In general, I've been fairly happy with my progress with French to date. It's definitely harder than Spanish, but this trip, in particular, it seems as if I have been making noticeable progress. Correct pronunciation remains a major challenge, however, and in recent classes I have been focusing on phonetics, trying to minimize my accent.
Thus, Sunday brought a repeat of the all-too-familiar scene with Daniele -- I take the newspaper, stumble through reading a paragraph out loud, only to be greeted with the critique "C'est pas mal*, mais il y a quelques petites choses ...." (Not bad*, there are just a few little things to work on ....)
What were these "petites choses" that constitute the main barrier to improving my pronunciation, according to Daniele? Easy enough -- my consonants are fine, I just need to work on my vowels.
That seems doable, right? I left, feeling moderately encouraged about my progress.
Switch to yesterday morning's class with Agnes. The other student had left with a migraine, so it was just one-on-one with Agnes. A perfect opportunity for some phonetics practice, right? I take the newspaper, stumble through reading a paragraph out loud, again to be greeted with the critique "C'est pas mal*, mais il y a quelques petites choses ...." And what, according to Agnes, were the "petites choses" that were holding me back, and needed extra work. Simple -- my vowels were just fine, I just need to work on my consonants!
But at least now I know what stands between me and full mastery of French pronunciation.
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZéèàçùîôâêû !!!!!!
§@^#?£$%µ@@@##£§§§!??
*: Note that this is the highest praise one can ever hope to receive from a French person; they all have a common gene that prevents them from ever expressing positive sentiments such as unmitigated approval, unstinting praise or admiration, or - Dieu forbid - actual unbridled enthusiasm. On the French evaluation scale "pas mal" represents high praise indeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment