En français!

Last night, I attended my first Interactive French class at a place called 'A French Journey.' It's a sweet little set of studios at the back of a French patisserie in Hampton. I have always wanted to learn French fluently. I studied it in high school for 4 years, I had a Swiss pen-pal in those years who wrote to me in French and I wrote to her in English (I met up with her for the first time last year in Geneva but her English was so far more superior to my French). I will admit, I let some of the learning fade away over the years, but some of it stuck with me, and last night, it was like all these words and memories were coming back to me like they were all inside me waiting to be set free.

The romantic in me was hoping that there would be some beautiful single man either teaching the class or attending the class… but no… sorry to disappoint me again! The French teacher was a 29 year old French native from Biarritz in the south of France named Sarah, who is just beautiful in every way and the class was two old high school friends in their mid 50s, one who brought her whinging husband along, and a very quiet 44 year old woman only 6 weeks away from her trip to Paris.

Our first class was about introducing ourselves… hence the reason why I know the ages of my classmates! We learnt formal and informal greetings and ways we can talk about ourselves, from what we do, where we are from, if we are married/single, how many children we have, if we have a pet, what our name is, how old we are, etc. All the masculine and feminine articles came back, but we were given a few hints on how to recognise the gender of the words, which I never got at school. Also there were some helpful hints in pronunciation that I don't recall getting from school.

At the end, we were given a little slice of French cake - it was like a chocolate hazelnut mousse, with a slice of lemon tart and sponge cake all in one. Very yummy, but very decadent. I actually requested to be part of a French and food class, but unfortunately, they didn't have the numbers to substantiate a class, so I joined the Interactive French class instead (I would have preferred to have been cooking and trying out different French foods!)

I read something the other day, that learning a language in your adult years is better than doing all those brain games on Lumosity, Brain Training, etc, and actually stops you from developing diseases like Alzheimer's etc. As I said, I would love to be fluent in French, and I hope I can keep it up to become fluent, then immerse myself in the French culture for a year or so in a provence in France. But that's the dream… one day, it will (I will be positive)... happen!