Rambling Thoughts

C’est mon premier article en le Français!

Je m’appelle C.K. Je suis étudiant débutant Français à Alliance Français de Kuala Lumpur. J’aime l’ordinateurs, les livres, le rock, les films et le Internet.

J’ai trente-trois ans, mais je ne travaille pas. Pourquoi? Je n’aime pas mon travail. Pour dix ans, j’ai toujours fait la même chose. Pour ma sabbatique, j’apprends le français.

C’est difficile d’écrire- pas assez vocabulaire et grammaire !

After a week, we had been taught how to conjugate verbs into present tense. I was told that this was something that French kids recite everyday in school (like how we Chinamen recite the multiplication table in school- remember?). Having grasp enough verbs and conjugation skills for French verbs ending with -er, we started to write and converse in French.

Body: Whatever we have learnt may seem pretty odd to someone who speaks, writes and reads the language. Imagine if you were to drop into our class and overheard a typical exercise:-

STUDENT 1: G-o-o-d Murning
STUDENT 2: Gud Mourning
STUDENT 1: Howe air you?
STUDENT 2: Fun. And you?
STUDENT 1: I’m unwell too. Do you like the chinema?
STUDENT 2: I adore the a cinema. And you?
STUDENT 1: No. I detest the chinuma.

and so on.

I wonder how it would take before we can have real conversations. Right now, we have learned the present tense so our grammar confines us to just a moment of present time. For instance, I can’t ask someone whether if they liked (past tense) something or to say something in the future.

Sigh….

– Vous aimez le cinéma? Le théâtre?
– Non, je n’aime pas le cinema. Oui, j’aime le théâtre.

– You like the cinema? The theatre?
– No, I don’t like the cinema. Yes, I like the theatre.

I’ve signed up for a French class and today was my first lesson. As it wasn’t raining and considering that the place (Alliance Français) was near my office, I decided to leave the office at 6.00pm. The moment I hit the road, there was a huge, huge jam. For 20 minutes I sat patiently while my car moved 10 meters. The problem was, my class was supposed to start in 10 minutes time.

I got into class 10 minutes late. The teacher was a big genial guy who spoke with a French accent. I didn’t catch his name so I got to know later that his name is Ruffino (or feno for short).

I also missed the first joke of the class when he told the students that they must be disappointed to learn that a Malaysian is going to teach the class. But he ensured them that having a Malaysian is better because he will be more committed to the students as opposed to having a part-time French expatriate who:-
1. Can’t speak good english
2. Treat this as a by-the-way job

But having settled in quite nicely, I started to observe the class. I didn’t remember all of the names of the student but some did stand out Patrick (the young boy who has a problem pronouncing his “l”s and “r”s), Pixie (the girl who, well, looks like a pixie), Hanizah (because the Feno keeps calling her “anizah”- the French don’t pronounce the “h”, you see), Mala (who is one of the 2 Indian ladies in front of the class but I’m not too sure who’s who yet). Et deux de mes amis bon- Jennifer et Baset. There was also a Lithuanian private airline stewardess in the class. Can’t remember her name but both she and Baset were the only 2 foreigners in the class.

We were asked why we wanted to take up french. Unprepared for that question, I said the first thing that came to my mine- because I wanted to watch French films without the aid of subtitles. A pretty insignificant reason compared with some of the people who wanted to do it because they are thinking of relocating to France for professional reasons.

So what did we learn in the first lesson? Why bonjour, of course!

We learn salutations as well as words that would be use in the course of the lesson. These included words like écoutez (listen), repétez (repeat), lisez (read), écrivez (write), je ne comprends pas (I don’t understand), Je ne sais pas (I don’t know) and etc. (or as Feno would say ehhseahteweahwa)