A breakthrough.

A breakthrough occured today. A lady asked me for directions while I was walking the boys home from School. I knew where she was trying to get to and was able to help her, all in French. Awesome. In other news, Micah and Caleb are going on a field trip tommorrow, to the woods. You know you are living in the city if the kids go on a field trip to the woods. Now for the weather, Roads had icy patches this morning, Angie slipped and fell, (sprained ankle and jammed thumb), chance of precipition tonight is 100%, current conditions are 93% humidity, temperature 43, wind from SW at 28 mph, windchill 34 degrees. Chance of snow tommorrow night. JASON

Homework, Dallas, and Dumplings

By ANGIE

Today we had Jen and Davis, Tova and Elami over. We were going to work on our homework together. At the end Davis said, "Well we got done in 2 hours together what we could have gotten done in 30 minutes alone." You know because of the kids and all. It was funny. But Jen said at least we got to hear it out loud some that's always good. She was a little sad to leave so soon but Davis was ready to get home and lay Elami down, she was ready for a nap. Jen also needed to get to the store today. She and I discussed maybe walking or jogging together. She already jogs after schools for 20-30 minutes. Maybe I could tag along.

So last night at Cora, the grocery store- I went to the guy cashier because he is kind and he smiles and not many of the women I've been to do. He laughed when i answered that i was from Texas. Everyone here has the view of texas they got from watching JR Ewing ? on Dallas. you know big cowboy hat and all.

Today I may try and make brownies. I attempted chicken and dumplings the other day and they turned out good- I didn't think they would be halfway through, but Jason thought they were the best I ever made. I said, "Well the food is supposed to be better in France." (or at least some think so) I wasn't sure it would work because the shortening that I used I bought by accident. Until I bought it I didn't think they had it here. It was in a rectangle package refrigerated and said "Fries" on it with a picture. It also said 100% vegetable but I guess fries are 100% vegetable too. Any way I'm glad I found it so I could make dumplings.

My Chicken had feathers.

I bought a frozen chicken from the store the other day, and when I unwrapped it, it still had some feathers. Interesting. Something even more amazing happened today. I saw a pickup-truck. It was just a Nissan, but it was the first one I have seen since being here.

When I dropped Caleb off to school today, a crowd of boys gathered chanting his name, the way the French say it. It was cool. There are several aspects of language learning that are very difficult and humbling.

1. Everyone talks to you like you were a two year old and you answer them back the same way.

2. Your children correct your pronunciation. Lilia told me yesterday, "It's nasal dad."

3. You think of words in other languages as well. Angie and I still find the Spanish word coming to mind.

I know there are several that others could add. Here is another quiz question for you. French has the same amount of vowels in their alphabet as English does, but how many vowel sounds do they have? Attached in one of our teachers (Regine) and a few of our fellow students. Thanks for keeping up, and God Bless, JASON

Dangerous Questions

BY ANGIE
So today in class we were repeating interrogative sentences and affirmative sentences to get the hang of how it should sound. For example the sentence Ca va? is a question or Ca va. an answer. So just as in English you raise your voice at the end of a question and lower your voice on the answer. So we were practicing a lot of sentences like this and each time the question and the following statement would get longer and longer. The sentences were made up of some vocabulary we had not yet learned, but that didn't matter because we were just working on how it sounded. At the end though, the teacher had us ask questions of one another and it started with me. It could be questions from the page or just other questions we already knew. So, Jason- in all his wit began with "Tu adore ta mari?" (Do you adore your husband.) "Oui." I answered "Tu as quatre enfants?" (You have four children?) "Oui." I answered. Then it went on to other students and then one student Mel asked another student one that we did not really understand and the teacher had to explain to us the meaning- so that it could be answered. (and when I say explain, I really mean the teacher acted it out more like charades). Then it was Mel's turn to be asked -so as quick as Jason could, he read out the longest question on the paper (kind of in return for her asking the long hard one to the other student ) . "A quelle heure vous passerez nous prendre?" Only it turned out after the teacher's explanation (charade) - Jason said, "So I just asked her, "What time are you going to pick me up to go to the movie." The whole class roared with laughter and Jason said, "Well this is awkward. Those are some dangerous questions."

The UPS guy drives a mercedes.

It is weird to see the UPS guy and all the big trucks being Mercedes. Here if someone has an American made car they are usually thought of as being rich, examples that I have seen are Pontiac Firebird, PT Cruiser, Hummer, Cadillac. They are several Ford cards sold here. They have some European commercials that you may (or may not) find funny. Examples http://youtube.com/watch?v=aJGtCe_26EQ http://youtube.com/watch?v=X-MZaV9uz6M CULTURAL WARNING: These are european commercials - content is not for animal lovers, or those with light stomachs!! Another cultural thing, We have a couple of German students in our class. We are always picking on them about having beer in their water thermos in class. Another student bought a beer and poured it in his thermos while he was out on break. I wasn't there we he returned and got a drink, but they said he was suprised.

Another funny word today, the French word for a dresser is commode. So, you put your clothes in a commode. There was another humerous moment, but I will let Angie share that one. Another strange thing: Words here as I said earlier are masculine or feminine. We found out today that the word feminine is masculine, try and make sense of that. I had to pray in French today. After I finished, I looked at the teacher to see what comment she had. She said," Wow". There was a moment of silence as the students, including me, didn't know how she meant it. Another student said, "Did God understand it?" She did end up meaning it positively.

Congrats, Krys (we see your name everywhere, it is a chain optometry store here, spelled the same way) for answering the last quiz, question. I will do more of those later. We had good services Sunday, attendence of 9, including my family. Angie and I both have been having many people come up to us and speak french, so we must be adapting some. We are learning more and more. JASON

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

Psalm 23

We read this in Chapel and it was nice, even thought I can't read it that well, yet. Note: 45% of English is from French. It is interesting.

Psaumes 23 - Psaume of David
1. L'Eternel est mon berger: je ne manquerai de rien.
2. Il me fait reposer dans de verts pâurages, Il me dirige près des eaux paisibles.
3. Il restaure mon âme, Il me conduit dans les sentiers de la justice, a cause de son nom.
4. Quand je marche dans la vallée de l'ombre de la mort, Je ne crains aucun mal, car tu es avec moi: Ta houlette et ton bâton, voilà mon réconfort.
5. Tu dresses devant moi une table, En face de mes adversaires; Tu oins d'huile ma tête, Et ma coupe déborde.
6. Oui, le bonheur et la grâce m'accompagneront tous le jours de ma vie, Et je reviendrai dans la maison de l'Eternel pour la durée de mes jours.


JASON