Learning French for My Visit to Canada

When my husband and I started to plan our trip to Canada, I realized that I would be going to a country that speaks French, aside from English. I have always been an admirer of this language, because of its beautiful, unique sound. It does have a different appeal to the ear, and sounds utterly sexy, if you may.

With all the excitement of traveling and seeing my brother and his family in mind, one more thing was making the trip more thrilling for me. You guessed it: French speaking.

Even before our Canadian visas landed on my hands (it being a requirement for a non-Citizen), I already trooped to a reliable bookstore for a French Dictionary. I found one, on sale at that. Aside from it being a dictionary, it included ready sentences, phrases and other things --all in French with English translation. I went home excited with my new find and could almost hear myself speaking in a new language, a little amateurish, but with equal panache.

So like a dutiful student, I took my pen and journal to start jotting down commonly used French words and phrases. This would come handy in Canada, I thought.

Like any other language course, the book had an introduction of its vowels and consonants. It appeared difficult because with the letter "a" alone, the book states three different ways of pronouncing it, based on how the letter was written (like with different fonts) or the accent symbol on top of the vowel. Eager as I was, I braved the challenge. I was imagining myself being able to converse eloquently with store clerks once I set foot in that country. And they would not have the slightest hint that I did a self-study. Ambitious me.

I went on daily, devoting at least an hour for my French lessons. The consonants were just as tricky with all the different "look" some letters appear to don themselves. To top it all, many words were spelled lengthily, yet many of the letters were "silent". Of course, this would drive a beginner like me to sheer madness. Why in the world would they put all of these letters in these words, when in the first place, they know that they would not pronounce them anyway?