I've been surprised even before we even left how easily I could read French (for the most part) and it's only improved since being here almost a week now. It makes sense given the huge amount of French influence in the English language. Of course, speaking it, and especially hearing it, is a whole different matter, since the pronunciation is completely different in a lot of cases. But there are a LOT of cognates between French and English, and so by knowing a few key connector words and common phrases, it's fairly easy to get the gist of most ads, signs, and even newspapers.
Speaking of learning French, Kara started French langugage school this week. She's only signed up for a week so far, but will probably continue for another week or two after that to get her up to speed. She's so incredible at languages, and already knowing Spanish and Italian is a huge boost as well. She tries to teach me, but I find it so much more difficult to remember words, and particularly how to pronounce them. My goal is just to be somewhat understandable by the end of the 6 months, but I have no doubt Kara will be quite proficient by then. She's already the best student in her class and she missed the entire first week (as her husband I get to brag on her shamelessly :))
I've been looking for evening classes for me, but there aren't a lot of options. In the meantime I've been using Duolingo, but I just need to put more time into it. At work everyone speaks French except when specifically talking to me and/or on conference calls, so I'd really like to get some understanding of it so I can participate in lunch conversations. Hopefully this will get easier over time.
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