Mais non, je ne parle pas francais
I just passed my first anniversary of studying French on the DuoLingo app. According to DuoLingo, I’m now a Level 50 — just short of a judomaster in French — and I’m:
“Learning content aligned with the A2 level of CEFR. In real life this means you can handle simple conversations about daily topics.”
Well, non.
I can read simple French now — although, please God, pas de temps de verbe étranges, s’il vous plait — just keep it in good ol’ present tense and I’ll puzzle it out. That past imperfect tense or whatever does indeed make me tense.
But “simple conversations?” Uh uh. DuoLingo has a snotty little AI goth girl who pops up and wants to converse with me and while I can mostly understand what she’s saying, I haven’t a clue what to say back to her.
Meaning that, for only the second time in my life, I’m actually speechless.
(The first time I was 12 years old and found myself dumbstruck when meeting comics god Jack Kirby in person. I couldn’t even bear to look at him straight on.)
I should note that when I was at CarMax in April selling my previous car and awaiting paperwork, I met a woman of about my age studying French on the same app, and so I excitedly started to pick my way through some small talk with her, deploying my embarrassing hesitant Andy-Kaufman-Foreign-Man-level French language skills until she stopped me cold, saying, “I can’t speak any French.” So at least I could beat her. And she was a level 75!
I started taking up French last year because I was supposed to go to Montreal on a business trip, and by the time I didn’t go, I was already into the studies. It’s certainly brought something nicely quotidien to every morning and every evening, and on Sundays especially, as I race to ensure I’m not demoted (!) in the highly competitive ranks of learners. One week I didn’t pay enough attention to this app, and did find myself thrown down an escalier to a lower rank; it took me three weeks to climb back up to where I was. Duo is a cruel mistress.
I would have more to say about this, but it’s approaching midnight and, well, I have to tend to the app lest I get sent down again to the pit of l’enfer. After that, maybe I’ll read some Asterix comics in the original… well… vous savez.