So on the one hand I've only been in Paris for two days. On the other I'm really finding my French language to be SO substantially worse than I'd expected, that I rather regret having come.
My brain does not seem to be able to reverse the order of my vocab words at all, so even something I can read quite easily like "Ou est la tour Eiffel?" is proving impossible for me to form on my own. Seriously, for 3 days I've been trying to recall the word for "where" and could not do it.
I knew my way of learning French -- by translating old plays and texts from the 18th century and earlier -- would leave me with a somewhat old fashioned vocabulary; but it's SO old fashioned that it's actually useless in totum. NOBODY talks even remotely like that anymore, and I can't even figure out basic tasks like how to operate a public telephone because Beaumarchais and Petit Albert don't even acknowledge the existence of a concept like "coin slot" or "dial the operator."
One big problem this is leading to, is that the art commune I had been hoping to get a place at and stay at can't seem to just tell me to arrive at a place (it's evidently not that unusual to not have a real address around here; I was getting convinced that the hostel I'm at was trying to kidnap me for similar reasons.) I need to call first. But I don't know enough French to be able to buy a temporary cell phone or to use a pay phone. (Seriously, European pay phones are weird; they don't even HAVE coin slots.)
So Paris is proving rather useless as just about everything I came here hoping to do requires the ability to actually talk to people, and I have not got that power.
My brain does not seem to be able to reverse the order of my vocab words at all, so even something I can read quite easily like "Ou est la tour Eiffel?" is proving impossible for me to form on my own. Seriously, for 3 days I've been trying to recall the word for "where" and could not do it.
I knew my way of learning French -- by translating old plays and texts from the 18th century and earlier -- would leave me with a somewhat old fashioned vocabulary; but it's SO old fashioned that it's actually useless in totum. NOBODY talks even remotely like that anymore, and I can't even figure out basic tasks like how to operate a public telephone because Beaumarchais and Petit Albert don't even acknowledge the existence of a concept like "coin slot" or "dial the operator."
One big problem this is leading to, is that the art commune I had been hoping to get a place at and stay at can't seem to just tell me to arrive at a place (it's evidently not that unusual to not have a real address around here; I was getting convinced that the hostel I'm at was trying to kidnap me for similar reasons.) I need to call first. But I don't know enough French to be able to buy a temporary cell phone or to use a pay phone. (Seriously, European pay phones are weird; they don't even HAVE coin slots.)
So Paris is proving rather useless as just about everything I came here hoping to do requires the ability to actually talk to people, and I have not got that power.
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Take care.
Yep, there's bound to be some expats, etc, who'd be happy to help. I'd check out a language school, where there are bound to be many transplants who've recently been through the same thing, plus some vets.
I also know some people in Paris, if you get desperate, they may be able to dispense some good advice.