{"id":12876,"date":"2026-04-17T19:38:51","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/?p=12876"},"modified":"2026-04-17T20:16:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T08:16:34","slug":"pardon-my-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/17\/pardon-my-french\/","title":{"rendered":"Pardon my French."},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been learning French for 45 years now, and I\u2019m making slow but steady progress.
\nI\u2019m no longer confused about verb tenses, but whether they are indicative or subjunctive. At this rate I shall be fluent by the time I\u2019m ninety, longevity and dementia permitting.
\nMy earliest learning was at high school. Everyone used to learn two languages for the first couple of years, French and Latin for the top stream, and French and Te Reo M\u0101ori for the rest. It seems fantastical now, can it be that I\u2019m remembering this wrongly? Well, at least Te Reo was available (assuming I\u2019m remembering correctly), when my daughters were at high school it wasn\u2019t even an option.
\nOne early lesson that I remember vividly was \u201cQu\u2019est-ce qu\u2019il y a dans le panier?\u201d,<\/em> or \u201cWhat is there in the basket?\u201d which was an excuse to make us memorise things that you might take on a picnic, but which now sounds a lot more intimidating to my ears, as something you might hear snarled at you by a customs officer (or douanier<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Most of my studies these days are virtual, on various podcasts or on Duolingo. I did used to have a weekly zoom lesson with a native French speaker, but last March I realised we hadn\u2019t had a lesson since before Christmas, and by then it was too embarrassing to get back in touch (I thought you\u00a0<\/em>were going to ring\u00a0me).<\/em> It\u2019s a bit of a shame as she was lovely and she charged me a criminally low amount (I did try to pay her more but she refused).<\/p>\n

Anyway, I\u2019ve been putting extra hours into Duolingo and it\u2019s mostly pretty good. There is the occasional boo boo though. A few weeks ago it asked me to translate these English phrases into French:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s OK, everyone has the odd bad day and it didn\u2019t bother me. More worrisome was a conversation I had with one of the characters last week. For context, she\u2019s a harmless granny type character called Lucy with the backstory of being some sort of international spy when she was younger. I was already feeling a little unnerved because she\u2019d casually mentioned the fact that I was a doctor and that I liked to take my dogs Max and Maggie on walks to the beach near my house. Then the conversation got onto passwords.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Here she is asking if I\u2019ve ever had a funny password. I replied that I didn\u2019t want to talk about passwords, and she said that was fine, but then just kept going:<\/p>\n

\"\"Here she\u2019s asking if I use a manager for passwords (a list I store somewhere I assume, or when your device remembers them for you) or do I prefer to remember them myself? Well, I didn\u2019t like where this dialogue was going at all so I bailed as soon as I could (without losing any of the points I\u2019d already earned). Maybe I\u2019m being paranoid but does this seem right to you? I suppose even AI characters have to put food on the table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been learning French for 45 years now, and I\u2019m making slow but steady progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8Ukf-3lG","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6879,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2021\/09\/13\/in-other-words\/","url_meta":{"origin":12876,"position":0},"title":"In other words","author":"Interloper11","date":"September 13, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"The polymath brain surgeon I\u2019m working with today is showing me up on the language front once again. Already fluent in Italian and passable in Spanish, the last time I spoke to him he was brushing up on his French and already far more advanced than I was after four\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/6E0C2DD4-32E5-4F24-BB32-363082D9BA39.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/6E0C2DD4-32E5-4F24-BB32-363082D9BA39.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/6E0C2DD4-32E5-4F24-BB32-363082D9BA39.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5452,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/14\/brush-up-your-french-the-first-in-an-occasional-series\/","url_meta":{"origin":12876,"position":1},"title":"Brush up your French – the first in an occasional series","author":"Interloper11","date":"September 14, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"As part of my decades long struggle to master the French language, I do enjoy reading old fashioned textbooks from time to time. Here is one I really like. \u00a0 It was first printed in 1930, when life was much simpler than it is now. Well, they didn\u2019t have coronavirus\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/DE26EC74-7416-48C9-83D7-FC381890E073-e1600068202326.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10139,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/23\/not-to-be-confused-with\/","url_meta":{"origin":12876,"position":2},"title":"Not to be confused with","author":"Interloper11","date":"May 23, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"A quick post in honour of the French president\u2019s visit to New Caledonia, also considered to be part of France. As an aside, wasn\u2019t our visit there earlier this year extremely well timed? We didn\u2019t notice any unrest when we were there but since we spent most of our time\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/IMG_0074.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/IMG_0074.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/IMG_0074.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/IMG_0074.jpeg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10477,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/29\/my-french-fortnight-is-almost-over\/","url_meta":{"origin":12876,"position":3},"title":"My French fortnight is almost over","author":"Interloper11","date":"August 29, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"My French course this week has been really tough. I asked my teacher this morning if she thought I was in the right class for me, and she said she thought I was, and I\u2019ve found it harder this week because it\u2019s revision week for the students that will be\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/IMG_0218-1024x736.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/IMG_0218-1024x736.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/IMG_0218-1024x736.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3021,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/08\/07\/que\/","url_meta":{"origin":12876,"position":4},"title":"Que?","author":"Interloper11","date":"August 7, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Very keen to finish my private list on time last week, so I could get to my French lesson. My surgeon asked me, baffled, why I still bothered with learning French, since I\u2019ve been doing it for thirty years with no improvement? I was outraged. It\u2019s actually been nearer forty\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/92E927A6-9632-461E-9E31-77B95A01E0A8-279x300.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10448,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/19\/montpellier-monday-august-19\/","url_meta":{"origin":12876,"position":5},"title":"Montpellier Monday August 19","author":"Interloper11","date":"August 19, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Not sure how much I\u2019ll be posting in the next couple of weeks, as I\u2019ve realised that it might detract a bit from the whole \u201cFrench language immersion\u201d thing. I was worried that everything was going pear shaped last night. My host family are very nice, but there are three\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}