Fumbling French
FRANCE | Thursday, 27 March 2008 | Views [133]
After my full day of class, we took Colette out to dinner as a thank you for all she's done for me. I was so tired that my French was horrible tonight. I felt like a failure. I kept mistranslating things and then wondering if I should go back and correct, which I usually did and it made me feel embarassed on how much I was messing up. The menu was impossible to read even if my French was on that night, because it was so gormet. I tried to ask Colette what some of the things were, but then I couldn't remember what was what. So I blindly ordered for the three of us.
It was up to me to keep up the energy at the table. Sometimes I tried to start up conversations, but then my translations would make them confused and the talking would die down, and I felt like I was bringing everyone's night down. But after dinner, as we walked Colette nearly 50 miles to where she parked her car, I did much better out in the fresh air moving around. They started a conversation about old movie stars and songs and singers and the mood was livelier and funnier. I was noticing that sometimes I could make sure the intentional humor got across by the manner in which I translated a sentence and that was fun to play with, too.
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