To you whom follow my blog you already know about my struggle to learn French and how “difficile” I find this task, not only difficile, fu***** très difficile.

To list the reasons again… And maybe even add some new obstacles to the list….

I’m Swedish, and even if I as such think my English is on the level of the Queen of England it’s not. In my head I know it and without a doubt I repress this for Swedes embarrassing fact. So learning French via English and not Swedish obvious obstructions.

For 50 years we Swedes been told how difficult the Swedish language is to learn. Bulls***! Trying to understand French verbs with a Swedish verbs brain is on the level of asking a excavator specialist to operate a space ship just cause they used to heavy machinery. Swedish verbs are child level in the world of verbs.

My brain is without a doubt not built to easy learn languages. It took 8 years in Swedish school before I was allowed out from special support classes in the SWEDISH language. The same in English but less years. I do not have a language ear, its a fact. Every word, every rule in the grammar, in my native language, is learned and still not coming natural too me. Not the same as dyslexia cause I read and understand without any problem but some grammar rules still create problems. And all words spelled with double letters is still a nightmare.

Take the above and add the French language way of bending verbs and add that everything is masculine or feminine, and for sure not the same in French. The gender thing, “La ou Le” is not something I get stressed about cause its easy to do it wrong and the only way to learn is to speak and let people correct you. But the Je, Tu, Il, Elle, On, Nous, Vous, Ils and Elles…. Mon Dieu!

The Liaison in French is kind of put there by the French to fu** up the life of expats cause what in my ears sound like 1 word is when written 5 or 6 once. I can hear someone French saying something and ask them to repeat but still not understand until I see it written. And the other way around. I often see myself to write French like it is phonetically. And one thing is sure, its not written like that at all in French. But it is one of the reasons why French is beautiful to listen too.

All languages include words meaning different things depending on context but even if not true it feels like French includes more of them. As said, not true, but since some words caused by liaison sound the same it not easy to get the context. My favorite is the words for yellow, game and young, I hear no difference at all between them and try to get the context if you hear someone say and repeat Jeux Olympiques and in your mind you wonder why the Olympics is yellow in France???

Also add just me being stupid things like the fact that I seems never to learn the difference between mardi and jeudi (mix them up all the time and for that reason overthink it and end up with wrong choice for sure) the same with 11 and 15. But thats only me being stupid cause in real Swedish “Hur svårt kan det va?”

So why all this today? Cause I have French Class today and my teacher will go mad cause I still don’t get it but I feel something actually said “click” since my last lesson or shall I say since yesterdays lunch hour study doing my homework. Still far from what my teacher want me to be or far from knowing my homework but suddenly some pieces of the puzzle actually fitted and a small light (not sunlight on a bright sunny day but a small flashlight light maybe…) flashed in the end of the French tunnel of verbs. Can it be that I finally unlocked something? To be continued…

Björn