Our French Life - How I still struggle with the French language
Disclaimer: I mean all of the following in the most culturally sensitive way possible.
The French language eludes me to this day, oh don't misunderstand me I speak a lot of french and I have been told by many French people that my pronunciation is extremely good, my biggest problem is that I just cannot understand them when they answer me, now this causes some confusion for them, if you imagine I say something in French with perfect pronunciation then tell them in French I cannot understand them, they usually do a bit of lip pursing and eventually lose interest totally confused.
I found this video which I thought was very good in fact I might give this a try Click here at least it might give me a bit more time to try to understand them, up until now I haven't had much time to converse with the french so my intention is to put myself out into the community and get more practise, I thought I should volunteer for something in the village or for a charity maybe, a friend suggested that I go to the bar after church on a Sunday, this is where they all go after church for either a Kir (white wine and Cassis) beer or coffee. it sounds rather enjoyable actually popping over to the bar while the lunch is cooking getting back, eating lunch and having a nap, or do what the french do and go for a walk to work off what you have just eaten, maybe that is how they stay so slim.
I think I have figured out how the french women always look so good, it is all to do with the scarf and other accessories - I saw a french lady the other day and she had a dress on that I had seen her in before but somehow it looked very different then I realised why - it was her scarf which matched her earrings and her glasses, Voila you have a new outfit, now I think we all know about this trick but no one does it quite like the french women, and when I say glasses, here you when you buy certain glasses you can choose different interchangeable fronts so that they match your attire - how fantastic is that.
Talking about the scarf - They are so important that there are two different words for scarf in the French language: une écharpe is a winter scarf, and un foulard is a lighter, decorative scarf. For women my age, they are indeed for sale in almost every shop and on average a french woman would own a multitude of them, they also spray perfume on them rather than on their skin. and then there is the choice of how to tie them, there must be a million ways.
A scarf can make a dummy look good
So say voila a lot, buy a scarf, eat and drink loads and walk it all off afterwards.
