The Cat’s got my Tongue

kitty in cafe near the Eiffel Tour, June 2008

In the phonetics lab, this extremely kind lady attempted to teach me the French R. We must have been sight as we held our tongues with our fingers and pinched our noses and then tried to gurgle the letter R. I had a bit of a cold, so I probably did not need to pinch my nose to get the nasal sound and when I coughed I apparently pronounced the French R properly. Now that my cold is gone I continue to pretend I have a cold in hopes that one day a French person will understand me when I speak French. Many times I do try to speak and I get blank stares and they then break into English. I return the favor and speak slowly and in short sentences in English. I am finding that I even start speaking to native English speakers this way and in class I often cannot remember the proper English word and feel like the cat’s got my tongue! Argh!!!!!
The number four is one of my favorite numbers in French as it sounds like cat with a little purr at the end as "tra". Yes, I am one of those crazy cat persons. Another one of my favorite French questions is pronounced - "Oo a(long a) low?" Sounds like I am just about to break out in song doesn't it or maybe cooing a little bit? Where are the consonants? Written down this question would look as follows in French "Ou est l'eau?" It's looks like a song on paper as well. Translated this means "Where is the water?" There are probably not that many occasions to use this question it's just fun. I can't at this time think of an English question with vowels like this. Can you? I have some hard work ahead of me before I can fully understand and converse with someone. This was last week of the French language lessons and it makes me sad as I truly enjoyed meeting all the students from all over the world – Brazil, Spain, Japan, Korea, Germany, Mexico, Italy, Denmark and Russia. I feel like we just started to get to know each other and then we all had to leave each other. A bientot! See you later!

Purry Pairee Kitty!