Entry #3 : Diving in !

My second day at GEOS Languages Plus went just as well as my first day. My schedule was exactly the same as the previous week so from 13:00 to 14:30, I was in room #6 for grammar class and from 14:45 to 16:15, I was in room #5 for conversation class. I thought it would be great to stay in the lounge for the first 30 minutes since I got to hear great conversations the week before. I sat with a boy I had met in my grammar class. We talked in English since his french wasn't very strong. I tried once to talk to him in Spanish (he's from Brazil, so Spanish is his first language) but he barely understood anything. It was pretty funny !

After that, he left and I listened at the conversations around me. Right behind me, there was few students from different nationalities who were having a discussion about how they perceived French people. They said we were too serious and cold compared to Latin-American people who were very friendly. I thought it was pretty interesting to hear their point of view. I never thought French people were cold but maybe it can be different for people who lived in other cultures. It might be because of their habits or their manner of seeing the word ''cold''. I also realized that the students whom native tongue was French have a better accent than the others. Those whom native tongue is Spanish are also quite good with the accent but they seem to have a hard time pronouncing the ''th'' sound. Actually, from my point of view, people who have Spanish or French as their first language definitely have a better accent for English than Japanese, Korean or Chinese. That might be explained by the fact that Latin languages have more in common with Germanic languages than the languages from East-Asia. 

Noticing those kind of things gives me a little more confidence into my learning skills because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have ever thought of those things before starting the program. I think it proves that I'm making progress and that I'm equating the theory. 

There's one thing I realized about Anglophone culture after listening to so many different conversations : English people seem to compliment each other a lot. In the office, everyone is always really polite but still familiar. I heard a lot of people taking to their colleagues with nicknames and shooting compliments all the time. That's something you don't see too much in a French working environment. 

Also, I did learn some English words during the time I was doing some administration. For example, the word ''jork'' means ''tiroir'' in French, ''file'' means ''dossier'' and ''photocopier'' means ''photocopieur''. The last one seams obvious because the translation is practically the same but if you don't know it ... Well, I could you know it ?

Make sure to come on my website again really soon to have feedback of my next visits at GEOS !

Bye