I started learning French when I was three years old, when my parents enrolled me in an immersion school. 

I attended that school from preschool to 4th grade, including online classes during Covid. 

In the first couple of weeks of preschool, I told my parents that French school was hard because I was “more better at English.” I also got very mad about my French teachers calling me Pénélope, telling my parents “they call me Pénélope but that’s not my name” (the pronunciation is quite different in French)!

In fourth grade, we learned about the French revolution instead of the American Revolution, and I remember my classmates being horrified by the guillotine. I was, by contrast, very intrigued by the mechanism. 

When we moved to North Carolina, I continued my  French studies in a few different ways:

I read the first couple of Harry Potter books in French, worked with in-person and online conversation tutors, read a weekly French newspaper Un Jour, Un Actu, and watched French TV.  

When I was little, I watched a French kids’ show called Le Petit Nicolas, and I just re-watched some of those episodes for my current class! Some other French shows and movies I watched were my favorite movies and tv shows, but translated into French.  About two years ago, I discovered that the Pixar movie Ratatouille does NOT have French subtitles or audio on Disney+! Ridiculous. 

I’ve also had the amazing opportunity to visit France quite a few times in my 14 years, and while there, I’ve been able to practice my French a great deal.

This year, as I started high school, it was time to jump back into a formal curriculum.  One of my conversation tutors from middle school recommended French III, and I started that class in August.

The class I’m currently in is online, live, and with other high school students from around the country.  We meet twice a week for an hour, and have 3-4 hours of homework to complete for each week.

So far, we’ve spent a lot of time on grammar, which has been pretty hard, but I’ve learned quite a bit in this class. We’re currently working on mastering the passé composé, a tricky but important verb tense.

We’ve read one full book and have begun another; Au Revoir L’Acadie was our first read. It was about the Acadians (French Canadians) being forced out of Canada by the British. The book we’ve just started is called Le Petit Nicolas. It’s about a young boy and his friends getting up to all sorts of shenanigans, much to the chagrin of their teacher and parents. 

Last week our teacher mentioned that her French IV class reads Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne, Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, and lots of lesser-known French urban legends, and I’m really looking forward to reading some French ghost stories!