On Friday afternoons, when we aren't busy, ourselves, Birgit who live next door, and Joelle who lives one house further on, spend an hour or so talking in French. It helps to improve our French conversation and also Birgit's, who is German, and for Joelle, who is French, it has given her an extra social occasion. In general the conversation flows, although mine is more of a trickle, but occasionally we go down a certain route and it all falls apart. That's when we move into our Franglais +, known to us as Franglaismande! Between us we can manage the following;
French English German
Dave Middling Fluent None*
The Magnificent M Very good Fluent Did A level
Birgit Quite good Good Fluent
Joelle Fluent Some None
* I can manage zwei bier!
We have conversations to try and explain certain things where every sentence in one language follows on to another sentence with a differing language. I'm not sure it helps. Instead of one person not understanding something and needing an explanation it disintegrates into a babble of confused multinational voices until someone takes control.
I wonder if the European Parliament has this many problems?
4 comments:
Well, that chart went all horribly wrong! I ought to be able to do the html for the chart but I've forgotten all that and blogger doesn't publish the way you type.
There was a chart?
Darn it! I love a chart.
All members of the European Parliament have a Babel Fish in their ear.
Probably.
I don't think blogger has plugins? In WordPress the tablepress plugin would fix that. Anyway. I sortof speak Spanish. I used to be fluent but if you don't use it you lose it, and there has been a good decade of not using it. I try to listen to Spanish radio on t'internet. I've never felt the French love. Not even in a letter...
That lest me out anyway!
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