hot for teachers

About a year ago when I had decided to stay in la Réunion, I decided to do so properly. Properly means getting to social circles, to know people where you have to, bien sur, master the language. To master a language -unless you are a genius or a toddler- you need a teacher. On a dinner with my friend Brieuc I presented my problem: I admire the French language, its expressiveness and imagination. Your Mr. Le President is a fantastic speaker, I'd love to learn to speak like him!"

Brieuc looked at me knowingly, his face lighted up and he repeated: "Mr. Le President...wait a second, I think I have just the right guy for you. Have a look and see, no obligations". The rendez-vous was set to saturday morning. At 9:10 there was a knock on the door and a very tall and a very black man entered. He presented himself, and his credentials. He was a professor of the French language at the university. We talked a little over the coffee and obviously, he was screening my needs to plan his policy.

I have a problem understanding French dialects. This man had a very heavy African accent he seemed totally unaware of. So we did grammar, some expressions where in addition I had to do an enormous amount of guessing and excusing to understand what he said. Finally I started getting Brieuc's joke. This man was indeed speaking like Mr. Le President, only that the president was not Mr. Chirac as I'd expected but Mobutu Sese Seko.
A very respectable statesman, no doubt , but not the one I wanted to sound like.

After some time I saw Brieuc and he burst out laughing. "I knew it. But wasn't he tall!"
Undeniably.

So he gave me another phone number. This time it was a woman, an Alsacien, tall and sporty. I had no difficulty communicating with her. She gave me lots of feedback on my mistakes which I gladly took. She also cooked me a nice meal and we went to concert together. Unfortunately, having mostly educated riding horses before, she had very confused ideas about French grammar. I like grammars and I like making questions and tired of her nonsensical attempts to explanations I decided to quit.
She had a depressing aura of sadness about her.
She was quite tall, too.

The third one was again a professor at the University, a lady slightly over my age. She had a problem with her apartment which she wanted me to rent and she also wanted me to buy her furniture. I met her a couple of times but I made no progress. I have to admit, though, that she was a better cook than I am.

So here I am, two years in France and still talking like a spanish cow. But with my bovine accent I've managed quite well: I've rented a flat, bought a car and got it registered and insured, had water, electricity and phone connected. Banking is still a problem but so it to the french also but a few. You are faced with a deep-level incompetence combined with superiority and stupidity that resembles a Monty Python parody. The only way to cut through is to know a Somebody or be one. A recent expat from behind the Moon is not ranked on their lists.

So, being a Modern Man I amazoned a Transparent Language French Interactive CD. I get my pronunciation evaluated with a meter. It goes to green if I do OK, yellow if I flash and hardly moves most of the time. It is quite eerie, repeating the phrases aloud in an echoing room. If I ever had a neighbor doing that, I'd probably call in the Basket Squad.
The most depressing thing: A black labrador barking outside keeps getting better scores than I do.

I wonder how much he'd charge for a lesson... a Franfurter?