I don’t know the precise words for animals, types of trucks, or other things that a young child would probably learn from picture-books. <\/p>\n Here’s the challenge at hand: I make grammatical errors frequently. When I want to speak French well, it feels like there are dozens of rules to keep straight. Those rules seem like obstacles to expressing myself.<\/p>\n Here’s where golf comes in. In terms of how it feels, it is very close to the way that I feel when I stand before a golf ball when playing with in a foursome much better than myself. I need to do so many things right — and remind myself to do them right — in order to hit the ball well<\/em>.<\/p>\n And when I swing, I fail to do one or two of those things. That’s the nature of the game.<\/p>\n Right now, speaking French feels like swinging a golf club. In each sentence (of some complexity), there are so many little rules (and exceptions) that may or may not apply. I know those rules and exceptions pretty well. When writing French (slowly), I can apply them with few errors.<\/p>\n But when I’m just trying to tell a story, those rules are like good advice for my golf swing: they don’t come all together and I make a mistake. A mistake that, strictly speaking, I “know better” than to make.<\/p>\n There are several techniques for getting over this hump in learning French. It won’t be easy.<\/p>\n What’s tempting is to adopt my attitude to golf. Years ago, I decided that I didn’t want to spend the time and money to become a golf enthusiast. I could see the pleasure in swinging the club well more frequently, but I could also see how much effort it would take to get to that point.<\/p>\n So I stopped at a different level: the point at which I could strike the ball — with irons but not woods — well enough to keep from being an annoying companion to better golfers.<\/p>\n In general, I hit the ball straight, so there’s rarely a need to search for my ball in the rough. In general, I hit the ball a distance which is unimpressive but not pitiful. (Well, nearly pitiful, given my frame.) As long as I don’t touch my woods, I don’t get too frustrated. (With the usual exception of one or two nightmarish holes per eighteen — I am human, after all.)<\/p>\n I feel like I am at the analogous point in my knowledge of French at this point. I can tell a story in French, and get the point across. I commit many grammatical errors that make me sound a bit stupid. Occasionally, I make errors that render a sentence unclear to the listener. My interlocutor needs to speak slowly for me. I ask for clarification from time to time, when a fluent person would not need to.<\/p>\n It’s tempting to declare victory and quit the field. I don’t think I will, because this is a great opportunity since, unlike golf, I have the time and resources to do it right. But it is tempting to move on to something new — something fascinating and probably easier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I pray your indulgence as I attempt to articulate my present stage in learning French. I came to Luxembourg with a dim memory of taking advanced French in high-school, and a few hours of practice during trips to Paris and Nice. It wasn’t long before I was reading signs and speaking easily with shopkeepers. (Lest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11,704,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1147"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1157,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1147\/revisions\/1157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3216\/2298430739_0b14181499.jpg\")
<\/a>And I’m not counting unusual or technical terms, even ones that French children would know. For example, I recently went looking to buy a coat-stand. So, I looked up the word before I set out. As it turned out, the stores don’t use the term I learned: they were labeled portemanteau<\/a><\/em> rather than cintre<\/em>. (Fans of English etymology should find that pretty funny<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n