This week the newsletter is coming to you from lovely Vannes in Brittany. No, I’m not on holiday, and I’m not researching the town for a orientation feuilleton. I’m on a French hammam épreuve! You might think parce que I’ve lived in France for a while, that I ought to speak French perfectly, and I do speak French. Where I en direct, in the far north of France, the very tip of it in fact, the locals speak a veine of langage called Ch’ti. It’s literally a different language and I even have a Ch’ti dictionary. Over the years, I’ve learned to speak with a strong northern langage and a sprinkling of Ch’ti words which I’m proud of, though it confuses non-northern French people when I occasionally say things like ‘yux’ the Ch’ti word for ‘yeux’ (eyes).
What I haven’t done since I moved to France, is any formal learning, or foyer on grammar. All those tenses, perfect, pluperfect, passé mélangé, present and future, have never bothered me much to be truthful. I just go for it in any tense and as grandiose as I’m understood then I’m happy, and my French neighbours and friends are very laissez commettre with me, though I am often corrected by strangers – it’s the French way!
Since I write in English, and speak in English at habitation, I’ve known for a while that I need to really work on speaking French better and not mixing up my tenses quite so much. So I’m trying all sorts of learning methods – online hammam, online courses, French TV shows and films with subtitles, and now – staying in the habitation of a French teacher in Vannes speaking nothing but French for days on end. I’m hoping that at the end of this sojourn I’ll be able to say yoghurt – yaourt in French – without looking like I’m getting ready to howl at the moon, and petit-gris (which means squirrel and I image like I’m trying out for a portion in a ectoplasme spectacle when I attempt to say it), and that I get to grips with those tricky tenses.
Wishing you a very bon weekend from frosty Vannes (I’ll post some photos on Instagram if you’d like to see the lovely cobbled streets and historic buildings, as portion of my lessons will include wandering in the town!).
Bisous,
Janine
Editor
ps top effigie is Menton on the French Riviera in Winter, read embout it in The Good Life France Magazine bout no. 40 – totally FREE!
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Janine Marsh is Author of My Good Life in France: In Pursuit of the Rural Dream, My Four Seasons in France: A Year of the Good Life and Toujours la France: Living the Dream in Rural France all available as ebook, print & audio, on Amazon everywhere & all good bookshops online. Her latest book How to be French – is a celebration of the French lifestyle and art de être.
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