{"id":5748,"date":"2014-10-15T11:39:19","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T15:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/?p=5748"},"modified":"2014-10-15T11:39:19","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T15:39:19","slug":"fun-with-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/fun-with-french\/","title":{"rendered":"Fun with French"},"content":{"rendered":"

Learning a language while cruising can be a fun way to enhance your interactions with the locals\u00a0 (published January 2014)<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen and then repeat: \u201cBonjour.\u201d \u201cBon Jour.\u201d — Beep –.
\nI am hard at work studying French using Rosetta Stone on my laptop with headphones, while tucked in at the nav station. Sinbad<\/em> is anchored in Marigot Bay, St. Martin for the third time in two years. Soon we\u2019ll head south to Guadeloupe and Martinique, and in a year or two maybe into the Pacific to French Polynesia.<\/p>\n

We enjoy talking to the local people, and learning French will make our visits more interesting and fun. Each day I listen, repeat and take quizzes for an hour or so, and have made slow but steady progress. I\u2019m ready to unleash my French skills onto the unsuspecting populace of Marigot.<\/p>\n

\"DSCN0365\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Randy takes a different approach. He stands politely, smiling charmingly at the ladies working the deli section of the U.S. Market. Saying \u201cBon Jour,\u201d he points and gestures to get tastes and servings of the mouthwatering cheeses, p\u00e2t\u00e9s and sausages that he loves. The ladies cheerfully teach him the names of the delicacies he buys and they always smile and wave a friendly goodbye when he leaves. I\u2019m sure he could get a date if he tried.<\/p>\n

While I browse the straw market in Marigot, Randy enjoys a glass of wine at the Brasserie de la Gare in Marina Royale on the lagoon. The cheerful proprietress has befriended him and is teaching him French, one word at a time. It goes something like this (I write it phonetically so that you can learn French too!):<\/p>\n

Randy: Mare-see Bo-kew!
\nShe: Oh, you say like this\u2026mare-see bo- coo. Thank you very much. You see, mare-see bo-kew means \u201cnice butt!\u201d
\nRandy (delighted): Mare-see. Thanks!
\nShe: De rien. (You\u2019re welcome.)
\nRandy (tries repeating the new word): Deri\u00e8rre. (\u201cBehind.\u201d)
\nShe: Ehhh, oui\u2026. (Ah, well\u2026)
\nRandy:\u00a0 Mare-see bo-coo and bo-kew!
\nShe: bursts into laughter<\/p>\n

I practice on the ladies who work at the bakeries where I buy our baguettes, fresh fruit tarts and other tasty bites. They demand a high standard of correctness in the use of the French language and they correct me in a friendly way nearly every day. I carefully rehearse in my mind, constructing my sentences and refining my pronunciation. I order in French, and each time they respond in English. It\u2019s just as well because I have not mastered counting euros in French. For instance, the way to say \u201cseventy\u201d is literally \u201csixty and ten\u201d. I think they\u2019ve guessed that I\u2019m not just off the plane from Paris.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easier to learn the language when you are immersed in it. When I walk into the post office to buy stamps for my postcards, I can say, \u201cI would like to buy six \u2026 for postcards to the United States,\u201d but I don\u2019t know the word for \u201cstamps.\u201d As I stand in line, my eyes rove around the post office lobby and I\u2019m able to figure out the word I need by studying the displays of the new stamps, stamp posters, etc. The transaction is successfully completed with no quizzical looks from the clerk.<\/p>\n

Later, we\u2019re standing outside a patisserie in Gustavia, St. Barths, having just been schooled by the pastry lady during my order of a peach \u201ctartine.\u201d We\u2019re chatting with a gentleman outside who was born here and returned here after a long career working in the States. I laugh about trying to communicate with the pastry ladies in French. Helpfully, he informs me that almost everyone here speaks English. I smile and tell him that I\u2019m trying to learn French and need to practice on his countrymen. He is surprised and pleased.<\/p>\n

With my ancient high school German (\u201cIch bin ein Berliner\u201d) and rusty Tarzan Spanish (\u201cMe Diane, me want taco\u201d), my efforts to speak with people in their own language are almost always welcomed with humor and encouragement. The hardest part is getting over the shyness and just going for it. Americans are generally not celebrated for our multilingual abilities and I\u2019d like to put a little dent in that stereotype.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve enjoyed making slow but gradual progress in speaking and understanding French. We are currently in Antigua, a land of Anglophones, but I\u2019m continuing my studies in preparation for the assault on Martinique.<\/p>\n

\"DSCN4867\"<\/a>\u00a0 Listen and then repeat: \u201cAu revoir.\u201d \u201cAu revoir.\u201d — Beep –.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Learning a language while cruising can be a fun way to enhance your interactions with the locals\u00a0 (published January 2014) Listen and then repeat: \u201cBonjour.\u201d \u201cBon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":5749,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[71,34,192],"class_list":["post-5748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cruising-news","tag-caribbean","tag-cruising","tag-diane-gorch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5748"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5752,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5748\/revisions\/5752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bwsailing.com\/bw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}