Last month, we switched to once-a-month reports of how our French schooling is going. This is the biggest ministry outside of our family right now, and we are excited to report on our progress this month!

We are now one month into our new semesters. Allen is in the Intermediate class with three other students and I am in Advanced with one other student. The small class size makes for very personalized education, lots of time for questions, and a relaxed (but focused) atmosphere.

Our Bible class this term is focused on names and places. For example, in the French Bible, Stephen’s name is Étienne. The Dead Sea is la Mer Morte. And most names, if they aren’t changed in spelling, are pronounced different. Aaron, for example, is pronounced Ah-ah-ron; you say both of the “a”‘s. So reading a French Bible (especially out loud) takes lots of practice and patience!

In our Bible classes, we’re practicing reading and translating parts of scripture to make sure we’re pronouncing and understanding things correctly. Interested in seeing some? We read this passage yesterday in class. We’ve also each learned four different verses/passages of Scripture.

Allen’s class has focused on telling time, weather, and speaking in past tense (passé composé). He can now describe the weather from Tuesday (97* Farenheit and perfectly blue sky), tell what time it last rained, and describe what we did last weekend (started celebrating my birthday!). His favorite thing so far this semester? Learning passé composé. Being able to talk correctly about the past is critical!

I’ve been learning about imparfait (which is another way to talk about the past), using “y” and “en” to replace places and quantities (such as saying, “I went there, too” instead of saying, “I went to the Chattanooga zoo, too”) and negations (no one, nothing, never, etc.). My favorite part so far is figuring out sentence structure – when things are correct, French just flows.

Much like the professor’s French does in this video:

Allen and I were just cracking up watching this last night. Our instructors are NOTHING like this, but we can totally relate to trying to say things correctly over and over and STILL not getting it right!

Thanks for encouraging us through this language learning process – it’s fun and exhausting and everything in between!