By the road side

A very long and mostly frustrating day today. Spent almost all of it working on one problem for work, eventually I gave up and had dinner. I then went for my French lesson, and took this blip on the way home. After my lesson we watched the Belgian detective series on TV and before I went to bed I had one last look at the problem at work and realised what the problem was, so was able to fix it around midnight.

I'm taking French lessons in the village as a head start to relocating to France sometime later this year with my better half, who now feels unwelcome in the UK post the Brexit vote. The recent disgraceful behaviour of the government with regards the Windrush Scandal hasn't improved her confidence, and I can't blame her. She came to the UK when she was already fluent, so didn't really need to do much to settle in here, I'll be going to France 2 decades older and with very little in the way of spoken French - hence the lessons.

I've now been taking French lessons for about a year and I've got to the point that I can do my homework and recognise lots of words with out a problem. I find speaking and listening a lot harder, it's hard to practice spoke French with my better half, but it's a lot easier with my teacher. For the last 3 months I've been using a free web site/phone app, and really hammering that every day, which has made a huge difference to my reading and writing but had zero impact on my spoken.

To become French I need to reside there for three years and reach CEFR/CECR grade B1, which is allegedly about a good GCSE/A-level grade on paper. However I found an academic paper that said though that is what is formally said, the UK lexicon of words required to get an A-level in French is only about three quarters what the French would consider when they teach their students English at the same grade. Suggesting that a good UK GCSE is closer to grade A2 and that to get a B1 I would need to pass A-level French with a good grade!

If I stick with the on-line course and complete it, it is apparently possible to get to a grade A2/B1, possibly even a B2, however to make any significant progress with spoken I need immersion for that. That is more time and money...