is not very Québecois, but the section on laundry was a gold mine. My pre-France laundry-vocabulary was 100% Québecois. You know what word is different in Quebec versus France? The word for laundry. No wonder I was initially confused when both "laundry" and "laundry detergent" were suddenly "lessive," and no wonder I had no idea what gender "lessive" was. Because I was used to "linge"! I'm pretty sure I used "linge" the whole time I was in Dijon, too - my host mom must have wondered what was up with that. Go absorbing crucial everyday vocabulary from bilingual packaging!
Anyway, il reste beaucoup à faire aujourd'hui, so it's time for a to-do list, and then getting on with it. I think I'm also going to go back to making a weekly master to-do list, to be posted here and revisited at the end of the week, in the interests of accountability.
To do the rest of today:
Confess week of fail to ADN writing-group
Edit Yuletide signup
Do laundry
Clean bathroom
Sweep floor
Do dishes
Reply to emails from Laurie, RD, LM
Reply to facebook message from (different) LM
Email advisor R
Email Marek in re: begging him to skype en français with me sometime before Thursday
Skype with Morgayne, Lauren, Dad if he's around
Go for a walk
Listen to France Inter podcasts
Do some reading aloud in French (meeting French medievalists later this week, eep!)
Speaking of laundry and the French language, yesterday I went out bookstore-browsing. I failed to complete my two goals of getting some postcards (the bookstore didn't have any!) and getting some light reading for la laverie and other public occasions where I'm not comfortable pulling out my iPad, but I did find a pocket guide to French vs. Québecois vocabulary. A lot of the focus was on verbs and expressions, two areas in which my vocabulary is not very Québecois, but the section on laundry was a gold mine. My pre-France laundry-vocabulary was 100% Québecois. You know what word is different in Quebec versus France? The word for laundry. No wonder I was initially confused when both "laundry" and "laundry detergent" were suddenly "lessive," and no wonder I had no idea what gender "lessive" was. Because I was used to "linge"! I'm pretty sure I used "linge" the whole time I was in Dijon, too - my host mom must have wondered what was up with that. Go absorbing crucial everyday vocabulary from bilingual packaging!
Anyway, il reste beaucoup à faire aujourd'hui, so it's time for a to-do list, and then getting on with it. I think I'm also going to go back to making a weekly master to-do list, to be posted here and revisited at the end of the week, in the interests of accountability.
To do the rest of today:
Confess week of fail to ADN writing-group
Edit Yuletide signup
Do laundry
Clean bathroom
Sweep floor
Do dishes
Reply to emails from Laurie, RD, LM
Reply to facebook message from (different) LM
Email advisor R
Email Marek in re: begging him to skype en français with me sometime before Thursday
Skype with Morgayne, Lauren, Dad if he's around
Go for a walk
Listen to France Inter podcasts
Do some reading aloud in French (meeting French medievalists later this week, eep!)