French Lessons

This entry is well overdue and it should be in both English and French. But alias you won't see any bilingual entries for a while yet.

One of the key objectives of this adventure is for the family to learn a second language. The benefits of being multi-lingual is undervalued by the NZ educational system and we believe that it will be very beneficial for our kids to be multi-lingual.

The kids have had a few lessons on how French sounds and have been learning key words, days of week etc. Mum and Dad have been learning about grammar basics, for example: verbs, which has been very interesting. Note: in this context "interesting" should be pronounced "difficult" or when applying to the masculine as "really difficult". Mona, our teacher has been very patient with us - she is a real star.

To give you an example of what we are up to, here is the basic context that I'm still trying to memorise:

to have	avoir		to be	etre
I have	j'ai		I am	je suis
you have	tu as		you are	tu es
he has	il a		it/ he is	il est
she has	elle a		it/ she is	elle est
we have	nous avons		we are	nous sommes
you have	vous avez		you are	vous etres
they have	ils ont		they are	ils sont
they have	elles ont		they are	elles sont

to have not	avoir		not to be	etre
I	je n'ai pas		I	je ne suis pas
you	tu n'as pas		you	tu n'es pas
she	il n'a pas		she	il n'est pas
he	elle n'a pas		he	elle n'est pas

Well we have 11 months - lets see what happens!