Voulez-vous couche avec moi ce soir?

So the French lessons have begun. In about an hour…I learned about 1300 words of vocabulary and gained and insight into verb conjugation and sentence structure.

I have to admit that I had a bit of a head start…I did do French at school…then took some lessons before travelling in my early twenties…spoke French in France… pretty badly I expect…and then worked for a French company that gave me twenty minutes of French lessons every Tuesday morning. But without a great teaching method …like I have had tonight....this would not have been possible.

Most of what I had learned before……I had forgotten through a lack of use…and other stuff I just got confused with Italian. ( the words do come out a bit mixed…French and Italian) But it was very easy. I was surprised how much …especially the verbs…are almost the same as Italian.

If French is the language of romance…then Italian is the language of passion. Love them both but have to admit a preference for Italian. You don't speak Italian...you sing Italian! The passion is always there and I love that. I suppose I am a passionate person....and love to see that in others.

So …I really need to assess my goals…. The reasons I want to go back to French are:

My children are learning it and I want to be able to help them and speak to them in French when they want.
I am hoping…and I think it does…that it helps me to understand the Latin based languages better…ie : Italian
I think that if I can get a grip on Italain and French …then Spanish is almost a given…(Spanish has to be the best language to learn because if is the second most spoken language in the world)

I have no real desire to gain any real fluency in French ..or even close…but I have been a bit blown away by just how close it is to Italian…and therefore how easy if has been for me to learn again…even more strange…if that when I have been asked to translate an English sentence into French…. I have tended to translate it first into Italian and then into French!

Some verbs..as an example:

To come …Italian = venire - French = venir
To eat…….Italian = mangiare - French = manger
To speak Italian = parlare - French = parler

English: I would like to know where you want to go to eat tonight.

Italian: Vorrei sapere dove vuoi andare a mangiare sta sera.

French: Je voudrais savoir ou voulez-vous aller manger ce soir.

Both the verbs and the structure here are very close. They are sister languages and learning them...it is easy to see that.

I now know why you say ..parlez-vous …and not vous parler…when asking a question…..to begin to actually understand this stuff is amazing!

French is a beautiful language…and I would love to just wake up one morning and be able to speak and understand it…but when you get older…and I got my classes today so at least I can read the text books but makes me know that I am getting on a bit now!….it becomes very difficult….and so I think I will stick with Italian… as a serious thing……but to know a bit more French would be great and expands my knowledge and understanding of English too.

Plus…if I can speak and hopefully encourage my girls to want to learn and therefore have a lifelong skill that they can enjoy without too much effort..... that would be great...I wish I had had that head start!