Monday, December 15, 2008

French Lesson

Yesterday, I did another French lesson with my teacher Nadya. I had 2 weeks off from the lessons because Nadya went some where to see her grandkids and the next week, I didn't feel like driving down to D.C. It's a real pain to drive in D.C. It's constantly stop and go. Also, you have to really pay attention to potential stoplights. There must be 20 plus of them on the route I take to the Alliance Francaise. About 4 weeks ago, I wasn't paying enough attention and got half way through an intersection before I realized the light was red. At that point, you might as well keep on going. To my rotten luck, one of the D.C. traffic cameras caught it and I got a notice with pictures of my car informing me of the $75 fine. I knew I did what the camera showed so I promptly wrote the check and mailed it. Since then, I've been really watching out for the stoplights.
The lesson itself went well. I still have one major problem - vocabulary. I'll try to compose sentences in French and, I'll find words I don't the French equivalent for. Nadya told me that'll come with me reading more articles in French. I'll keep looking up the words I don't know and, I'll eventually remember them. So, it'll just take time and lots of reading on that. I am getting better on translating written French. Nadya had me read in French an article where the Marquis de Lafayette was awarded American citizenship posthumously. After reading every 3 or 4 lines, she'd have me translate it into English. I could see I was slowly getting there.
That's all on the French lessons for now. Au revoir!

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