Sven: "Arrr" this is how I feel after four hours of French Monday through Friday. Day eight the verbs finally are making more sense. For example the verb to be: ETRE is conjugated as: je suis, I am; tu es, you (familiar) are; il/elle est, he/she is; nous sommes, we are; vous etes, you (proper) are; and ils/elles sont he/she is (plural). While this is just basics, my teacher Sten introduced us to three levels of how to ask a question... yes three levels and two layers for asking questions, (the basic yes/no and the more complex ways). Talk about a ranked unspoken-spoken society. There are: informal, standard and formal/soutenu- So when you ask your closest friends a question you ask it: "Vous etes Americain"? But with equals you ask it: "Est-ce que vous etes Americian?" But for formal/soutenu (your superiors) you ask, "Etes vous -t- Americian?" (even this last one I don't know if it is correct) Just learning... But the fun part of this is both Balika and I are twisting our tongues, brains and having fun at the mistakes we are making to learn.
This has also been fun for the girls who keep asking us why are you learning French? We tell them because it is fun to learn new things and in this case the French language. I (Sven) feel like I have a long hard mountain to climb in learning French and the only way is one step at a time (okay in my case one step forward and ten back) with a lot of humility in knowing that this experience is one more tool to use in focusing our energies on how we can teach Alutiiq to be spoken once again on Kodiak. Lifes lessons.
My teacher, Sten, with all 11 students is wonderful. At times hard, easy, etc... all the things you love to hate about a good teacher. I am personally enjoying learning French and look forward to making a fool of myself everyday- well this is normal, oui? Five days a week is just a little taxing.
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