It’s already been a little over 4 weeks since I arrived in France, and I can’t believe my program is almost over and I will be on a plane home by the end of the week. The last couple of weeks have been filled with good food and beautiful sights, especially on the excursions … Saint-Malo, Mont Saint-Michel, Chateau de Chenonceau, Forteresse royale de Chinon, and La Rochelle to name a few. I have also been taking classes daily at the Institut de Touraine: a language school where I’ve been learning French. I think it has really helped me with my listening comprehension skills. When I first arrived, I had a lot of trouble understanding conversational French, but now I understand almost everything that people are saying to me even though I still get flustered very easily. While although my French isn’t perfect, I’m confident I could get by in daily-life situations which is honestly so amazing knowing my language skills have improved so much in just a month. I have a great teacher and class, so I think that has also helped me a lot. I have moved levels twice now trying to find the right level and class.
On another note, I think staying with a host family with other students has also been helpful for my French and just to have people who I know I can walk to school with or can relate with me. While my host mom is very strict and traditional, she cooks very well and helps to constantly expose me to French. I always try to always speak French when I am at home, but my lack of vocabulary makes it a little difficult sometimes since most of my vocabulary was learned in a classroom. I realized I was missing a lot of extremely common daily-life words and phrases we don’t usually learn in the classroom.
