Ani wrote:PeterMollenburg wrote:
I bet your French is bloody awesome! I like your revolutionary idea, and I'd like to join you, but I quit on you once before, so I won't run that risk again.... and I have too many resources!!! It's insanse! I tell you now if I had my time over I'd save myself a lot of money and buy resources as I need them dammit! Yeah Mauger sounds good... after FIA and FSI, Assimil and the Progressif/ Progressive series... what? The Big Five? Is that what you said????
(PM starts running madly -in circles while pulling hair out -of other peoples heads- wouldn't want to lose his own hair, can't run that risk! and shouting at them "do the &*^%%$& courses for me! #### do the courses now dammit!!). Ahem (clears throat) yes, why I believe that would be an incredibly wise decision, to complete all the Mauger Cours de Langue et Civilisation Francaises.... why wouldn't you? (quietly, secretly, i'm very envious, since there's no room in my bloody schedule!!!). Good luck Ani!
Lol. You know I have no resentment the you quit. That plan was somewhere between overly ambitious and stupid but it sure was fun while it lasted
I really can't figure out what actually you have in your schedule, but no, you cannot go back and be finishing Mauger's volume 1 right now. I get to do it because my French is not bloody awesome. I found three words I didn't know in the preface to the first book, and since I don't really know IPA, I can take the time to learn it while I do the first exercises. I'm so sick of being dependant on Linguee to check phrases, googling how to spell this conjugation of this word I want to use. I feel like a huge cheater. I want to be able to sit down with a pen and write decent French that matches my education level. Also, while I do know a bajillion nouns and have a decent vocabulary, so much is limited to crap you say to kids, that when I try to express more complex ideas or talk about adult subjects I either get tongue tied on more nuanced ideas, or don't have the vocab for other subjects.
These are times I regret not still being in college when I could have sat down on a couch with a couple of Frenchie girlfriends and a couple bottles of wine and talked all night and sorted out all my linguistic problems. Double regret because I did that so many times without learning French and now that I'm ready, the opportunity is passed. It's not so easy to make French speaking friends these days.. at least I have no idea how to do it.
Er uhm.. sorry to get a little emotional there. Betcha didn't expect to walk into that one .
I believe, if we had a "French Off" (whatever that means), that you'd beat me! I still struggle with nuanced complex ideas, and I highly doubt I am as accomplished as many ppl on this forum may think I am, and yet, I really should be. What's that you wanna French off? Pick the online exam... and I'll meet you there! Oh, and uhh... yes I did walk into that one. I kinda know what it's like to a degree. I used to think of how cool it was to hang out with all the young internationals when I was also young... that happened like twice, and now i'm going grey dammit! and chatting up young travellers would be just bloody weird... and actually probably no longer that interesting....