Life in Switzerland: CLE - Centre Linguistique pour Etrangers

The school is located near the main square, in the " Old Town" part of Tours, and just a five minute walk from my host family's house. On the outside the building is big and impressive, and on the inside is comfortable and inviting. CLE stands for Centre Linguistique pour Etrangers (Linguistic Center for Foreigners), but the double entendre is that "cle" means "key" in French. The passcode to enter the building is the year of the French Revolution, so I've memorized a bit of history at the same time.

The first two days of classes were pretty terrifying, as I had to grow accustomed to listening to and speaking French for hours at a time, and I spoke more French in the first 48 hours than I had in the previous five years. But things got easier quickly. On the third day, I suddenly realized I could hear everyone's accents, not just my Japanese roommate's. The German guy still sounds German when he speaks French, the Lebanese woman still sounds middle eastern, but the most hilarious is Gregor, my Scottish friend, who, when he speaks French, sounds just exactly how you would imagine Sean Connery would sound if he were speaking French.

On the fourth day I started saying phrases in French without needing to search for the words, and surprised myself a few times when I realized I knew the right words subconsciously. On the fifth day I discovered I was beginning to think in French as I went about my daily life. When I needed to decide what to wear, the first words to pop into my head were "Je pense que" (I think that) and when I got ready for bed the words were "Je suis fatigue" (I am tired). I also realized I'm definitely not the third worst student like I thought I was at first, and I should be able to advance into the next level pretty soon.

In an average day I speak French for 14 hours, from 8am-10pm, and English for 2 hours, from 10pm-midnight, if I go for a drink with friends. It does help me keep my sanity to be able to speak English just a little bit, because there are so many sentiments that I don't know how to express and so many words I don't know yet in French. I've also begun to notice confusing words in the English language that I never picked up on before. For example, "invalid." Did you read that as "someone who is incapacited" or as "an incorrect password"? It's the same word, but two very different meanings.

Every day I'm finding that I understand more and more. I've grown accustomed to the voices of the people I talk with every day, so I can understand almost everything they say. With voices I'm not used to it's more difficult, especially if they speak quickly or have a low voice and don't pronunciate clearly. Overall though, I can see a huge difference between me ten days ago and me now. The saying about soaking it all in really is true.