Friday, July 1, 2016

Learning French


I took Spanish in high school. I kind of liked it, but only took two semesters--the minimum. When I went off to college, at the University of Iowa, I decided I'd study French to fulfill my language requirement.

It was my freshman year and I lived in the dorms and the class was in one of the old buildings on the Pentacrest, Schaeffer Hall I think. My teacher--my French teacher--was Japanese. Toshio Naka--I still remember his name. Toshio Naka was a good teacher. I would joke that my French had a Japanese accent, but it was just a joke. I liked him, though he complained that my pronunciations were more Spanish than French.

I only took the one semester and then switched back to Spanish, the lazy student that I often was.

I've tried to learn French off and on since then--either teaching myself or using Internet guide or, currently, using Duo Lingo on my phone. I've never been very successful. One of my best friends is French Canadian--a Quebecois--and he's taught me a few things but overall, it just never comes easy to me like Spanish tends to.

Maudit!

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