I should be fluent by now.

Today was the last day of my French class. For the past four weeks, Monday through Friday I have struggled to relearn French.

Here are some depressing observations:

·      I began learning French in nursery school (“College begins at Two”). Several times a week, a nice lady would come to class and teach us basic words and phrases. Sometimes we played Bingo for candy.

I guess we also learned the Can-Can

·      That was 36 ½ years ago, an observation that in itself is depressing.

·      The last French class I took was French 6 at UCLA during my doctoral program. Theoretically that meant I was able to do primary research in French. That class was in 2004. Or maybe it was 2003. It could be that my memory for dates and my memory for French have been similarly compromised by my advancing age.

·      The last time I spoke French was in France in 2005, and I was more than capable of carrying on a conversation. I bought train tickets, I joked with the owner of a restaurant, and I carried on a lengthy conversation in a garage in Burgundy with a wine maker.

·      Now after 4 weeks of daily 3-hour classes, I am no better off than I was in high school. Forget the ability to read French, I can barely form grammatically correct sentences. 36 ½ years of exposure to a language and I’ve got bupkis…or rather, “rien.”

Whiny Dog tries to explain when to use L'Imparfait and when to use Passé Composé.