Call me Monsieur Gregor Samsa, aujourd'hui. No, I didn't wake up as a cockroach, but as a yo-yo. Yesterday I was italiano, but today I'm distinctly français . At first I tried to control these spontaneous metamorphoses, but I've decided that it's useless to resist. My affection for French, Spanish, and Italian are equal--with a slight bias towards the latter. But I don't think I can completely abandon any of them.
The disadvantages of this infidelity are two-fold: 1) the hours I'm putting in for one language take away those I could be immersing myself in another and 2) since all three tongues are Latin-based and therefore somewhat similar, there's a danger of getting them confused. I've already experienced that with Italian and Spanish, languages in which many words only slightly differ.
I think what rolled me over to my French personality recently is that I'm finally beginning to feel a little better at comprehending more oral French. Watching Inspecteur Barnaby (the French dubbed version of 'Midsomer Murders,' one of my favorite British detective shows) recently, I was delighted to find that I was capturing more and more of the dialogue, instead of hearing only a word or two here and there. Since one of my main objectives for studying language has been to be capable of watching foreign films and TV shows in the original language without subtitles, this is a major breakthrough.
So, how did this step-up in fluency transpire? One thing that has contributed, I think, is that I've placed more emphasis on speaking. Ironically, speaking French somehow helps in recognizing the sounds of spoken French. And since I don't have access to any natives, my primary venue for speaking has been my library copy of Pimsleur's French instruction CD, which put a great deal of emphasis on speaking. That, coupled with reading French aloud, has made some inroads. This progress is very important, because if I have less difficulty with comprehension, this new-found skill will most definitely make me more confident to approach the next stage: speaking face-to-face with a native speaker on Sykpe or some equivalent audio-video platform.
So today I have on my chapeau. Tomorrow don't be surprised if I show up in a sombrero. I'm a man of many hats.
A la prochaine...
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