It's stupid really. Just a department requirement. I took a reading class this summer, practiced a bit, but then it took forever to schedule the damn thing and I've forgotten all the words I learned. We tried to get them to pass a provision in the requirements to allow us to use a dictionary for the whole time instead of just part of the time which really sucks for me because I am good at the translation part, but bad at the reading part. plbbbth. Oh well. In good news, I met with my advisor today for my pre- exam list consultation and we had an excellent conversation. After four and a half years of course work all my shit is finally coming together and that feels good. And if anyone can recommend any good historical or political, critical and theoretical reading for the period 1940-1960's in America please let me know. It doesn't matter if it's liberal or conservative (as long as it doesn't lean too far either way), it just needs to be interesting and theoretically and methodologically sound. |
damn, that was 20 years ago. |
I can read the news in French. That's something. |
over here they force us to take french for at least 8 years, and I still can't remember more than a couple of words. whenever people speak french around me, I usually end up saying whatever french words I know, so it sounds something like this: "Bonjour! Quest que c'est? Je m'appelle... Bibliotech!" |
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I passed one part of the exam and failed the other part. The interesting thing is that I failed the translation (using a dictionary) and passed the reading (without a dictionary). I'm not surprised that I failed the first part as I knew I messed up a lot of the grammar, but I am shocked that I passed the second part. |
French is not very useful, unless you want to move up here and get a high-paying government job. And fuck the whole "le/la" masculine/feminine bullshit. It's so arbitrary. Here's the french part of a Reese Peanut Butter Cups package!- --------- 3 moules au beurre d'arachides Beurre d'arachides enrobe de PUR chocolate au lait Information Nutritionnelle par portion de 51g (3 morceaux) ------- I like some parts of french. I like how the translation of Egg Nog is "lait de Poulet", which means "chicken's milk". I like how potatoe is "pomme de terre", which means "apple of the earth". And grated parmesean cheese is "fromage rappe", so for years now, whenever they run out, my parents write RAPE on their grocery list. They think it's hilarious! ah, my parents.... Of course, a favorite of 3rd graders everywhere, those playfull creatures at Sea World that we would call a seal, in french is called "une fuque". Pronounced 'fuck' of course. |
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I knew French once, sorta. I wonder where it went. |
et vache! et voulez-vous! |
