Some Random Observations

The French still smoke cigarettes!  It surprises me that they do since they've adopted any number of other commonalities with our American experiences (kids with computer games, jogging, fast food are ones that come to mind as I type this).  But, they still smoke.  Which surprises me given that the French government seems so paternalistic (rules, rules, rules) and the fact that since there's "socialized medicine" the government is paying for future illnesses  arising from a cigarette smoking population.

Weather patterns.  We're here through mid-January, so we know we've signed up for colder weather than we get in LA.  We'd been envisioning it as somewhat like what we experience for during our annual Christmas time trip to NJ.  But, on those trips we're passive participants.  Siblings have to deal with snow, heat, etc.  We're along for the ride and delighted to be spending time with family, but we also know that ultimately it's their world and we'll soon be back on a plane to LA.  Not this year...  Recall my comments about dragging food through the streets of the city in a small cart?  We can only just imagine (and cringe) at what that's going to be like in 2 months.  It's also one of the reasons we're here -- to see if it's something we might do again.  So, we've got jackets and scarves and wool hats and heavy gloves.  I still assume we'll need all of them.  But, we do have a spot of hope...  At dinner the other night when we talked to the Dutch couple, the husband explained that the dominant weather pattern in Western Europe is a clockwise sweep of air that, for us, begins in the Mediterranean before making its way up the coast.  So, at least according to him, it will be temperate.  He advises that inland (e.g. Germany, Poland, etc.) they're exposed to the southbound side of the wind flows, meaning the air is cooled over the Arctic.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

I don't speak French well at all...  But, I'm halfway confident when I try, and someone (at Jim's last night) asked for advice.  I had three suggestions to help with the known difficulties (aka differences from English).  First, don't make the slightest effort to remember the gender of nouns.  Yes, here the nouns are masculine or feminine.  Windows are feminine, I think.  And, doors masculine.  OK, I don't actually have any idea whether windows are feminine or doors masculine. I do know that concept exists, but I'm not going to try to incorporate it into my language skills.  I'm sure that some of the time it will get me into trouble, or at least, keep me from being understood, but I'll pay that price! 

My second suggestion is to keep everything in the present tense.  E.g.  "I am here", versus "I will be here" or "I was here".  French has something like 16 tenses, each with different spellings for verbs.  I'd rather invest my language learning time on vocabulary.  Ha! (to my high school French teacher).

The third way I've streamlined my French language efforts is to largely ignore the casual/formal usage of the word "you".  Yes, there are both!!!  The informal one, "tu" is supposed to be reserved for very close friends and family.  "Vous" is for everyone else from casual friends, to co-workers, to revered older relatives.  Supposedly (according to my reading on this as well as high school French classes), there would be an actual agreement among people to move from using "vous" to using "tu" with each other.  Sort of a sign that "I really like you".  It's just easier to use "vous" for everyone.  You won't really get in trouble and it saves more of my limited bandwidth for French language learning.

Thanks for listening to my "observations" here...