Losing our fluency was my favorite section of this reading, it hit home with me. While I was not fluent in conversational French, my reading and writing skills were excellent. It was easy for me to articulate what I was reading, and extremely easy for me to understand what i was reading and then saying. However, this fall i had the opportunity to go to Paris for Fall break to visit some friends, and to say i was TERRIBLE at french was an understatement. When in Paris i stammered, i stuttered and i had no idea what i was saying, thinking or reading. I did my very best, after a few days i started to get the hang of it, but i still felt like an alien. I felt so lost because i could not articulate what i was thinking, fortunately french is not necessary, however it would have been nice to use the tools i spent so much time and effort learning.
I had a similar experience when in temple this year for the High Holidays. I sat down to read the prayers and follow along in the service, and I realized that I only knew the songs from memorizing them, my ability to read hebrew has lessened. This fact really upset me in the fall, and as a result, I have decided that starting this summer I will begin relearning the alphabet and letters in order to read better. I hope to travel to Israel this summer so this re-earning of hebrew will help me.
Losing fluency is difficult to come to terms with but quite easy to do.
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