The amount of time I spend in my car pains me. It's literally almost 2 hours per weekday (10 hours per work week, 400 hours per work year, dear Lord.) In previous years, therefore, I have spent those 400 hours listening to sadbastard music on repeat. I figure this can't have been good for my psyche.
Now, I am an old person in more ways than, say, the love of making pickles and jam and hanging clothes on a laundry line. Please give me nothing for my car that does not involve a compact disc: no podcasts, no rigging my Samsung to the speakers.
Since my only language-learning/re-learning goals involved French and Mi'kmaq, I figured the former would be the more likely to find on an audio disc. Thanks to eBay, I snagged these mp3 lessons:
These audio recordings, by the late Dr. Christopher Kendris, operate on a whole language acquisition philosophy. It takes on the form of him teaching two students a basic conversational understanding of French through teaching verb tenses and sentence structure, while also providing historical context and tricks to grammar rules. It leaves space for the listener to also make attempts at sentence construction, before confirming the correct phrasing.
I have already completed the Level 1 & 2 audio course, finding it very useful, for someone who already has a basic understanding of French - though I don't know that I would otherwise find it as useful. I re-imagined myself on many a road trip to Gaspé, through small rural French towns, trying to order a Subway sandwich, and now feeling both capable of anticipating questions and providing answers in complete French sentences, as opposed to my usual combination of broken French words and pointing. I even noticed myself dreaming in bits of French, and silently understanding pieces of conversations from the immersion students.
I intend to continue on with Level 3 advanced, as it's nice to feel as though I'm doing something remotely productive with the 400 hours a year that otherwise fade into the ether.
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