I love to talk about writing! I took French 305 my spring semester of Freshman year which was the ultimate opportunity for me to expand my French writing skills. When I was in France I would joke that French is a "fraud" language because I only needed to use three of four tenses to get by. Sometimes I got frustrated with the fact that I learned so much about the language in school, but in reality only use so much of the grammar and writing rules that I have been taught. I use the conditional, future simple, past tense, and present tense the most. When it comes to forming complex sentences, I will use words such as que, qui, oú, and de to connect any idea onto another one. When I was in my senior year of high school and French 221, I found it difficult to use these pronouns and prepositions to form my ideas. Now, I use them all the time both when I write and speak. Word order in French is very weird and different. Not only do I have to consider the gender of the subject, but adjectives tend to go after what I am describing. That threw me off early on, but now I am used to this rule. I am at the point in my French "career" that now I ask questions like "why does it have to be this way?" (in terms of grammatical rules and structures). It just is.
I prefer to write on paper in the majority of circumstances. To be honest, I wouldn't be upset if we were still required to handwrite essays in school whether in French or English. Writing free hand helps me get a better grasp on learning French and Spanish as well. I have been journaling either before or after my biweekly meetings with Sara. Something that helps me with speaking French is writing in the language before our lessons. It's becoming more difficult for me to speak French because I'm learning Spanish simultaneously. Writing in French comes natural to me now. There are times where I think that I am forgetting French, but then when I sit down to free hand a French journal entry, everything comes out. It's very relieving.
My number one writing exercise is to free write. I will check my writing with google docs to see what I miss grammatically. This allows me to see which grammatical agreements I hit on the spot and the rules that I miss. Sometimes having a computer telling me what to do can be both overwhelming and less-productive for my learning.
Comments
It's evident that your journey with French writing has been both challenging and rewarding. The humor in referring to French as a "fraud" language due to the limited tenses needed for everyday communication adds a lighthearted touch. Your progression from frustration with complex sentence structures to now using pronouns and prepositions seamlessly showcases your growth.