Friday, January 25, 2008

Liaison

The hardest thing about about French so far is the Liaison. That is the "slurring" of words together. For example, "Qu'est-ce c'est?" (What is that) sounds like "keskuhsay". You have to pay a lot of attention to the Liaisons. If you miss one speaking to a French person they may not even understand you. That has happened a couple of times in class where the teacher didn't understand what we were saying because we missed the Liaison.

QUIZ question for you: As you may know French has masculine and feminine nouns. Therefore I pose the following question. If I would say, "I am an American", I would say. "Je suis americain (masculine)." But if I said, "My nationality is American" I would say "Ma nationalité est americaine (feminine)." Any know why please respond with a comment.

Angie is in the Living room watching Star Academy (the French version of American Idol) and Celine Dion was just on there as guest. The Lord blessed us in a special way. Andrew (1 1/2 years old) hurt his arm again last night. Back at Thanksgiving he dislocated his Radius bone at his Elbow. It happened again last night, when I was helping him up. We knew that is what it was because he was not using in the same way as when it happened last time. So today we planned on making the appointment with the Pediatrician that we use here, who speaks English. However when Angie arrived at the school this morning to ask them about making an appointment, the principal said that one of the Language students is a Doctor (medecin). It happened to be Ian whose daughter is in the class with Lilia. He looked at it, found out that it had already popped back into place and explained more stuff to us. It worked out great.

Micah and Caleb sat in class with us Thursday (juedi). They did real well, and I was proud of them, and shocked. They both have been going to school okay for us now. I did have a funny experience one day this week. I walked Caleb to his classroom door and let him in and walked away, thankful that it went well. Suddenly I felt a tug and there he was behind me in tears. He said, "Daddy that was the wrong classroom." Oops (oh la la). Thankfully he calmed down quickly and I again dropped him off, at the correct room. Thank you for taking time to read and God Bless (Dieu vous bénisse), JASON

3 comments:

mgribble said...

It has been 20 years since I have read or spoke french. I can remember those days of fustration for me tring to get a language that I thought that I would never use again. Ha Ha! Funny how God shows us that He gets the last word; no matter what the language. I think the answer to your question is: When you say I am american, american is an adjective of you. You are masculine, thus you must use masculine form. When you say My nationality is american, american describes nationality. Nationalities/countries are feminine, thus you must use feminine form. Let me know if I am right. I need to improve my french grade! Krys

Anastacia Maness said...

Glad there was a doctor who was able to help y'all with Andrew.
Poor Caleb, what class did you accidently drop him off at? :) I bet he won't let you do that again.

Unknown said...

The answer to your question from Krys is correct. Jason - here's one for you- while we were there, Mike took the french custom of carrying a sacoche. "UNE sacoche." I carried "UN sac." He carried a feminine purse while for me, the purse was masculine. We always found that funny. Especially when going places or in stores at the beginning, he would check all around, much the same as an older woman, and say, "Ou est ma sacoche?", "Where's my purse?"
It sounds like you guys are doing great! Things will get easier. I promise!!!!