Learning french

Bonjour!

I'm determined to learn french well. I met lots of patients from African countries who spoke french in my GP placement and I hated not being able to understand their conversations with the GP (who spoke very good french). Many other reasons to learn french: it's (one of the) language of love, it's one of the official languages within the UN and it is my secret ambition to work one of the African countries one day. I'd also like to visit France once my conversational French is up to the minimum standard.

We've just started with the alphabets, numbers, self introduction and some of the other basics. It was a real pleassure to learn a new language. Repeat after the teacher. Watch the spelling. I have almost forgotten how long did I took for me to feel comfortable using English. In lesson, I met my old self: feeling insecure, shy, reluctant to speak, and fear making mistakes, and envious of the other students who were better than me. But as I say I want to learn it well and I am revising it every day.

I really like pronoucing 'r' from the throat. But it's very hard, dismantling and rebuiliding the part of the brain which makes the connection between the visual 'r' and the motor action of the tougue to make the 'arrr' sound. Had to consciously stop myself and say 'r' from my throat each time I see the letter in a word.

And I didn't know there's even a french way of saying Malaysia! (Malasie)

Au revoir.