Hier Soir

The learning curve is definitely on full acceleration, and I find that I regularly think in French to myself, as I go about my business, for everyday expressions like "maybe another drink" (peut-etre un autre boisson) or "where is my purse" (ou est mon sac). At the beginning of the second week, though, I had a couple of days of regression in speaking that was really frustrating. I think that during the first few days here I would speak, knowing full well that I wasn't using the proper verb conjugation, but just hoping to get my meaning across. Then after the first week of class I started to gain control over conjugations, but when I needed to form a sentence I had to think it through before I said it, and that made me a slow and self-conscious speaker. Now I've picked up speed again and am finding it much easier. The second weekend I noticed I was totally comfortable conducting business in shops, where as the first weekend I wasn't. I'm also finding that it feels awkward to switch to English during class (like when I'm really stumped on how to explain something in French and have to use the English word) and I don't like it, and I try to switch back to French as soon as possible. The word order is so different between the languages that now when I do speak English I'm mixing up phrases and stumbling over words. During class I write down the verbs I want to use but don't know how to conjugate properly, and then study them at home that night. I have a pretty good idea of how to structure sentences, but now I really need to increase my vocabulary.

I've decided that I really hate the word "hier" (pronounced "ear"), that means "yesterday" in French. It's used all the time in conversation (tout le temps!) but is a real hassle to pronounce, especially when you pair it with "soir" (pronounced "swar"), which means night. Together, saying "ear swar" just doesn't form in your mouth properly.

- When did you go to the movies?

- Ear swar.

- Did you have an icecream recently?

- Oui, ear.

- How did classes go?

- The teacher was really animated ear, but today was boring.

Imagine what a great song we would have missed out on if the Beatles had been French.

The French also hate the letter J. Out of 40,000 entries in my English-French dictionary, there are only 96 devoted to the letter J. And the letter K is even worse, coming in at a measly 19 entries.

Besides the peculiarities with the language, the pharmacies are the second most annoying thing. One Sunday I was out visiting the sites and got a headache. It turned out that it is not possible to buy aspirin on Sundays. I went into 4 different tourist stores, naively assuming that next to the batteries and disposable cameras and gum and other things tourists regularly need there would be a small section for aspirin or other headache remedies. I was given a look of disbelief by the clerks, who each sputtered, "But no, it is not possible, it is Sunday, the pharmacies are closed." I suppose it is forbidden to have a headache on Sunday, and god help some poor tourist who has a heart attack in the street.

The other unbelievable pharmacy story happened during the second week. I was feeling the onset of a cold so I went to the pharmacy to buy zinc tablets, since zinc is known to reduce the symptoms of colds. After asking for zinc (in French), having them not know what I was asking for, consulting a massive English dictionary the pharmacist produced from behind the counter, and discovering that it's the exact same word in French, (Ahh, zinc! Oui!) I was sold a packet of what I thought were zinc pills. They turned out to be sealed glass vials of liquid zinc. After pondering this and consulting the instructions, I discovered that I was to break the ends of the glass vials and drink the contents. Now, I don't know about you, but selling medicine in a glass vial that must be BROKEN in order to be consumed doesn't seem like a safe solution to me. But I dutifully took one out, broke off an end, and tried to pour the contents into a glass. Apparently I missed a lesson in high school science because I was dumbfounded when the liquid contents stayed suspended inside the vial. Assuming I must not have snapped off enough, I broke off the second end and susbsequently spilled the zinc all over me, but learned a valuable lesson in the physics of liquids contained in small glass vials.