It’s obvious that I haven’t studied in a while. Hopefully will be getting back soon. I did, however, sign-up for Live Mocha (http://www.livemocha.com/) and completed a lesson there. So, When I have done a bit more, expect further badly formed sentences here!

Aujhord’hui c’est Jeudi

Remains of the Day

Bonjour. Aujourd’hui c’est Lundi. Il pleut. Mon jour préféré Dimanche. Quel est votre jour préféré?

Translation: Hello. Today is Monday. It’s raining (rainy?). My favourite day is Sunday. What is your favourite day

I wanted to construct this differently, but I guess there is still time for conjunctions and clauses!

Floating through French

The first thing that hit me hard about French, is the pronunciation. I recall, a few years ago, in the US, I was out with a colleague and his family for the weekend and I said, “That red one over there?” as he was showing me something in the distance.

His son couldn’t help, and giggled. I was not sure why, but I let it go. Later, next day, my colleague was apologising for his son’s behaviour. The incident from the day before was out of my head, so I asked him what the apology was for. He told me that his son was amused by the way I pronounced “red” and that it was not right of him to giggle. I was a bit lost and asked him to elaborate. We got into a long and fine conversation about rolling our r’s.

Since then, I have been more tolerable of other people’s pronunciation and language skills.

This incident keeps coming back to me as I repeat after the podcasts and try and imitate the French phrases I hear.

Quatre, French for ‘four’, is an interesting nemesis. I have yet to get it right. It is a fine balance between pronouncing the ‘re’ and not. And with most words that I have learnt till date, it’s how you close the pronunciation, that is getting me all tangled up.

It will soon be all right. Till then, I have to remember, I don’t need to get all my oral muscles in a twist; need to loosen them – speaking French is like floating.

French Podcasts

I have subscribed to the Learn French by Podcast via iTunes. The first lesson was easy, it’s getting tougher by the second one.

Still, I like the clarity and quality of this podcast.

Bonjour, Monde

J’mappelle Atul. J’habite à Mumbai.

For now, this is as much as I can do with confidence. And numbers. But you will see me go a long way from here. The Title of this post is suspect. I wonder if there has to be an article before “Monde”. Obviously, I am using the default title of the first post from WordPress. Hello, World!