Parlez vous Francais?

Oui! Je parle un peu du francais!

In preparation for our upcoming trip to Switzerland and Spain, I've been trying to dust off my very limited French language skills so that I can converse with Ben and Nadia's family, and so that we can get around more easily and not make any major cultural faux pas. It's interesting because in Switzerland, they speak both French and German, both of which I have a basic understanding, neither of which I am very fluent in, but based on the fact that Nadia speaks French only, or at least that's her primary language, I thought I'd work on French.

I've been listening to some free podcasts on my iPod whenever I get the chance, and I actually really like it. The woman who does the lessons has such a great French accent when she speaks English and she sounds so nice, that you just can't help but enjoy listening.

I've found that it's far more easy to understand French than to speak it. I hope that by the time we go for out trip that I will be able to hold a basic conversation about where I can introduce my family members, talk about where we live, talk about what our plans are while in Switzerland, and our plans to go to Spain.

So of course, I also have been learning Spanish, which makes 3 languages I'm not very good at :-P. Of the three, Spanish is the most difficult for me, I think because I learned a little French and German as a child, when learning is easier.

I'd dearly love to have Trent speak more than one language, and the only real way to do that is to talk to him in a foreign language all the time, which isn't feasible since I'm not fluent in anything. I really admire Marie's children, Amelia and Emily, who both speak Swedish, English, and French, and all at such an early age. What a huge advantage they will have over their peers.

Anyway, me souhaiter la bonne chance!