[показать]To my great surprise, I'm beginning to fall in love with...French. It has taken me so many years to appreciate this beautiful language, and now I can hardly believe that I used to hate it so much. Of course, I have no one to blame but our school teacher. For five long years, we've been studying French as a second foreign language, and there is no doubt that Ms. Whatever Her Name Was did her absolute best to make a good half of the class believe that it was one of the most difficult languages on Earth. I remember very well being so confused during the first year of studies that, after struggling for a while, I decided to stop trying all together. I missed a good half classes during the remaining four years and, only by pure miracle, was able to get a B in my final transcripts. Not surprisingly, when it was time to choose the second language to study in the university, three of my classmates and I (we all majored in English in the same college) were unanimous in picking Spanish. To my surprise, shortly after beginning to learn Spanish and, of course, Latin, I realized that French was not even a tiny bit harder. I quickly came to a conclusion that the only thing that prevented us from getting some command of this language at school was a systematic lack of any coherent explanations from our teachers. It really pisses me off when I think about it now: How is it even possible to be so bad of an instructor? I believe that even I, having just a tiny little bit of knowledge, could have explained the material much better.

On the other note, my experience with learning French now is beginning to confirm the notion that it is twice as easy to learn each new language; to be honest, I used to be a little skeptical about this idea. Today, however, I can clearly see the difference: it is so ridiculously easy to understand grammar concepts and memorize new vocabulary that I can hardly believe it. I don't know whether it has to do with some knowledge of French I miraculously was able to retain from my disastrous school experience, learning Spanish for two years, or an overall improvement in my understanding of written and spoken English, but I can easily grasp an idea not only of all the texts offered in our textbook, which, I admit, are very easy, but also of some articles and excerpts of literary works I had chance to read online and of French movies with subtitles. Taking into consideration that I've been studying French actively only for a little over a month, I find it very motivating, and it is definitely a much faster progress than the one I had with Spanish.

Unfortunately, my French class in college still leaves to wish for much better. It very much reminds me of the way they used to teach us English in the kindergarten. Most of the time in class is waisted on stupid games and listening to the teacher reading us texts and dialogues from the textbook. He seems to not even think about explaining us the reading rules so that we could try doing it ourselves. As far as our written assignments are concerned, Mr. Proulx says that he doesn't care about mistakes as long as he sees that a student tries his or her best (translation: I don't feel like spending any significant amount time correcting your papers and giving a feedback). I give him the thumbs up, however, for realizing and admitting that this class is wrong for me. Just a few days ago, he asked me to stay after a lesson and suggested that I take Intermediate French instead, which would have actually meant skipping two semesters! Unfortunately, there is only one Intermediate French class this semester and it is offered the same time I have Microeconomics. So I have no choice but to waist time and money in my current class. Our super expensive book is good for both French 101 and French 102, so I'm planning to finish it this semester and next semester, instead of spending more money on a class of a questionable quality, I'll purchase Intermediate French textbook and try to finish it on my own as well. The plan is that, by the beginning of the next school year, I can skip right to Advanced French. With this being said, it kind of makes me wonder what the f* they do in classes if I, who knows practically nothing as far as French is concerned, qualify for Intermediate level class... So, for everyone who is considering taking foreign language class in some American community college, I'd recommend to think twice and pick your level carefully; I won't be surprised if, having taken, a few months of lessons at home, you'll be able to do well in super-mega-advanced class in the US.