Madame Would be Proud

Hello everyone! I am here to give you a quick update about me, college and all that good stuff. As many of you know, I learned French at a young age but then, when I came to the states, I started focusing on learning English so I forgot my French. I started taking classes my sophomore year with French One just because I wasn’t sure where to place myself. The French came back, and by senior year, I took the AP exam. Knowing that I didn’t want to stop with French, I signed up for the 202 level for my first semester in college. That went well! This semester, I am in Advance Composition and Grammar, which to my surprise focuses on reading French work, watching movies and having discussions about them.

There are moments when it’s late at night when I get really frustrated with the reading, just because I want to go to sleep but last night, that wasn’t the case. It was 11:00 pm and to my surprise, I was supposed to read “Le Mur” by Jean-Paul Sartre. I counted the pages and couldn’t believe how much reading it was. Being a somewhat good student, I set out to conquer this story. The story is about these prisoners during the Spanish Civil War who have been sentenced to death. I don’t know what exactly about this story captivated me. Maybe, it’s because my understanding of the language has greatly improved. Maybe, it’s the fact that it was a story with a subject which I enjoyed. Anyway, it was like an hour later and I was just cruising through the short story, enjoying it like I would with books in English.

This French class is good for me. It’s forcing me to expand my exposure to the French language. Not only am I improving my speaking skills because it’s a small class, I am also improving my reading and writing skills. We’ve been discussing poetry and breaking it down, just like we did in Mrs. W’s class and it’s nice for me to be able to have discussions like that. Analyzing French movies still gets me but by the end of this class, I may just be ready to speak with anyone about the wonderful elements in French cinema. While I may stumble to form coherent sentences in French sometimes, while it seems like my French will never be as good as my English, and while the thoughts of possibly attending Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris scare me, it feels good to be getting better at French!