Voulez Vous

There's a lot of book learning going on.  The library is seeing some trade from me in terms of European guide books, the internet is seeing some action, it's all about the research.

But then there's the language skills.  My recent trip to France to watch the end of a stage of the Tour de France cemented for me the need to brush up.  In French I am on transmit only mode.  I can kind of get by in making myself understood, I can ask for coffee and wine.  Life's essentials you understand.  In fact, I can ask for all kinds of things; food, directions, reservations.  Trouble is, the answers leave me standing gaping with fish like mouth movements and a puzzled frown.  So I decided to attempt to do something about it.  Only my French mind you, the whole idea of trying whilst struggling with one language to attempt to gain even rudimentary Spanish or Italian right now makes me want to whimper and suck my thumb in a corner.

So I ordered a tentative toe in the water type French CD of the learn in the car variety.  No need for books, paper, pens, just simple straight forward listen and repeat, and occasionally pause or go back to previous track.  The first CD was anticipated to take 12 hours with all the repeats, but fortuitously it turns out it was pretty much a refresher, none of the words were new to me, and although I did a lot of repeats of tracks for good practice, mostly what I learned was some improved pronunciations.  My memory of learning at school was that it wasn't considered hip or cool to try to pronounce things properly with Franglais being the more socially acceptable thing to do.  And I always said I wasn't susceptible to peer pressure.  Funny how those memories return.

The intro CD is now finished with.  I can competently ask random French people if they'd like to have dinner with me in a number of ways.  I can also ask what their impression is of the political and economic situation in France.  What on the earth I do with the answers I have no idea.  And just how many folk am I likely to ask to dinner when the conversation thereafter will consist of me asking for their political views then nodding politely I just can't comprehend.  So I ordered the full box set, and have started on CD one this morning on the way to work.  And once again I seem to be learning how to organise dinner dates.  I suspect what I'll really need is to explain to mechanics in which way the van isn't working or ask for a gas cannister.  Maybe that'll be on CD 9 ...

Voulez vous diner avec moi, ce soir?

At least it's not coucher.