French in Spanish

So I'm taking French classes here in Ponferrada at La Escuela Oficial de Idiomas. Reason number one for taking the class was to take up time. I get bored easily if I'm not constantly doing something so I figured four hours of French class a week was a productive way to waste time. Reason number two was to learn a new language. I would like to be multi-lingual, plus I enjoy languages and I've been missing sitting in class (yeah, it's weird but I miss college!).

So I enrolled in the school of languages for a measly tuition of 70 euros (for a whole year of language class that is pretty cheap). I've been going for two weeks now and so far I can say the alphabet (kind of), say "Hello, I'm Jeremy," "I'm a student," "I live in the United States," "I don't know," and "I don't understand."

The problem is that my pronunciation is terrible. I don't know why, but my mouth just won't spit it out pretty. Granted, I've only been in the class for 2 weeks and hopefully I will improve but it's just frustrating me right now. I have the most trouble with, "J'habite aux Etats-Uni." "I live in the United States." Because United States is plural you have to do this crazy thing where the "zzzzz" from the end of "aux" combines with the "E" from "Etats" and the "zzzz" from the end of "Etats" combines with "Uni." Jabeet o Zetat Zuni. Is what it's supposed to sound like I guess. That's the closest way I can write it using English sounds. Of course I'm the only one in the class from the U.S. so everyone else gets to say the easy "J'habite a Espagne."

But I suppose I am enjoying the class. I like to learn and I like to study language. I just wish we could skip all this boring phrases stuff and start learning vocabulary words and conjugating verbs. That's the language dork in me. But the language teacher in me knows that without a proper foundation within the language the later (less boring) stuff wouldn't make as much sense and I wouldn't be able to communicate right away as I can now. (Hey, if I'm lost in France any time soon at least I can tell them my name, that I'm a student, and that I live in the US.)

I think the coolest thing about the class is that 85% of it is in Spanish. The teacher explains the concepts in Spanish, answers questions in Spanish, and translates French words into Spanish. So at the same time that I am learning French, I get to practice Spanish. So far my brain hasn't gotten confused translating between 3 languages and I'm pretty amazed at my brain's ability to think in Spanish and translate French into Spanish without having to use English. The teacher did ask me to say something in English during the second class (it was something to do with the English vowels being complicated). It took me a second to be able to say something in English, lol. I just said "My name is Jeremy." The class made a kind of "uwwwww, English sounds difficult" sound.

I guess I think being multi-lingual will make me cool. People who speak multiple languages are definitely cool in my book. The experience is also confirming my ambition to continue to grad school. Five more years of schools sounds kinda nice right now (haha, we'll see what I'm saying when I'm having to write more BS papers).

Anywho, all this thinking has made me discover why Spaniards can't say my name right. Jeremy involves two different sounds of the vowel "e." The first being "eh" and the second "e" sounding "uh." Jehruhmee. The "r" kinda slides into both "e's" in the correct pronunciation. In Spanish, each vowel only makes one sound, and that's the only sound it will ever make. It makes life much simpler. "E" is always "eh." I'll have to research it more someday, but I don't think the Spanish "r" slides as much as the English one. So in Spanish my name is pronounced, Jeh-reh-mee. With and emphasis placed on the first syllable.

Like English, French has multiple vowel sounds. Luckily, in English I just automatically know which sound the vowel makes. In French, I'm having to learn all the rules, like if a vowel is before a single nasal (n or m) the air only comes out the mouth. Or if "e" is accented like "é" it sounds "eh" but if it's "è" it sounds "uewh" or some weird crap like that, and your lips have to poke out.

It's going to be an adventure, but learning French in Spanish will be very rewarding, I think.

jeremy