Thursday, August 20, 2009

The Language Question: Napoleon's Revenge

Last night, I spent an ungodly amount of time squeezing out a letter in French it would have taken me about three minutes to write in English. And if a real Francophone ever read it (in other words, anything but a product of Ontario's lax commitment to French Immersion) it would probably read like mad libs. Or some translations of anime movies. Or a Nigerian bank scam.

But after hours, or rather minutes, of double checking the gender of every second word in an online dictionary, I'm proud, damn it. Although it's yet another reason to sign up for French classes instead of Russian lessons. With French classes, I would be able to formulate a coherent letter requesting repairs to my apartment... theoretically. Or at least be able to request directions to the nearest affordable and clean hotel. With Russian, I could... read War and Peace in the original? Try and pick up a chess player in the park so we could discuss ontology as foreplay? I need someone to champion the Russian language here, people.

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