Learning a new language at the age of 67!!

Going back to school at my age is a challenge! I am loving my French language course, but gosh!, I am completely suffering from brain fatigue every night. It is an effort just to think!!

The course is intensive, but I already notice results in that I can understand more when I read, and I can now understand how to use a past tense and a future tense of the main verbs. However, I am still very frustrated in that I can't hear the individual words when I listen to the French speak. They all seem to speak soooooo fast.

We already had a written comprehension test, and I did very well on the verbs, but where I am falling down is on 'the little words'... le and les, de la, des, au, aux, en, à, etc. So I have to do more work on 'prepositions' and how to use them.

But the more I learn, the more I realise I have to learn!! Five weeks of French lessons is not even touching the surface. I already told Peter I want to do this again next year!!

Peter has been very supportive...

He has been shopping, cleaning, doing the dishes, and going to the markets (as well as attending to 'barge' needs, i.e. filling the water tank, sweeping the deck of leaves, etc. And each day, when I get off the train at 5:37, he is waiting for me at the train station, and carries my books back to the barge (300 metres away.) And when we get back on the barge, he pours me a much needed glass of wine!!!

On Thursday evening, he cooked the fish he had bought at the markets (he made Trout Mueniere) and it was extremely good.

And on Friday, the train station intercom accounced my train would be an hour late... so I went back to the barge and Peter drove me into Toulouse so I would not be late for school. (Unfortunalely, on the way back to the barge from Toulouse, he pulled off the road to make a U turn and hit a rock which demolished the catalytic converter attachment point under the car... a VERY EXPENSIVE little exercise!)